EU forcing DRM interoperability

[Alan]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Do you liked DRMed books? Are you happy to buy them?

No, I neither like them nor am I happy to buy them. But at the moment it is the only way for authors to protect their work if they decide to publish an ebook.

Alan

[astra]

Originally Posted by Alan

No, I neither like them nor am I happy to buy them. But at the moment it is the only way for authors to protect their work if they decide to publish an ebook.

Alan

Protect against what?

[Alan]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Protect against what?

To protect their work against illegitimate reproducing. To copy a paper book it needs a lot of time. The result will never be like the original. To copy an ebook it needs a second and the result will be exactly like the original.

Sure, you will find ebooks on the darknet even so authors use DRM. But it is clearly illegal and takes some effort to find them. A paper book has still better copy protection but at least the ebook with DRM makes it more difficult to make copies.

Alan

[msundman]

Originally Posted by Alan

YOU don't want DRM, so does others. But please do not even try to speak for all people.

Who in their right mind would want DRM? Why says: "Yes, please shackle me. Take away my rights."???
Anyway, if there are such people then they can put the DRM on their media themselves. No need to plague the 99+ % other people with that awfulness.

[NatCh]

I think "don't care about" is much more likely than "want" when it comes to DRM. Most people (and I mean general population, not MobileReaders ) either don't understand the restrictions and hazards of DRM or have decided that they're willing to accept them. I'd think that first group would be the larger one.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by msundman

Who in their right mind would want DRM? Why says: "Yes, please shackle me. Take away my rights."???

What rights are being taken away from you? You can lend and borrow DRM protected books and you can transfer them to a new reading device. Your rights are being restricted if the shop you bought your ebooks at, will not longer support them or has gone out of business. But even then the questions remains whether lifelong readability of an ebook was something you paid for at the first place. Certainly you will check the user agreement before buying anything.

Anyway, if there are such people then they can put the DRM on their media themselves. No need to plague the 99+ % other people with that awfulness.

Then please come up with a better idea of how authors and publishers can effectively protect their work. If you have a better idea, please tell us.

Alan

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Most people (and I mean general population, not MobileReaders ) either don't understand the restrictions and hazards of DRM or have decided that they're willing to accept them. I'd think that first group would be the larger one.

I think most people are simply willing to accept it. I don't take the average consumer to be an idiot (but even if he were, it's not the job of a government to protect him against himself). What those of us who are avid ebook afficionados find "hazardous," isn't necessarily so for the casual ebook reader. I think it's just ignorant to assume the average person doesn't know the restrictions of DRM. It's pretty simple to figure out. I imagine few people who own iPods buy music from iTunes with the expectation that it will work on any player. People definitely know what they're buying but they're don't care because they are content with the hardware they currently have. They're simply not all that concerned with the future in the same way that no one worried about re-purchasing their libraries when vinyl records and VHS tapes were big. The only reason people are making a racket about this issue now is that there are so many different formats at one time because the Internet has made it easier to compete in such areas.

Originally Posted by msundman

Who in their right mind would want DRM? Why says: "Yes, please shackle me. Take away my rights."???

The argument that DRM takes away people's rights is dumb. That isn't to say I don't understand where you're coming from. I understand wanting full usability of what you buy. That's why I typically don't purchase files with DRM. When I do, on occassion, purchase something from iTunes (only their exclusive content), I know what I'm buying. As a consumer, I did my end of the job by looking into what I was purchasing. I want to know why anyone would buy any product without knowing a thing about it. That's why sites like Amazon do so well--they allow consumers to review products and let other people know whether its worth buying or not. In order to play my iTunes content on my Creative Zen, I use something like Tunebite to record the files into mp3. Knowing about the product in advanced allows me to prepare. When I buy from iTunes I know full-well what I am supporting. But when they have something I want, when Apple has gone through the effort to get exclusive content that I find worthwhile, I believe it's worth my money to make the purchase. I didn't need the government to decide for me and I never will.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Alan

Then please come up with a better idea of how authors and publishers can effectively protect their work. If you have a better idea, please tell us.

Your premise is incorrect.

Authors have no protection today - why do they need protection tomorrow?.
DRM does not protect anything.
Authors do not own the stories they write - they have only a copyright, not an ownership, of their works.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Authors have no protection today - why do they need protection tomorrow?.
DRM does not protect anything.

Yes, they do have protection today. A paper book, the kind of book 99 % of all people worldwide read, cannot be copied without investing a lot of time and money (paper) and even then does not resemble the original very much. An ebook without DRM can be copied in seconds even by Grandma using her computer for the first time. And not even that - it can be copied indefinitely without loosing anything compared to the original. Paper books have a far better copy protection than even an ebook with DRM will ever have. So DRM only ads a few layers of protection.

