#pluralistic

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How my DRM-free principles left me owning the rights to a German audiobook

Support me this summer in the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop! This summer, I'm writing The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI, a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux that explains how to be an effective AI critic.

Long story short: thanks to a series of misunderstandings, I had to shell out more than ten thousand euros to prevent a German audiobook of my work from being released with DRM and now I need your help (assuming you speak German) to get the book into readers' ears!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-auf-deutsche-drm-freie

For more than a quarter-century, I've had an iron-clad policy of not releasing my work with "digital rights management," this being a kind of encryption that keeps my readers from reading the books they've bought in the apps of their choice.

There's two reasons for this: the first is, it's just grossly unfair. If you buy one of my print books, you can shelve it on any bookcase and read it sitting in any chair, under any company's lightbulb. It's stupid and offensive for a company like Amazon/Audible to declare that you can only read the ebooks and audiobooks you buy using the apps they approve.

But the second reason is more insidious and subtle. By retaining control over the apps that you must use to read or listen to your books, companies like Amazon are able to lock you into their platform. That means they can change the deal even after you've made your purchase (for example, Amazon has been caught deleting ebooks from people's Kindle apps and readers and Audible has experimented with inserting ads into your audiobooks after you buy them).

This lock-in isn't limited to readers, either. Once Amazon has all my readers locked in, the company acquires control over me, the writer. After all, if my readers can't switch from Amazon to another bookseller, then I can't switch from Amazon to another bookseller, because that would mean asking my readers to start over buying all their books again.

Amazon has a long history of squeezing its sellers – including writers and publishers – once it has them locked in. Today, 45-51% of every Amazon Marketplace purchase from an independent seller is skimmed off by Amazon in junk fees. The company makes $58 billion/year charging vendors for search placement (rather than putting the best match for shoppers' searches at the top of the result). And they stole at least $100m from Audible audiobook authors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate

In 1998, the US passed a law (Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) that makes tampering with DRM a felony with a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine (for a first offense). In the years since, the US Trade Representative bullied every US trading partner into adopting this law. The EU did so in 2001, with Article 6 of the Copyright Directive.

This means that it's literally a crime for me, the author of a book, who holds the copyright to the work, to authorize you, a reader who bought the ebook or audiobook on Amazon, to convert the digital file so that it works with apps that compete with Amazon's.

So that's why I don't allow my work to be sold with DRM.

Everyone I do business with knows this – my publishers, my agents, etc – and over the past quarter century and more than 30 books, all of these people have bent over backwards to accommodate this policy of mine, even when it meant changing the workflow they used for thousands of books just to make an exception for me. I'm incredibly grateful for this.

But eventually, someone was bound to slip up, and that's how I ended up owning the German audiobook for my novel Red Team Blues.

After Red Team Blues was published in English in 2022 and became a national bestseller, many foreign publishers snapped up the translation rights. Among them was Heyne, my German publisher, who commissioned a fantastic translation by Jürgen Langowski that has sold briskly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Heyne also commissioned an audiobook, beautifully read by a beloved German audiobook narrator, Uve Teschner.

But somewhere in there, everyone forgot that this audiobook could only be sold without DRM. And since Audible, Apple Books and Audiobooks.com refuse to carry DRM-free books, that meant that they would not be able to sell the books in the places where 90+% of readers look for them.

No one is to blame here. It's just an oversight. But it left us all in the awkward position of my publisher having spent more than EUR10,000 on an audiobook that they would never be able to recoup on. Both my publisher and my agent offered to eat these costs, but I felt bad about this, given the great lengths both had gone to over the years to help me live my principles through my books.

Besides: I have this platform of mine, the newsletters and lists of people who've bought audiobooks from me before and the people who've backed the Kickstarters for my previous English works, and I decided I would buy the audiobook rights from my German publisher and try to make the money back by selling directly to my German fans.

Today, I've launched a Kickstarter campaign to sell the DRM-free German audiobook. I'm also selling the DRM-free ebook, and the German paperback, which will be fulfilled by my pals at Berlin's excellent sf/f bookstore Otherland (due to the Trump tariff nonsense, these can only be shipped in the EU, UK, and Switzerland):

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-auf-deutsche-drm-freie

There's something for English-speaking readers, too: discounted editions of the English-language ebook and audiobook (read by Wil Wheaton), available in bundles with the German titles, or on their own. Europeans can also order the print edition of the book (again, fulfilled by Otherland in Berlin).

