Quote:
Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern
I partly agree and partly don't agree. Yes, DRM can be removed from SOME books but not everyone is going to be able to do it nor everyone is going to have the time and energy to do it. So, the effects of DRM that limits its distribution is not null. In other words, it's not a moot point.
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You don't need
a lot of people stripping DRM. You just need
one that does it and uploads the book. That's what makes the whole DRM thing so very silly. One person is all it takes to make the protection on a given title completely useless. There are very few books that aren't available in any strippable format but that's not necessarily an obstacle. You'll find plenty of books on the pirate sites that aren't available legally in ebook form at all. People scan and OCR books all the time. So those folks who think they'll prevent their works being pirated by not releasing an ebook simply lose sales from the people who would like to pay them for their work. It may stop a little casual copying between friends on the part of people who aren't comfortable stripping books or downloading from the pirate interwebs, but it's debatable how much that kind of copying really diminishes sales. Not being able to lend a book to a friend is one of the things that ticks off customers about DRM already.
Since ebooks are still not that popular, the sites to get books aren't nearly as well known as the sites to download music. When ebooks are more popular, more people will know about these sites. As it is, a quick Google search finds them. There are a lot of folks out there that aren't even slightly tech savvy, would never run a cracking script, and download most if not all their music and video from sites like this. I know very few people under the age of 40 who don't, and quite a few over the age of 40 who do, too. I'm considered a stick in the mud because I insist on paying for what I get. When ebooks get more popular, doing this with books will be more commonplace and people will be more comfortable with it. The only way to prevent it is to make buying books more attractive. The more customers feel that the content providers are trying to take advantage of them, the more will say "screw them, I'll just download it."