Quote:
Originally Posted by MaggieScratch
So my point (and I do have one) is that there's no use stressing over illegal downloads too much, because the sales you lose are infinitesimal compared to the bad will you will engender with actual readers if you treat them like criminals by locking up your ebooks with restrictive DRM. I'd rather see authors turning their energies to finding a better solution. I'm not sure what it is, but complaining about a tiny minority snatching the bread from your mouth is not it.
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I understand what you're saying here... I just often find myself wondering how realistic it is.
For one thing, how do you quantify "the bad he will engender"? And does that "bad" directly correlate with the amount of sales he will lose? Looking at services like iTunes that use DRM, one can say the "bad" engendered by those artists still seems to be getting them good sales. That's even more vague than the guesstimate of his "losses," and ultimately unhelpful in trying to compare one perceived "loss" against another... you might as well try to guess the weight of two clouds on sight alone.
Also, suggesting that all DRM makes people feel they are being treated like criminals is, I think, an over-reaction. DRM is designed for security... but security in itself doesn't really imply that everyone is a criminal. It just acts to protect the producer from the unlawful consumer, in as fair a way as possible (in theory) given that the unlawful consumer is hiding effectively amongst us. I don't feel I'm being treated as a criminal because I shop in a store with surveillance cameras... I just shop and leave, and let the criminals feel like criminals. And again I bring up iTunes' use of DRM as proof that the process doesn't automatically alienate and piss off everyone. If done right, DRM can be a publicly-accepted security tool.
Anyway, I didn't mean to simply promote DRM here...
My point is, Pogue has a right to be concerned, because in "normal" society, the law and the public work in concert to weed out unlawful activities, through mutual cooperation... and on the web, the law and the public refuse to work together for any purpose (other than catching child porn, maybe). And one can't work without the other. I think copyright can adequately address digital files and guarantee a producer's rights, but only if it has the acceptance and cooperation of the public at-large.
Until the public proves that it is willing to hold up its end in law enforcement, by accepting a system that permits some security for Pogue's product, there is no reason for him to expect that he won't be robbed blind by the public (based not just on supposition, but on the experiences he's already had). And with that expectation, if he decides it is not worth his while to put his documents online, because he can't see how he will profit from it, I wouldn't challenge him about his decision.