Personal Campaign against DRM

[rleguillow]

I'm conducting my own campaign against ebook DRM. I figure that not buying the DRM'd ebooks isn't enough - the companies don't know how much money they are losing unless we tell them. So whenever I buy unlocked ebooks for my Sony ereader, which is pretty often, I send an email to Sony. Goes something like this:

"Hi. I just spent $xxx on ebooks over at nameofseller. That is $xxx that I did NOT spend at Sony. I buy from nameofseller because they sell books without DRM. It isn't because I want to cheat the publisher out of money or give copies of my books to someone else or anything like that - but if my Sony ereader dies I want to be able to continue reading the books I bought. With DRM, I can't even read them on another Sony ereader. So you don't get my book money.

If you were to take a page from Apple and begin selling your ebooks without DRM and you announce that with a lot of fanfare, you might see a big increase not only in sales of your ebooks but also of your ebook readers. Think about it."

I wonder - if all of us started sending them (or Amazon, or whoever) such emails, would they start listening?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by rleguillow

I'm conducting my own campaign against ebook DRM. I figure that not buying the DRM'd ebooks isn't enough - the companies don't know how much money they are losing unless we tell them. So whenever I buy unlocked ebooks for my Sony ereader, which is pretty often, I send an email to Sony. Goes something like this:

"Hi. I just spent $xxx on ebooks over at nameofseller. That is $xxx that I did NOT spend at Sony. I buy from nameofseller because they sell books without DRM. It isn't because I want to cheat the publisher out of money or give copies of my books to someone else or anything like that - but if my Sony ereader dies I want to be able to continue reading the books I bought. With DRM, I can't even read them on another Sony ereader. So you don't get my book money.

If you were to take a page from Apple and begin selling your ebooks without DRM and you announce that with a lot of fanfare, you might see a big increase not only in sales of your ebooks but also of your ebook readers. Think about it."

I wonder - if all of us started sending them (or Amazon, or whoever) such emails, would they start listening?

It's really publishers and to some extent authors you need to convince most, not Sony or Amazon or whoever. Many publishers won't allow their books to be sold without DRM at this point.

Also if you by DRM books from Sony and your device dies you can get another Sony device and read them.

[rleguillow]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

It's really publishers and to some extent authors you need to convince most, not Sony or Amazon or whoever. Many publishers won't allow their books to be sold without DRM at this point.

Also if you by DRM books from Sony and your device dies you can get another Sony device and read them.

I don't know if I agree with you on that, Brian. It happens that my first PRS-700 did die 4 days after I bought it. I'd loaded several books on it that were from Sony's free classics offer, and after I got it replaced, those books would not work on the new one. Which really stunned me, since those are presumably public domain books to begin with.

Nevertheless, I see your point about publishers and authors - but I'm working on the premise that Sony will start telling them, if we are telling Sony. But by all means, feel free to tell the publishers/authors too! I just figure simply not buying isn't enough. For all they know, I only buy one book a year - and the truth is WAY far from that, it probably comes out to something like 10-20 books a month, considering hardback, paperback, audio and ebooks. I want to be sure they have some idea just how much revenue they are losing, so I need to be in their face about it, not just sitting out and not shopping their stores.