Arguments For And Against DRM

[taustin]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

It do have an effect. I feel annoyed that the publisher consider me as dishonest, when i'm not.
Not a nice thing to tell your customers.

Are you as offended by stores that lock their doors at night? Because if they didn't feel that you might be dishonest enough to steal from them, they wouldn't do that.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by taustin

Are you as offended by stores that lock their doors at night? Because if they didn't feel that you might be dishonest enough to steal from them, they wouldn't do that.

There is a big difference. I'n you case anyone could get in. In the second case, i've just paid for something.
Do they believe people buy e-book to distribute them on the internet ???

[Nabodita]

Originally Posted by taustin

Does it have to be 100% effective to be useful? No. It only has to generate more additional income that it costs. If we accept the claim that piracy costs billions a year (it doesn't), then DRM that reduces it by 10% (it doesn't) would produce hundreds of millions a year in additional income (it doesn't). If it costs less than that (it does), it's a net gain, and as far as the publishers are concerned, it is useful.

Good point. And its a better argument than "piracy costs billions a year" because you just can't quantify something something like that. Following your line of thinking, I actually can't think of a reason why a publisher shouldn't employ DRM.

Or maybe by braincells have died from sleep depreciation. I think I'll finish this post later. Will enjoy catching up with new replies (if any!) after I wake up...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

There is a big difference. I'n you case anyone could get in. In the second case, i've just paid for something.
Do they believe people buy e-book to distribute them on the internet ???

Probably not. A more likely scenario is that someone buys a book and gives a copy of it to a couple of their friends. No harm in that, is there? Those friends in turn pass it on to their friends, and sooner or later it gets into the hands of someone who thinks it'd be cool to upload it to a newsgroup or torrent.

The original purchaser is much less likely to engage in the initial act of casual piracy (heck - they may not even realise that it is piracy) if they know that all subsequent copies of the book can be traced back to them. That's the purpose of watermarking - to give a gentle nudge to people who are fundamentally honest, but might to tempted to just give a copy to a friend - and say "don't do it".

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by taustin

The aim of DRM isn't to stop all piracy, it's to reduce it. Reducing it even a small amount can involved big dollars. That reducing piracy isn't the same thing as increasing sales is a point missed by a lot of publishers, but their logic is internally consistent, even if it is beside the point.

Is there any hard evidence that DRM reduces piracy AT ALL? Certainly any large-scale piracy is not thwarted whatsoever. And any average reader who knows how to Google can learn how to remove DRM in a few minutes. The vast majority of readers probably are barely aware of DRM, since they're not trying to do anything that would require circumventing it.

[AnotherCat]

Just for the sake of good order; the infringing of copyright is not "theft" as some here are stating (at least in the USA, where it has been tested, and in my own country, and I suspect many other places too).

The use of the word 'theft" is an emotionally driven one, most often used by those who have a particular axe of their own to grind, and does nothing to describe the true circumstance which is that copyright infringement is an invasion of rights--nothing is stolen (nor has there been fraud as is also sometimes claimed).

Regarding the lawfulness of removing DRM from books it is almost certainly lawful in my own country (as is the removal of technological protection measures on other media such as movies) as long as it is for the purpose of using the work for non-infringing purposes (such as reading the book, or watching the movie oneself). I say "almost certainly" because it has not been tested for books as far as I know, but the legislation is so specific that circumvention of technological protection of movies is given in the legislation as an example of what is allowable.

So one must take care when making sweeping statements about what is legal or not, or who are "scumbags" or not as it very much depends as to where in the world they are and what the actual law is.

One is also allowed to make a personal copy of a work here (as in many places) unless one has entered into a specific contract with the supplier not to do so (say in the terms of sale - in which case I doubt whether anyone would care or think it worthwhile to take action on the copying of a low value item such as an ebook) so to make a DRM free copy in my own country for personal use across ones multiple devices almost certainly is not an infringement of copyright.

[BearMountainBooks]

So here's my take on it from an author. In general, I don't like it and don't want to use it. Piracy is not really the biggest threat for me, but I disagree that piracy helps sell books. All that aside, in my experience it is useful if DRM can be applied and here is why:

I sell books on my own blog. I have had instances where purchasers have written me and said, "I loved your book. I sent it on to my best friend x." From my blog, I do not apply DRM--I trust my readers. And my readers do not betray me on purpose. THEY DO NOT THINK ABOUT IT. They simply have the file, and know how to send it because they downloaded it and know where they stored it. They think they are doing their friend a huge favor by "giving" it to them--when really it is not their gift to give.

I have written to individual people when this happens and explained the problem and danger: You give it to two or three people and they give it away too. And I cannot sustain any kind of income.

