Quote:
Originally Posted by jbjb
Clearly, given that the (human) reader can read the book they can always transcribe it manually, so that sets an upper bound on how hard it can ever be. I'm just saying that schemes can be devised which get much closer to this upper bound.
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Given how quickly paper books have been turned into ebooks (the Harry Potter example being neither the first nor the last) at most the DRM-locking publishers will have a couple of days lead on the pirates. If people are going to pirate books, they're going to pirate books; they weren't customers to begin with. The people the publishers need to reach are the people who would like to buy the book, or would buy it if it was affordable and convenient, who those very same publishers are driving into the arms of the pirates. Every time someone says "I wanted to buy the ebook, but it cost more than the paperback", that's a lost sale. That's where the publishers need to find their sales, not in their fear of competing with hardcovers.