"The book industry is gonna get Napstered..."

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

This has been my point about DRM all along: A method that does not inconvenience customers unduly, but still provides useful (though admittedly not perfect) security is possible. Dismissing DRM out of hand, because the present systems don't work well, is doing the idea a disservice.

Technology will always surprise us, but I find it hard to believe that DRM could ever work for ebooks, music or video.

For DRM to work it has to do two things:
1) Prevent unauthorised copying/use 100% successfully
2) The DRM-enabled file must be indistinguishable from a DRM-free file to the user (as far as using the file goes)

Those two things are mutually exclusive.

By definition DRM needs to be 'cracked' by the software that is accessing the file, so I don't forsee any way around that particular weak point in DRM's defences.

If a DRM scheme can be invented that allows me every usage scenario a DRM-free file allows while also protecting unauthorised copying, then I wouldn't have a problem with that DRM. I believe that this is impossible since if the file acted as a DRM free file I would be able to make copies (since I would have the right to use the files on any device I wanted to, and that would potentially include devices not licenced by the DRM creator, such as my current phone or a device I might build myself, etc.) and potentially leak those copies online.

[sony_fox]

All I really want to add to this argument is XKCD

I'm fairly new to the ebook scene and so far I haven't conidered it worth my time to start looking for a torrent feed of some book. And then working out how to use it. And if the books I want are readily available I won't. I'll just pay and read. The fact that the DRM has been broken and the book is available free is irrelevant, because for books that i want and are available it is too inconvenient for me to bother.

I will of course if publishers don't get there act together. I probably will resort to the darknet. And once there I'm unlikely to return to the publishers. I fthe book I want isn;t readily available or even worse is available in a format I can't read I'll invest the time. Until then I'm happy to pay.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

That rather depends on what you want to protect against. If you want to stop your content appearing on the internet for anyone to download, in a torrent or otherwise, you need it to be 100%.

If the goal is not "prevent it from reaching the torrent network," but "persuade most readers to buy it from a legit source," it doesn't need to be 100%. If authors & publishers are willing to deal with a certain amount of unpurchased reads--equivalent, perhaps, to the broke college student who hangs out in bookstores and reads while he's standing there, because the library doesn't get the most current books he's interested in--DRM doesn't have to be perfect.

Baen has no DRM; most of its the books are available on the torrent networks (good copies, even, because no cracking/reformatting is required)--yet they still sell, because it's more convenient to buy them from webscriptions.

The Lord of the Rings books sold well, and AFAIK are still selling, despite being available from the binaries/torrent networks for almost a decade.

I believe this might be at the root of your misunderstanding. When we talk about DRM schemes having been 'broken', we don't mean that the encryption can be removed by anyone. It can still only be removed by the person in possession of the key to the encryption - i.e. the person who bought the content in the first place.

DRM doesn't have to mean "encryption that prevents the file from being opened without a software key." DRM can mean "book is imprinted with the purchaser's name & cc #." (Which can certainly be cracked & removed. However, incentive to remove that is a lot less, if the purchaser can load the book on any device, and convert it easily.)

I think the key to the DRM wars is not going to be any new tech development, but getting publishers (and some authors) to acknowledge that not every reader is going to buy the book, and they need to focus on solutions to mass distribution that accept that a certain amount of file transferral is going to happen.

Spouses are going to share ebooks. College roommates are going to pool their resources. Book clubs are going to share books. Preventing *those* forms of sharing will inspire DRM cracking... and encourage mass distribution, because the readers are perceiving the publishers as interfering with the way books have always been read & shared.

Publishers who want to keep DRM schemes that work as "one purchase = 1 readable copy" need to find a way to transfer ownership of that copy, because book purchases have always included the possibility of "I'm done with this; here, you read it next."

[anappo]

> A DRM schema which manages the right of the authors to be paid
> without prevent "copying" of the files is possible.

Yep. Preventing copying, reproduction or recording - take these off the table and we are back in the realm of possible.

For completeness sake: the "official" wiki article on DRM does include watermarking as a DRM method. Entirely another can of worms there. Definitely less intrusive and something that can actually work in some circumstances. Sadly still no-go for e-books tho.