Authors do not own the stories they write - they have only a copyright, not an ownership, of their works.

Exactly. So what was your point?

Alan

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Alan

Yes, they do have protection today. A paper book, the kind of book 99 % of all people worldwide read, cannot be copied without investing a lot of time and money (paper) and even then does not resemble the original very much.

The simple fact that it can be copied says that they do not have protection today.

And once 1 copy has been digitized, it can be made available over the whole planet in a matter of moments. Again, they have no protection today.

Originally Posted by Alan

Exactly. So what was your point?

Justify why they need to "protect" something that they do not own.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

The simple fact that it can be copied says that they do not have protection today.

I have given a lengthy description of how paper books are protected today.

And once 1 copy has been digitized, it can be made available over the whole planet in a matter of moments.

Sure, you can scan a paper book. But the resulting photo image does not resemble the book in any way. And you can use OCR, which often comes up with errors, needs proof reading and the result still has nothing to do with the original paper book.

Justify why they need to "protect" something that they do not own.

They own the right to decide, what you are allowed to do with your book, especially when it comes to making copies.

Alan

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Alan

I have given a lengthy description of how paper books are protected today.

Which you have been told several times how they are not protected.

Originally Posted by Alan

Sure, you can scan a paper book. But the resulting photo image does not resemble the book in any way. And you can use OCR, which often comes up with errors, needs proof reading and the result still has nothing to do with the original paper book.

You've obviously never bought a commercial eBook then. Many of the ones I get from places like Fictionwise have many OCR errors.

Also, many sites that offer free (legal) eBooks use a distributed approach to proofreading. And look how fast the Harry Potter eBooks were made available (and well proofread) after the paper book came out.

Originally Posted by Alan

They own the right to decide, what you are allowed to do with your book, especially when it comes to making copies.

Right. And how do you justify the additional rights that DRM creates for the author?

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Right. And how do you justify the additional rights that DRM creates for the author?

In that case, wouldn't DRM be simply be exercising "the right to decide what you are allowed to do with your book," not adding to it?

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

I don't take the average consumer to be an idiot (but even if he were, it's not the job of a government to protect him against himself). What those of us who are avid ebook afficionados find "hazardous," isn't necessarily so for the casual ebook reader. I think it's just ignorant to assume the average person doesn't know the restrictions of DRM. It's pretty simple to figure out. I imagine few people who own iPods buy music from iTunes with the expectation that it will work on any player. People definitely know what they're buying but they're don't care because they are content with the hardware they currently have.

I think I may not have expressed myself very well. I'm not assuming that the average consumer is an idiot.

The reason I think that the average person doesn't know about the less obvious ramifications of DRM is because I think that the average person simply doesn't ever bother to find out. Some due to lack of concern, some from simple laziness, the possible reasons are Legion. And probably some don't ever notice that it's there at all until/unless they bump into it. None of that is meant as any sort of condemnation or evaluation of intelligence, but rather as a simple observation of human nature.

When a person lives in a civilization as overloaded with information as ours is, he has to filter out a lot, if not most of it simply to stay sane and functional. If things don't rise above a certain level of importance, they generally get overlooked by most folks. It's a simple survival mechanism.

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

They're simply not all that concerned with the future in the same way that no one worried about re-purchasing their libraries when vinyl records and VHS tapes were big.

This may well be true (though I do seem to remember hearing quite a bit of griping about replacing libraries of cassette tapes with CDs and VHS with DVDs), but in those cases, at those times format shifting wasn't nearly so technologically feasible as it now is to convert from one purely digital format to another.

What I mean by that is that there is no inherent bar to converting from MP3 to ACC (or whatever, pick two formats), and a proverbial butt-load of freeware applications to help you do it are out there just waiting to be Googled up.

But DRM imposes an artificial, deliberate bar on that process without any physical or technical need for it, other than that those who sell the content believe they need DRM for various reasons (whether they really do need it or not isn't really important to this point, nor is the true validity of those reasons, the reality of their beliefs on the need and their acceptance of those reasons as valid are the operative factors).

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

As a consumer, I did my end of the job by looking into what I was purchasing. I want to know why anyone would buy any product without knowing a thing about it.

I'm very glad that you were wise enough to research your purchases ahead of time, but I'm afraid that you are, in fact, not typical in that regard.

For example, I couldn't begin to count the number folks who have shown up here, after purchasing a Sony Reader, railing at the injustice of the universe because they didn't know that their huge library of A4/Letter Sized (~12" diagonal) PDF files (which they specifically bought that Reader to read) wouldn't be readable on on the Reader's 6" diagonal screen. Those posts are still there in the Sony sub-forum, you can see them for yourself -- along with a bunch of us patiently, repeatedly explaining the matter and expressing our regrets that they didn't learn of it beforehand.