Now, I don't actually speak German. I grew up speaking Yiddish, much of which I've forgotten, which means that I can kind of grunt out ungrammatical German-adjacent phrases (the Otherland folks generously translated my Kickstarter page into German). That means that I have extremely limited ability to promote this Kickstarter to German-speaking audiences. I'm really relying on my readers here: if you are a German-speaker and/or have German-speaking friends, please let them know about this!

When you do, your pals are going to ask you what the book is about. Red Team Blues tells the story of the last case of Martin Hench, a 67 year old high-tech forensic accountant who's spent 40 years in Silicon Valley, busting the weirdest financial scams that three generations of tech bros cooked up. For this final job, Marty's been called out of retirement to resolve that scammiest of all tech-bro schemes, a cryptocurrency heist.

Marty's dear old pal Danny Lazer has built a new – and wildly successful – kind of blockchain, built on the security chips in mobile devices, called Trustlesscoin. Lazer is a cypherpunk legend, but that's not why Trustlesscoin went from zero to more than a billion in capitalization in a few short months: all that money poured in because some of the world's most ruthless criminals came to appreciate how Danny's cryptocurrency could facilitate money-laundering.

That would be bad enough, but Danny is exactly the kind of very smart guy who is more than capable of outsmarting himself. That's how he came to build a cryptographic back-door into Trustlesscoin, a secret key that allows the bearer to rewrite the supposedly immutable transactions in the network, which is to say, to steal all the money.

That's where Marty Hench comes in: Danny summons Marty to his home in Palo Alto because someone has stolen the physical token that this billion-dollar key lives on, and if someone doesn't get it back soon, it's only a matter of time until a billion dollars goes missing, and then the kind of people who resolve their monetary disputes with bone-saws and red-hot pokers will come looking for Danny.

That's where the story starts – but it turns out that recovering Danny's missing keys are the easy part. The hard part comes next, when Marty finds himself in the crosshairs of the violent international crime syndicates that boosted the keys in the first place.

People really like this book. It's the kind of book you stay up all night reading (or, as Molly White from Web3 is Going Just Great put it, "don't start reading it at bedtime if you have to be awake for something the next morning"). If you find yourself craving morning Marty Hench in the morning, I've published two more bestsellers recounting his earlier adventures: The Bezzle and Picks and Shovels.

Check it out for yourself. Here's the first chapter of the German audiobook, read by Uve Teschner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8e2or8ze_4

And here's the first chapter of the English audiobook, read by Wil Wheaton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb8yJeASgho

The campaign only runs for a brisk three weeks (I've got to get it all put away before I head out on tour with Enshittification in October), so act fast:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-auf-deutsche-drm-freie

And please, tell your German-speaking friends!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/21/martin-mensch/#horbuch

[cheesecake-the-chicken]

something that astounds me /pos is how every system i see on here has such aesthetic cool names for their systems. i’d love to hear any stories of how your systems got their collective names :3

(tags are for reach)

[the-bottle-system]

how it feels discussing exotrauma

[thebrokenheartvillage]

FOLLOW YOUR OWN FUCKING DNI GODDAMN!

How am I not following my own dni?? Plus, we don't have a dni. we have a bui, so... LOL IF YOU HAVE TO GO ANON TO SAY SOMETHING THEN YOUR FUCKING SCARED. no one asked you to interact and ask questions here so you probably broke yours to. KEKW

[the-system-of-crows]

✎﹏ H3ll0 h3ll0 w3lc0me t0 0ur bl0g!! (pt: Hello hello welcome to our blog!!)

✷ We are a plural DID system with currently 56 alters/headmates!

✷ this is our sideblog away from hosts so that we can post whatever we want without messing up xir blog

✷Our asks are open for anything! A friendly convo, a userbox request, a BAH request, asks, or anything else! We will delete any form of hate however, even if it’s not towards us. This includes hate to our friends, and vague posting still counts.