[anappo]

> DRM can mean "book is imprinted with the purchaser's name & cc #.

So here comes the watermarking can of worms

The idea here is that if a bootleg file is found on the darknet, some sort of penalty can be excercised against the person who's ID is found in the watermark.

The first weak spot here is that the only way removal of the watermark can be prevented - is based on crypto. All the arguments that apply to "copy protection variety of DRM" also apply here. A pirate who could remove the DRM prior to upload to darknet, could also remove the watermark. No principal difference.

The second weak spot is that the pirate could choose not to remove the watermark, but to -alter- it. A pirate who knows how to form a valid watermark ID for Steve Jordan, could plant that watermark on a file and -then- upload it to the darknet.

Or an angry spouse could take a watermarked file and upload. Or someone's laptop could be stolen. Or a mobile phone.

Basically, by legally buying a watermarked file (and failing to remove said watermark), the customer exposes himself to danger of being at receiving end of whatever penalty is supposed to happen to the pirates.

The actual uploading pirates of course would never be caught with this - removal of watermark is principally no different from removal of copy protection.

However, in addition to "normal pirates" you would have "griefer pirates" with sole purpose to cause harm to some watermark owner.

Conclusion:
* For prevention of piracy - still useless, if not worse.
* For being user friendly - yes, it lacks all the problems of "copy protection". At the cost of exposing customers to being framed as pirates.

The second weakness could be ignored, sort of, if the assumption is that the customer is responsible for always protecting the content with crypto himself. The first weakness - no go.

[Elfwreck]

Watermarking doesn't prevent piracy. It removes the need to look for a cracked copy that will work on one's new computer/device. It discourages casual sharing.

DRM doesn't need to be 100% effective in order to be useful. All it has to be is less hassle than going to the darknet... IF it's acknowledged that "copies of ebooks" is not actually the problem.

The problem is "people who would pay, but don't, because they get free copies." The number and availability of free copies to people who will not pay is irrelevant to the income of authors & publishers. Control of those files is a minor concern, on par with worrying about the number of yard sales that have had boxes of cover-stripped books that were supposed to be destroyed. Yes, they exist. No, they haven't ruined the publishing industry.

While removal of watermark is not technically different from any other DRM, and probably easier than most... there's also no incentive to do so, for the average reader.

[anappo]

> Watermarking doesn't prevent piracy.

But.. but, I was told that this was the objective and purpose of all DRM!

> It discourages casual sharing.

If that is the objective, then yes, it could work. For a customer who is careful with his data and hardware - watermarking is likely preferable to copy protection.

The griefing problem and false positives through theft/negligence would remain but at this point it is impossible to predict how bad it would become. Judging by how the publishing industry faithfully follows the footsteps of music moguls, I foresee The Register headlines ca 2012 - Evil Penguin Sues Tiny Tim for Trillion Yens!

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

... DRM doesn't need to be 100% effective in order to be useful. All it has to be is less hassle than going to the darknet....

I see where you're coming from, but think it's kind of wrong.

DRM, even if relatively unobtrusive, will at some point prevent a legitimate use of the product. When this happens, you have an honest, but upset customer, who may not purchase again, and possibly some tech-support costs. The result, in the long run, is more often than not, lost sales, lost goodwill, and increased piracy.

For books, as for music, fans are important. Fans generally like to support the artists they like. So, I repeat, if the price is right, and access is easy, they will buy. Good (or popular) authors will continue to make a decent, or better than decent living, and the vast majority will need to keep their day job. And some will only be read by hapless, but duty-bound, friends and family.... Just like it is now, and like it has been in the past.

There is a reason why the music industry is moving away from DRM. When the price is right, and access to product is easy, the majority of the market will pay for the product, even if it can be obtained elsewhere by illegal means for free. iTunes works, because the price is sort of right (and Jobs had to fight very hard to keep it right, against considerable opposition from the music industry, which preferred to bet on DRM.)

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by anappo

Utter disbelief. Your average text editor has order of magnitude more confusing UI features than your torrent client..

Don't really care if you believe or not.

