Just an idea: floating DRM

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

Yeah.. if they could the publishers would gladly do away with the first-sale doctrine altogether.

They are already doing away with it.

[Salgueiros]

I would prefer a transferable DRM. I could have my ebook for as long as i wanted, but, like with a normal paper book, if i decide to give the book away or sell it, i would transfer the DRM to the person who received the ebook or bought it and that book would stop being available to me. I think that is the most similar to having a normal book...

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

I would prefer a transferable DRM.

I'm sure the publishers would be happy to allow that. For a small fee. And by small fee, I mean approximately the same as the original purchase price.

[tho]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The IEEE has a plan for setting this up, and they're working on the technical side of it. (It involves a registered "playkey" that can get handed off. Once you hand over the playkey, you can't get it back.)


However, as mentioned, the big publishers aren't interested. Most of them don't allow ebooks to be loaned once for two weeks; they're certainly not going to agree to ebooks being exchanged or *gasp* resold, with profit going to someone other than the publishing house, just like used paperbacks.

Transferring legal ownership of digital files is a technical problem that the DRM-pushing world has no interest in solving. The main purpose of DRM is not to prevent piracy; it's to prevent casual sharing and loans-to-friends. The publishers are under the impression that they'll sell more books if people can't hand them to a co-worker when they're done reading. They believe that if you liked the book & talk about it at work, your co-worker will go out & buy their own copy if they can't borrow yours.

I wonder about people buying drm content under the current conditions. I have enough money to buy whatever I like but I spent no cent so far for drm content and I am not willing to do so in the future as long I have not the freedom to do with my drm property what I want.