✷Please ask us if you wanna be moots! We won’t always auto follow back everyone so if you wanna be our friend just tell us! We’re very eager for any new friends!! We don’t bite (much) we prommie!!

【 Collectively us! 】

꒰ ･ ｡ﾟ ✦ ･ ｡ﾟ ꒱꒰ ･ ｡ﾟ ✦ ･ ｡ﾟ ꒱꒰ ･ ｡ﾟ ✦ ･ ｡ﾟ ꒱

╰→ ✦ We are bodily an adult. (18)

╰→ ✦ We’re a Fictive heavy, Traumagenic / Stressgenic, Polypluric, Plurillean, Blurian, Chronosian, Spingenic, and Observegenic system! And have one subsystem at the moment!

╰→ ✦ We all sign off with Emojis/our names!

╰→ ✦ We have Autism, DID, ADHD, BPD, Alexithymia, Anxiety, MaDD, and Depression.

╰→ ✦ We & Host all are nonhuman and some of us are therians, don’t refer to us as human please!

╰→ ✦ we all have bird-like instincts and most of us have WINGS!!! Each of our wings and birdly instincts are different

╰→ ✦ We all collectively Identify with NO GENDER!! And collectively us He/It/Xe/Ink. ╰→ ✦ We collectively identify as Poly Bi-Oriented Aego Fictorose Aro/Ace

╰→ ✦ Orientation / Gender / Pronouns / Identity vary on the alter as we are all different. Please be respectful of an alters personal identity!

╰→ ✦ Unlike host we don’t want a DNI! We will block who we want to! However we ask that syscourse, and people who seek to cause us problems to not follow us <:3

╰→ ✦ We have Dissociative Amnesia, we will often forget things as soon as it’s been told to us so please be patient.

╰→ ✦ We all struggle to feel/understand emotion and empathy, please do not be rude about this and we’re sorry if we do anything to offend you! We won’t understand if we upset people most of the time as our alexithymia makes it hard to tell..

╰→ ✦ Some of us have typing quirks! ╰→ ✦ Some of us have bad source memories, as well as some of us really don’t want their source even mentioned.

(we will be editing this as time goes on! Aka by adding individual intros, boundaries, tag/filter tag list, pronoun.cc links, etc!!)

(Divider credits :D)

@/Sister-Lucifer for the Ink sans div

@/Saradika-Graphics for the gold/yellow divs

[quirkquill]

"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth." - Muhammad Ali

[greenhillzonesys]

✦ GREENHILL ZONE 01

╰ he , him || it , its

╰ masculine terms

▄▀ about [body/host] . . .

18 ; istp ;

single ; 11.02.06

45 alters ; taumagenic did

▄▀ boundaries . . .

flirting : y/n/A

petnames : y/n/A

dms : y/n/A

gotta go fast [ sonic x theme ]

◁◁ ▐ ▌ ▷▷

[deanna-tattoos]

Trust wallet is doing giveaway to all their new members to get more members and traders like binance, chat me up and i will guide you activate your trust wallet bonus for free or chat me on telegram with my username, @sharonda10 don't miss this, it's free, and you will earn a lot.💸👌✅✅✅

[cedarnommer]

I'm (?) seriously exploring the possibility of being a plural right now. Any advice on figuring things out?

[weidaoduzun3]

What is My Pluralistic Stance on Human Sacrifice/Murder? (Caution Spicy)

First, I must start by saying: I don’t think human sacrifice was justifiable in any time period, race, culture, or geographical location. I can’t imagine that’s an acceptable way to appease the gods. But in the same breath, I can also be aware that that is my perception of the Divine, gods, and powers that be. Any interpretation I muster will be my subjective interpretation of the symbols and images cast before us by the gods and, ultimately, The One.

If someone today were to think human sacrifices were still acceptable, who am I to say they are wrong and then go out to enforce my perception of what people should be doing? I am not in law enforcement, this is why we have people that do that in society, to go after murders. This is why I’m also drawn to both (Neo) Platonism and Daoism. It allows me to have and establish my morals but also allows me to flesh out my pre-existing pluralistic beliefs. I'm being taught to not make distinctions between what “is” and what “isn’t” and to let Fate naturally distinguish itself.