Originally Posted by anappo

But doesn't matter - as mr. Jordan said - the quality (time and skill investment required to reformat bootleg copies) is more deterring than inability to use a torrent client.

Agreed. However, just because something else is more of a deterrent doesn't mean that this particular issue is not a deterrent at all

Originally Posted by anappo

For your sake let's hope then that we develop easy method for copying and distribution of supermodels. For digital content exactly that has happened - don't be so envious!

You forget the part where I said just because I thought something would be good for me personally that didn't mean it should automatically be allowed.

And anyway, even if we could copy supermodels, I'm sure my current wife would cut my genitals off if I was caught mucking around with one so, much like the suggestions about DRM needing to be less hassle than the darknet, it would not be worth my time.

Originally Posted by anappo

Well, you made it impossible to provide argumentation to you why the above is nonsense, by dismissing the basis for those arguments as "mere semantics".

I don't get what you mean here. If you are referring to the semantics of saying "I should have free and unlimited access to any and all "copies because digital media has zero" and suggesting that "copy" is somehow different to "content", then yes it is semantics and if that invalidates your argument then so be it.

If you want to argue that you should have free and unlimited access to any content that you have legally obtained then that is another matter.

Of course we both know that is not what is wanted though. What is wanted, at least by those arguing going to the darknet and obtaining anything you want free of charge is ok, is free and unlimited access to all digital content because digital media has zero value.

Originally Posted by anappo

Which is quite absurd because the cure you suggested for these attitudes was education - which is basically convincing people of something. How do you propose doing that without proper regard to semantics? Brute force? Propaganda? Hypnosis?

I dread to think of the schools you went to where brute force, propaganda and hypnosis were considered part of the education system.

What I meant by education was(as taken from The free Dictionary online) "The knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process."

Now, of course you need a proper regard for semantics for that. Proper semantics requires that you properly define and state what you are talking about.

Claiming that "I should have free and unlimited access to any digital media I have legally purchased" is the same as claiming that "I should have free and unlimited access to any and all digital media because digital media has zero value and therefore should be free" is not a proper regard for semantics. As I'm sure you would agree.

Originally Posted by anappo

Take this thread here - people were going bananas over whether infringement is thievery or harrassment or "badcrime". Then one clever semanticist amongst us came up with "bootlegging"! And behold - everyone is happy now, almost hugging and stuff.

Personally I find it very funny that those who kept arguing about theft not being the right term(which I agree with by the way, in legal parlance theft is a different thing to copyright infringement) seem happy to accept bootlegging as accurate when it is no more accurate than theft.

So why the acceptence of the term? It is just as inaccurate as theft so that would suggest the problem they have with the term theft isn't so much about it being inaccurate as it is about something else altogether. What could it be?

If I may be so bold, I believe the reason people are happy with the term bootlegging is because it conjures up images of people doing something that, whilst technically illegal, is not really wrong or doing any harm. Much like the "bootleggers" who supplied alcohol to the masses during prohibition. In fact it even has conotations of a much maligned "hero of the people" fighting back against the oppressive government to give the people what they want.

Doesn't that sound much better than being a theif? Small wonder the term has been accepted.

Originally Posted by anappo

Ok, so we agree it's a small problem. Let's also agree that it -could- get worse in the future. Can you estimate, how much worse must it get in the future for it to be worth obsessing about now?

I would think it would be logical to tackle a problem whilst it is still small rather than waiting for it to become a big problem before doing anything about it.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[ahi]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

I would think it would be logical to tackle a problem whilst it is still small rather than waiting for it to become a big problem before doing anything about it.

No.

I prefer not to have greedy and biased individuals solve non-existent problems at my expense.

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Personally I find it very funny that those who kept arguing about theft not being the right term(which I agree with by the way, in legal parlance theft is a different thing to copyright infringement) seem happy to accept bootlegging as accurate when it is no more accurate than theft.

So why the acceptence of the term? It is just as inaccurate as theft so that would suggest the problem they have with the term theft isn't so much about it being inaccurate as it is about something else altogether. What could it be?