Now, I could just do away with my blog, but here is the biggest problem. A few years ago, someone on one of the forums (not this one) discovered an Amazon Kindle book location on her PC. She also downloaded it to her Kindle. Somehow or other she found the file and asked others on the forum if they wanted to read it because she had figured out how to email it around. She loved the book and wanted to share. This led to others looking for files of books they wanted to share, asking for instructions to find them, how to know if DRM was on them and so on. Of course, it didn't work with all books, but was possible with a lot of indie books because we had chosen not to apply DRM. It is also possible said person got the book from Smashwords, but I'm not even sure if the person knew this--nonetheless it started the discussion.

Of course, eventually some stepped in and explained that they shouldn't be sharing the books and you can imagine the various threads, subthreads on DRM and so on. At the time I was not using DRM on Amazon, but for a few books after that I went ahead and loaded the books with DRM (and once loaded that cannot be undone) because it seemed there was a rash of people out to discover books without it just for the sole purpose of letting others know and so on.

I think the key for me is that I prefer to be able to put DRM on or take it off. These "discoveries" go in cycles where some newbie figures out how to share a book and thinks they are being generous by sharing it with their 25 best friends. Sometimes these people blog or share the information about books and it can cause a cycle of "oh, let me try that." In general, I can tell you that Many, Many, Many people do not stop to think about the legality, the ethics or the impact on the author. They don't think about it at all. It's just a file and they send it to friends. The thought process is not deep or malicious. To many readers it's like sending a recipe. I've seen countless threads where someone asks the question: How do I share this book with X? And they aren't trying to steal--they are doing what comes naturally with a paperback book without thinking of the entire process--or keeping track of how many times they have shared it. They don't delete it, they simply don't think anything of it at all.

I had a small instance of this happen with some downloads from Kobo (I believe that is where it started). I added DRM there for several months. Then I was able to remove DRM. This is generally what I like best--I can add it or remove it. I'm probably not having any effect at all, but it makes me feel better.

So if you are wrapping books for a publisher or author, my advice is have the ability to apply it if they ask for it later. Or take it off if they change their minds. Because there are going to be instances when some of them want it. There are also instances where they may not want it and want to experiment with it.

I have found it is useful to be able to go back and forth. Whether it is meaningful for sales doesn't matter--it's the ability/illusion/possibility. Sometimes a customer/author just needs to feel in control and I could see a customer thinking they know what they want with DRM and then changing their mind. There may be some vendors where sharing is a larger problem as well.

[susan_cassidy]

Originally Posted by Nabodita

You're absolutely right on all counts. The ratio of eBook to paper isn't low, its non existent. Well infinitessimally small anyway; I've only found around 100 - 200 ebooks being retailed online and most of those are out of copyright anyway.

Not sure what you are talking about here. There are hundreds of thousands of ebooks available from various retailers, including those from large publishers.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Probably not. A more likely scenario is that someone buys a book and gives a copy of it to a couple of their friends. No harm in that, is there? Those friends in turn pass it on to their friends, and sooner or later it gets into the hands of someone who thinks it'd be cool to upload it to a newsgroup or torrent.

WARNING: BIG RANT.

As anyone knows who's read my rants on this topic--honesty, piracy, DRM, no DRM, thieves (I don't give a flying rats' ass what they are called--"pirates" is a term infused with romance, adventure and danger, and it's inappropriate to apply it to people who take what is not rightfully theirs), et al, this is exactly what happened to a client of ours with a YA book. 27K (yes: 27K) copies later, of a book priced MERELY at $0.99, he tried to prosecute the "helpful" boyfriend of the teenage girl that wanted to "just give a few copies to my friends," which snowballed. Now, given that the client was on the verge of losing his home, the idea that he lost possibly UP TO (not saying that all 27K would have bought) $8900 USD pissed him off, royally. And you know what else? He also didn't give a flying rats' about the "free publicity" it gave him.

The issue is--and I've asserted this time and again--so-called "casual theft." It's not the dedicated thief; it's the casual buddy. It's the friend, as shown by BearMountainBooks, above, who gives it to someone else without even thinking about it--for who knows if the friend is honest? Maybe she is, maybe she's an experienced torrenter. We don't KNOW.

I'm ALL FOR DRM. Period. (I should say: I'm all for ident-watermarking; in the interim, until Amazon, B&N, et al, implement that, I'm for DRM until watermarking is in place, AND the USGov't gets off its dead ass about prosecution, too.) Saying that DRM is like accusing the buyer of being a thief is indeed equivalent to saying that the stores' doors being locked at night, or your own, is like accusing the store's customers and your neighbors of being thieves. The idea that every purchaser out there is going to be honest is utterly deluded. Or even that a big piece of the majority will be. The Digital Watermarking Alliance's whitepaper on this: http://www.digitalwatermarkingallian...Deterrence.pdf has some pretty damn depressing numbers.