Once, I would have agreed with you in thinking that no one would purchase a ~$350 device for a specific purpose without doing some checking around to find out if that device would actually do what they wanted to do.

Around here, we knew about this detail for literally months prior the launch of the Sony Reader, and a plain old Google search for "Sony Reader" at the time returned mostly MobileRead results, so they would very likely have found us (and the relevant information) if they had troubled themselves to look.

That's with something that ran $350, I'm afraid I'm skeptical that a majority of folks would be more diligent about a 99¢ purchase at iTunes.

You ask why someone would do such a thing, it's the same reasons I gave above: lack of concern, laziness, information overload, etc.

I think it's a dumb move, but a person doesn't have to be dumb to occasionally do dumb a thing.


As to whether the government should decide the matter, being a good Texan, I'm generally of the mindset of "the government that governs least, governs best" -- also known as the "Leave me the &%$# alone" Party.

However, even I admit that there are some (few) things that need to be standardized throughout a large political entity -- telecommunications, roadways, power supplies, etc. -- for which a government is occasionally more help than hindrance.

Is DRM interoperability one of them? I can't say that I necessarily believe that it is, but I'm willing to consider the possibility that it may be. I'd prefer to see what happens with the several things that are on the horizon (such as .epub) which are likely to have an impact on the matter before going all legislational on the matter.

Also, keep in mind that this is the EU who is proposing this particular regulation: those folks just don't seem to be happy unless they're regulating something new today. But that's the perspective of a Texan, so don't take it too harshly.

Originally Posted by Alan

What rights are being taken away from you? You can lend and borrow DRM protected books and you can transfer them to a new reading device.

I've been around here quite a while, and seen DRM discussed a great deal (ad nauseum, at times) but this is the first time I've seen this claim made.

I'd agree that if I were to remove the DRM I could certainly do what you're describing, but with DRM intact ... lending is fairly complicated (usually requires lending the whole device or registering the lendee's device on my account, or some such), and transferring to other devices has similar complications, plus those related to format/device incompatibility that can't be overcome without DRM removal.

If you've found some ways through those obstacles, however, I'd love to hear what they are.

[msundman]

Originally Posted by Alan

What rights are being taken away from you?

My rights to use what I've bought as I wish, including, but not limited to, the following:

• move my books to another device (any device, not only devices sanctioned by some publishers (eh, as if all publishers could ever agree on which devices are OK, unless some external authority forces them to), e.g. a device that will be built after the publishers have gone out of business)
• convert my books into another format (e.g., to some format that supports better bookmarks/annotations/whatever, or if my sight gets worse I may want to convert them to something that supports a bigger font, or if I lose my sight completely I want to convert them into audiobooks)
• backup my books and restore them after my device breaks down and/or the publishers are out of business
• still use my books even if the publisher suddenly decides it doesn't want me to read them

Originally Posted by Alan

Certainly you will check the user agreement before buying anything.

You want me to plow through a fracking EULA, most likely written in incomprehensible legalese, for a fracking book?!? People almost never read EULAs, and shouldn't be required to. There should be some easy-to-understand government-dictated standard so that people know what they buy without having to contact a lawyer every time they buy a book.

Originally Posted by Alan

Then please come up with a better idea of how authors and publishers can effectively protect their work.

No, I don't think they should "protect" their work.

Originally Posted by Alan

If you have a better idea, please tell us.

The model I'd prefer is similar to shareware, except that you promise to pay at least some small amount, X, but you also agree to pay Y1, Y2, Y3 or even Y4 if you like the work. One of the main points is that you can't pay immediately, only after some time, T. At that time you will get the bill to pay, and it should be made such that it's very easy to pay Y1, Y2, Y3 or Y4, but if you don't mind putting in some small effort you can make another bill for an amount as low as X and then pay that.

There are several psychological factors here. One is that it's somehow easier for many people to buy stuff when you don't have to pay immediately. Another one is that many of the cheapskates will pay Y1, especially if they're also lazy, because next to Y2, Y3 and Y4 the Y1 seems quite small and it's the smallest of the most convenient amounts. Then X should be small enough so that many of the ones who would otherwise "pirate" the stuff will feel no, or very little, incentive to try to find unofficial, illegal copies.

This system also suits people who want to try stuff first and then decide whether to support the authors or not. Now these people download the stuff from p2p networks, but even though they have the best intentions they often forget to actually buy the stuff later on even if they liked it.

And then there are those who really feel that they want to reward good works. (Personally I want to reward good works, and if possible I make donations, but I don't want to pay even the normal fee of something I think is bad (and if I think it's degrading I don't even want to sell it to someone else), but if X is sufficiently low I would rather pay that than getting it illegally.)

I believe the values of these different variables could be tweaked for very good results and reflecting even small variations in the culture, which shifts faster and faster every year.