"Bootlegging" doesn't have a specific LEGAL meaning; to accuse someone of bootlegging is not accusing them of a specific crime. (And because of that, is less likely to be slander or libel... certainly something to consider while the word "theft" is being thrown around so casually.) While it originally had to do with illegal alcohol production & distribution during prohibition, it was expanded to any kind of illegal production of goods. However, it never had a legal meaning--there are no laws against "bootlegging."

If I may be so bold, I believe the reason people are happy with the term bootlegging is because it conjures up images of people doing something that, whilst technically illegal, is not really wrong or doing any harm. Much like the "bootleggers" who supplied alcohol to the masses during prohibition.

It has a strong parallel there: the distribution of forbidden ebook copies is, like alcohol during prohibition, a violation of contracts and legal norms created to enforce an artificial scarcity.

In the case of ebooks, unlike alcohol, I agree with at least some of the reasons for the artificial scarcity. But it's the same basic premise: laws created to require that only some people are allowed to make money for an action that anyone could do.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Watermarking doesn't prevent piracy. It removes the need to look for a cracked copy that will work on one's new computer/device. It discourages casual sharing.

DRM doesn't need to be 100% effective in order to be useful. All it has to be is less hassle than going to the darknet... IF it's acknowledged that "copies of ebooks" is not actually the problem.

I do not get the argument here. Are you saying that the usefulness is that it prohibits casual sharing? But some sharing between friends is legal in a lot of countries.

I really do not understand why you think it is useful.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by tompe

I do not get the argument here. Are you saying that the usefulness is that it prohibits casual sharing? But some sharing between friends is legal in a lot of countries.

I really do not understand why you think it is useful.

It discourages casual sharing among non-friends. Friends won't care if their name and address (or whatever info is in the watermark) are included in a copy of the ebook.

Watermarking discourages casual sharing to strangers, without interfering with use of the book.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by ahi

No.

I prefer not to have greedy and biased individuals solve non-existent problems at my expense.

- Ahi

1: I would agree with that statement 100% if not for.....

2: We both agreed the problem wasn't "non-existent".

Futher, would you have any problem with said people solving these problems in such a way so as not to interfere with your unlimited and unencumbered use of your legally obtained digital media? Say, by providing consumers with a decent product at a fair price and by educating people towards accepting that digital media does have value and that creative endeavours are worth supporting in a monetary way and that they should seek to legally obtain their digital media if at all possible.(as an example only, if you could come up with another way of solving the problem without interfering with peoples use of their media all the better)

If so, then perhaps it would be better to say;

I would prefer not to have greedy and biased individuals solve problems in such a way that it interferes with my unlimited and unencumbered use of my legally obtained digital media.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

"Bootlegging" doesn't have a specific LEGAL meaning; to accuse someone of bootlegging is not accusing them of a specific crime. (And because of that, is less likely to be slander or libel... certainly something to consider while the word "theft" is being thrown around so casually.) While it originally had to do with illegal alcohol production & distribution during prohibition, it was expanded to any kind of illegal production of goods. However, it never had a legal meaning--there are no laws against "bootlegging."

Agreed.

The fact bootlegging doesn't have any legal meaning just goes to show that it is not any more accurate than the term theft though. We are, afterall, talking about "copyright infringement", which is illegal. Therefore to use a term that has no legal definition at all would certainly not be any more accurate than using a legal term that has a different meaning.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It has a strong parallel there: the distribution of forbidden ebook copies is, like alcohol during prohibition, a violation of contracts and legal norms created to enforce an artificial scarcity.

Agreed again.

Whatever the reasons for it, as I said above, we are talking about a legal matter so to use a term with no legal definition is, by the fact of having no legal definition, not going to be accurate.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

In the case of ebooks, unlike alcohol, I agree with at least some of the reasons for the artificial scarcity. But it's the same basic premise: laws created to require that only some people are allowed to make money for an action that anyone could do.

The laws do not require that only some people are allowed to make money for an action that anyone could do.

Anyone at all can write a book and publish it as an ebook and seek to make money from it. That is not against the law.

What the law requires is that no one distributes this work against the authors wishes.

Cheers,
PKFFW