Anyone here who's read my complaints about this on the General Discussions, here and there, have seen my story about my own company, and outright theft of digital books we'd prepared for self-publishing authors and publishers. I was forced, after several years, to go to a "pay upfront" (for everything) policy. I had no choice.

In one year, we had a theft rate of 6%. That doesn't sound like much until you realize it's not 6% of the profits; it's 6% of the gross income that's being stolen. And, sure, you can't compare the theft of a $150 fee to at $0.99 book, but given how cavalier the Net seems to be about digital content, in general, I have no faith whatsoever in the "kindness of strangers" to ensure that an author or any other purveyor of any type of digital content will get PAID. And to put it in real, actual, hopefully-relatable terms: if that rate of theft had continued, a real, live person here would have lost their job, because I would not have been able to continue to pay him/her. That's not frivolous numbers--that's someone who would have become unemployed, due to theft.

Moreover, above and beyond the general sense, we see post after post, and thread after thread, with complaints by readers that "the copyright period is too long," that "passive income for authors by such long copyrights is WRONG;" we see posts about how OOP books should be simply digitized and taken. After all, who's it hurting? There is, and you all know it, a very cavalier disregard for the idea that an eBook is the same thing as a print book; there's a hefty sentiment that pricing eBooks should be dramatically lower than their print counterparts. There are numerous readers who seem to think that all their entertainment should be FREE. When 4 out of 5 people have downloaded illicitly--by their own admission--why do any of you think you'll be paid even 50% of what you're (rightfully) owed?

(n.b.: I don't disagree that a resellable, tangible print book has a different value than an intangible, not-resellable LICENSE to read entertainment. Nonetheless, there's a real disregard for the value of the author's efforts, and the value of the entertainment provided, even though the entertainment provided by one form [print] versus the other [digital] is identical. I've seen people on these very forums argue that "nobody is hurt" when books are pirated, because "it's NOT THEFT." The verbiage that our Congress determined to use, ironically, to give ADDED protection from theft to creators of artistic material, has, in turn, degraded the sense that anything is being thieved when "copyright is violated." Because, after all, it's JUST "copyright violation," right????)

The original purchaser is much less likely to engage in the initial act of casual piracy (heck - they may not even realise that it is piracy) if they know that all subsequent copies of the book can be traced back to them. That's the purpose of watermarking - to give a gentle nudge to people who are fundamentally honest, but might to tempted to just give a copy to a friend - and say "don't do it".

Yes, and that's the issue, distilled. We'll never find a way to deter the big thieves, who are determined to damage someone else, to be "hackers" and bad-boys, to "free" content, (because of course, they've never had to pay a bill in their little lives), and to wreak havoc with other people's money, other people's livelihoods. The content isn't theirs to give away, but they have some brain-damaged idea that it is. They think they're "cool." Or, they're simply equally idiotic idealists who are the same sort of self-righteous idiots that police Wikipedia and take down perfectly useful reference articles because they're too "commercial." (e.g., the screen size/pixel dimensions article for various e-readers. Honestly, I wonder if some of them sit on their brains, rather than just merely peeing with them.)

So, do whatever you want. The vast majority of e-book buyers are NOT on MobileRead. They don't know how to remove DRM, and moreover, don't even care to; they don't own 10 different devices, and don't have smoke getting up their nose because they can't read the latest erotica on their Nook instead of their Kindle. To me, those are the folks that are both protected by, and from, when it comes to DRM. They can legally and without issue loan their books out, if they wish, to another person with a device. Hell, I wouldn't even care if they could loan it out 6-10 times.

What I would care about, were I a writer dependent on something ridiculous, like, GETTING MY ROYALTIES, would be not getting paid for, say, 5K copies. And, no, I don't think those downloaders should get the freebie, just because "they wouldn't pay for it, anyway." I have yet to see ONE SINGLE STORY about anyone, anywhere, actually making money--getting real, trackable, attributable sales--from stolen works. From the alleged "publicity" of the Darknet. I mean, who are those Darknetters publicizing a book to? OTHER Darknetters, not Jane Doe in her living room, who can't spell Darknet, much less find the damn thing.

I mean, hell, I can't afford a Rolls-Royce, so, what, I should just go take one, because "I'd never pay for it, anyway?" See, this is the problem--that people view digital products as "not-real." "Not-property." UN-property, so that the damage isn't "real." It doesn't matter. It's "not the same." It's the SAME. The same people who think it's okay to make off with digital products would NEVER walk into a bookshop and make off with a print copy, because there are consequences. But, for all intents and purposes, it's the SAME product, and the SAME author is getting supported by the SAME royalties. It's not one iota different. Same people get hurt in the exact-same way. LOTS o'same in there.

