Earlier this year, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton said, “I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet.” Ostensibly, he was referring to the proliferation of piracy and file sharing that continues to diminish certain streams of entertainment industry income. However, the subtext of this statement has much wider implications, which, unless critically examined, could well prove calamitous for the ongoing viability of the industry itself.
The inability to adapt to shifting customer trends is a death sentence in any industry, especially one centred on technology. That’s why here at SitePoint we’re genuinely happy make the following announcement:
Effective immediately, all PDF books purchased through our site will be free of password protection..
For those interested in the lead-up to this decision, let me give you some context. In the 18 months I have worked at SitePoint, barely a week has gone by where I have not received at least a couple of emails from customers questioning the logic behind our password protection policy. My response, based on the SitePoint philosophy, was always that we were taking an ethical (if largely symbolic) stance on the piracy issue. But how long could we maintain that line while simultaneously placing primacy on the customer experience, as all the while more and more requests to remove password protection poured in.
As a web development resource and learning centre, we know that we must embrace the state of flux — not as a lofty ideal, but as a normative imperative. You can’t claim to be all about the cutting edge when you’re stubbornly clinging to old, outmoded processes — especially when your own beloved customers are urging you to move on. And if we’re not keeping pace with the constantly evolving face of web design and development, then we’re neither a resource nor a learning centre — we’re a museum.
In the spirit of customer empowerment (which the entertainment industry seems so hesitant to embrace, despite apparent incentive to do so), we’re very excited by this latest announcement at sitepoint.com. We hope all of our PDF customers will enjoy the freedom of accessing their ebooks without the hassle of having to use a password.
We’d like to thank all the helpful customers who have contacted us about the password protection issue, and invite those who have previously bought PDF download material from us to re-download new, improved, password-free copies of our books https://www.sitepoint.com/books/pdf/claimpdf.php
You’ll need to enter your order number and email address to log in and re-download.
For further information, please email us at books@sitepoint.com
Andrew Gardner
