Thanks to everyone who came to Intersection: Publishing yesterday. Our fascinating round-table discussion was cut off far too soon: I think we could have gone on for days and only barely covered the issues. It’s clear that an open conversation that treated publishers, authors, readers, technologists and lawyers as equals was long overdue. (Missed it? Watch this space.)

I thought I’d write down some of my takeaways while they’re fresh in my mind:

DRM is misunderstood from both sides.

From some publishers, support was shown for Apple’s locked-down App Store business model, with the assumption that it would prevent piracy. Of course, this isn’t the case. I think Sven Edge put it best to me during the post-debate drinks: “any technological system only becomes less secure over time.” In other words, you cannot assume that any technology is unbreakable; someone will do it. Trusting your business model to DRM is therefore a very bad strategy.

Publisher advocacy of locked-down Digital Rights Management technologies apparently occurs because authors need to be reassured that their work won’t be stolen when it becomes available online. A few authors present disputed this point of view. Regardless of this, more work needs to be done to educate non-technical people around the issues, in a calm way that takes in all points of view and doesn’t attempt to reform the fundamentals of copyright law or rights agreements in the same breath.

The market for electronic publishing is still too fragmented.

Many publishers present were worried about the variety of devices and platforms present on the market, as well as their quality. They simply can’t afford to target all of them, and many are either choosing to wait or work with third-party companies to develop solutions for them. All agreed that a single, open platform that allowed publishers to create content using something approaching their existing skill-sets is desperately required.

There also needs to be an open equivalent for apps, to give publishers a choice, and to allow them to deliver to multiple platforms at once. During the debate, I suggested encapsulating HTML5 (which has all manner of app-friendly capabilities) in the ePub format (which produces stand-alone bundles of content that can be sold and transferred between devices). I intend to write more about this another time.

The publishing industry is following the patterns laid out by the music industry.

Publishers are signing authors rather than books, and are beginning to gather extra revenue through talks and activities surrounding books, just as – for example – musical artists like Madonna are beginning to sign to concert promoters rather than traditional record labels. Together with the DRM arguments above, I think there’s a real danger that the publishing industry could go down exactly the same road. (On the topic of DRM, note that iTunes is now DRM-free – don’t count that any restrictions on iBooks or App Store items will last forever.)

The knowledge gap goes both ways.

The assumptions that geeks take as being gospel are not gospel. The assumptions that publishers take as being gospel are not gospel. Each side needs to listen to the other and contribute to a productive conversation, without demeaning anyone’s expertise or experience. There needs to be both give and take.

To put it another way: the models that govern software do not govern publishing and the models that govern publishing do not govern software. These remain two different businesses, and must be treated as such.

There was some very heated debate yesterday, but also a great deal of very constructive argument. I’m really looking forward to continuing the conversation.

Just a quick note that Intersection: Publishing is today:

This afternoon, professionals from the fields off publishing, technology and IP law will gather together to discuss the future of publishing. We’re excited about meeting the attendees, having some interesting conversations and helping to forge productive ongoing collaborations. This is an important time for the industry, and our culture.

We’d love for you to join us. It’s free.

No need to book; just turn up at 1pm. Venue directions are on the website.

Intersection: Publishing 2010 is a BarCamp which aims to discuss the future of publishing. There are a bunch of problems with the current models (for example, Amazon’s attempts at digital lock-in), and we want to get people from different backgrounds – publishers, authors, geeks, lawyers, marketers, academics – in a room to try and solve some of them organically and create some new ideas. It will be an informal, creative day.

You should come too.

It’s on April 17th in London, and is completely free. All we’d like you to do is either add your name to the wiki or let us know you’d like to come. (Even if you don’t do either of those things, you can still turn up on the day, but it helps us estimate overall attendance.)

I’m a technologist / lawyer / author / publisher / marketer / academic, but I don’t know anything about electronic publishing!

Doesn’t matter. In fact, so much the better. This is an emerging space, which needs new blood and fresh ideas. Your experience will help – and you’ll meet plenty of new contacts, with the opportunity for future business.

This is a great idea. How can I help?

Intersection: Publishing is already sponsored by the Stirling Centre for Publishing and Communication, but there are still some vacancies for other sponsors. Check out our sponsor page, or get in touch directly at info@intersectionpublishing.com or +44 7773 385 490. We’re also interested in volunteers on the day.

I can’t attend, but these issues interest me.

We’ve started an ongoing blog that will cover related stories and discussion. We’ll be posting there regularly, and are on the lookout for both guests and further contributors. If you think this could be you, get in touch.

This is inspired by the iBooks launch, but it’s applicable to any ereader that uses the ePub format. (Or, indeed, it could use any ebook format – MobiPocket, Kindle, DAISY, etc.)

A podcast is just an RSS feed with a file enclosure – part of the RSS standard – that points to an MP3 file. Similarly, video podcasts point to video files. An obvious evolution, then, is the pubcast: periodical publications delivered through RSS feeds.

Free publication subscriptions

In the free case, a user would simply subscribe to a public pubcast feed with a compatible reader. The reader software would check regularly for updates, and new publications would be downloaded and fed into the user’s ereader software on release. Easy.

Paid publication subscriptions

In the case of paid publications, there are two options:

An authenticated pubcast feed. When you subscribe to a publication, you get an address to an RSS feed that requires a username and password to download content. (Gmail is an example of an application which already does this.) This authentication ensures that only paid subscribers can access the file, but you could go a step further and watermark the publications themselves.

Activation within the ebook file. The RSS feed itself is public, but each downloaded publication could require an access code to read. This would open the door for public feeds of paid journals, where users could buy each issue individually to read.

Making subscriptions an open standard

Either way, this approach would allow any ereader using any compatible software solution to subscribe to periodicals. It could be used for newspapers, magazines, journals, zines, or new kinds of periodical; they could be hosted anywhere and, in the case of paid content, use any payment provider. I love reading, but dislike monopolies, so this is something I’d like to see.

If you pay any attention at all to the tech press, you’re probably sick to death of the iPad, Apple’s announced tablet device. I’m posting about it anyway, because there are two things that haven’t been discussed enough, which I think deserve a mention.

One: this isn’t a device for the tech community. I think Rafe Colburn hits it on the head:

It’s just an iPod Touch with a big screen, but that’s all that many people need from a computer. You can use it to surf the Web, read email, listen to music, watch video, or compose documents. That’s the personal computer use case for many people. And I think a lot of people are going to buy them.

He goes on to discuss the locked-down nature of the device, which I agree is a setback that may have a profound impact on the consumer computing industry. (On the other hand, as Yehuda Katz argues, this is a major win for standards-based web applications.)

Two: for me, the big news wasn’t the iPad at all. It was iBooks: Apple’s new iTunes-like store for ebooks. You may remember that iTunes pretty much revolutionized how we buy music, and this is the same; the books are stored in the open ePub standard, so they’ll play with other ereaders, and the experience is seamless. (You almost certainly won’t need an iPad to buy from iBooks.)

Mashable notes that some big players are on board:

iBooks is backed by big-time launch partners Penguin, Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Hachette, all publishing powerhouses in their own rights.

You can think about the iPad as a kind of $499 catwalk model, that other devices will slowly emulate over the next couple of years. But iBooks? That’s a store that anyone will be able to use right away, which just might change the publishing industry forever.

Photo by kennymatic, released under a Creative Commons license.