Until Watermarking comes--and it can't happen too soon, IMHO--DRM is the next-best thing. Those who are honest, and don't like DRM, will remove it--as all of you do. Those who are dishonest, and don't like DRM, will remove it, and distribute it-as hopefully none of you do. Those who are honest, and don't care, WON'T CARE. And they won't accidentally give away your groceries for December by giving it away to someone else, either, who in turn puts in on the bit-torrent sites.

I don't LIKE DRM. As a person, away from my business, I have a boatload of devices. Sure, I'd like to on rare occasion, x-fer a book from X to Y. (Rarely, to be honest; I have readers for my smartphones and tablets that don't hinder my reading.) The DRM-removal shtick, to me, is more about keeping a copy "somewhere" where a DRM schema can't subsequently hurt you, and that argument--and that one I respect, completely.

But until you've been hosed on digital products, I think it's very, very easy to dismiss the very real damages on digital books. You want to argue about how nobody really gets stolen from, or nobody really gets hurt, I'll be happy to let you talk to the person here who would have lost her job. She has no qualms about protecting digital content, because she's seen, up-close and personal, (as have I, to my shock) just HOW dishonest people really are.

Hitch

[QuantumIguana]

If watermarking became widespread, someone would write software that would make it trivial to remove. An e-book is essentially a glorified text file.

[BearMountainBooks]

I do think the "casual" sharer is more dangerous than most people comprehend. I even had a relative "share" a file with a friend. Obviously a discussion ensued. The relative never thought a thing of it--certainly didn't think of it harming my income. It's ignorance and lack of forethought that is the biggest danger. But generally people who will share something casually are not going to sit down and break DRM. They aren't that interested. The DRM serves as a reminder that "oh yeah, I'm not supposed to share." Make it too easy and you can have a disaster.

I also edit and help authors on the side as a business. I get asked about DRM. It's a very personal decision, but I still like the ability to turn it on and off. For the educated reader (and by this I mean educated about the dangers and potential danger of sharing) I don't worry. I do trust my readers. They don't hunt down my blog and purchase a book there because they intend to share it with their 25 best friends.

I really appreciate Kobo's ability to let me apply it or not depending on what is going on in the industry. It's very difficult if you must decide "all or nothing" and can't readily undo it or add it later, especially if you are working for a client. Because as soon as that client gets burned--and it is likely to happen more than once, they may want to add DRM.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If watermarking became widespread, someone would write software that would make it trivial to remove. An e-book is essentially a glorified text file.

Of course it would happen. But the average honest person isn't going to remove it to send to friends. Deterrents generally serve as reminders. That doesn't mean books won't get pirated, stolen and distributed. It stops the casual, unthinking sharing.

[AnotherCat]

Note, in the following I am not making a case one way or the other regarding the rights and wrongs of copyright infringement or promoting or not DRM.

Originally Posted by Hitch

...I mean, hell, I can't afford a Rolls-Royce, so, what, I should just go take one, because "I'd never pay for it, anyway?"...

The correct comparison with copyright infringement is that you made a copy of the Rolls-Royce, not stole ("converted" in some jurisdictions) one. If you stole one your argument would be with the owner of the vehicle and the law enforcement, if you made a copy of one any argument would be with Rolls-Royce. To take a Rolls-Royce is theft, to make a copy of one is not theft.

As I alluded to before, the application of the term "theft" for copyright infringement is an emotionally charged one and is used mostly by those with some personal axe to grind and by exaggeration seeking sympathy for their case. In my view, by making such erroneous comparisons, they weaken their case.

John

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Of course it would happen. But the average honest person isn't going to remove it to send to friends. Deterrents generally serve as reminders. That doesn't mean books won't get pirated, stolen and distributed. It stops the casual, unthinking sharing.

Earlier it was stated that watermarking is difficult to remove, and I was responding to that. But in order to stop unthinking sharing people have to be aware that of watermarking, and I'm not sure if all that many people will really be aware of it.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

But generally people who will share something casually are not going to sit down and break DRM. They aren't that interested. The DRM serves as a reminder that "oh yeah, I'm not supposed to share." Make it too easy and you can have a disaster.

The problem is that pirated books don't have DRM -- it has already been stripped by the pirates. It is only the person who buys the book legally who has to deal with the inconvenience of DRM or learn how to strip it themselves.

How much use is it to make the casual sharing of ebooks more difficult when even for DRM-free books it is already easier just to google and download a pirated copy than it is to work out how to copy it from one device to another.