Zhuangzi says this: "The Dao has no boundaries. Words have never had constancy. It is because of "it is" that boundaries exist (2.14.1-3). Guo Xiang expands on the last sentence: It is because the Dao has no boundaries that each of the myriad things can fully realize the limits to its own potential.

 Regarding punishment and the enforcement of things like murder, I take a very deterministic stance that if it is not in accord with Fate or Nature…whatever we are doing, Nature/Fate, or the Law of the Land will correct it, sometimes in the most brutal and disgusting ways. But we have grown as a society where murder and human sacrifice are unacceptable.

I don’t think pluralism gives the murders any “legitimacy.” I think pluralism allows for more of an understanding of all the bad stuff we do to each other and the world and to try to find the next best solution to correct our mistakes. That said, I’m also being taught/reminded that our knowledge does have limits, and that in turn means so does our understanding of things, be they bad or good.

So how can I "understand" the murder while also believing full-heartedly that their actions are completely unjust and should meet some sort of punishment? Zhuangzi says this: To know how Heaven acts and how man acts is to reach perfection. To know how Heaven acts is to live in step with Heaven. When it comes to knowing how man should act, he takes what his knowing knows and uses it to know what he does not know and so lives out the full span of his years without dying young in mid-course; such is his fullness of knowledge. (6.1.1-3)

I take the above quotes to mean spontaneously having morals but not too self-consciously pondering or enforcing them. To know how Heaven and Man act is to act in accordance with our innate principle, which is always in step with Heaven, if we cast aside the notion of "what is" and "what is not" (Zhuangzi 2.14.11).

And a friend in Discord raised a good point: how much understanding can we give until we give that bad or good thing a platform? The answer will vary for everyone, as I don't wish to dictate how much "understanding" or "knowledge" one should have. According to the words of Zhuangzi and Guo Xiang, we are allotted a certain amount of understanding or knowledge. This doesn't mean it's futile to study or try to gain understanding or knowledge, but it's to recognize your own limits. If Law enforcement and politics are in one's innate nature, then one should most definitely pursue that. For me, I know that's not in my nature. We are encouraged to have "fullness of knowledge," but this is not as good as completely discarding knowledge entirely and leaving it up to Heaven to naturally divide and distinguish. (Zhuangzi 6.2.1). The act of "not knowing" and "knowing" results in a sort of wholeness that our knowledge nourishes what we "don't know," according to Guo Xiang comments on 6.2.1.

We "don't know" why people thought human sacrifice was okay and justifiable. Today, we "don't know" why people murder and why some people have a greater understanding of why the murderer murders. So for each of us, we use what we know to furnish what we "don't know." This is why so many of us have different answers for this spicy topic: Murder and Human sacrifice.

I was explaining a little bit of what I’ve been reading on Daoism to my father, and he’s skeptical too of how “loose” and lacking the ethics are. But that’s a wrong takeaway from what I was saying and pluralism in general. Daoism calls us to act spontaneously when we know something in our innate principle (nature) to be wrong.  If we are perfectly aligned with Fate, in harmony with it, we can act in accord with what naturally is and isn’t good for the world. But first, we must cast aside the very notion that things are and that they are not. It’s very similar to Hermeticism in that respect, as in we must cast aside the physical world and all its illusions to truly find the images of God(The One).

[jefffrose24]

winning moment

[cheesecake-the-chicken]

tbh it’s so comforting to refer to the system as a whole as “us”. like yeah if you don’t believe me you can ask my buddy earl

[the-bottle-system]

tag ur headmates

[thebrokenheartvillage]

Endos on the internet when @brassy4113 pulls up to chat

[n0thingiscool]

What the absolute fuck?!

"It’s true that insurance companies pay trained doctors to assess (and deny) claims���— but which doctors do they employ?

Absolute fucking butchers.

Propublica found that insurance companies are the preferred second act for MDs who have lost their medical licenses and their malpractice insurance after repeatedly, egregiously maiming and killing their patients." -pluralustic's linkdump

[altergumballmachine]

PINNED

alter pack acc, send reqs for fictives or brainmade alters! you can be as specific or detailed as you like ~

use the form below!

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