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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Sharing with friends and reselling is exactly what DRM is supposed to prevent.
With a printed book, it's different. There is one physical copy. If you loan it to a friend, you don't have it. The same holds for resale. Once again, once sold, you no longer have it.
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But the result to the publisher is the same: the content is read by another person, and the publisher received no payment for that.
With pbooks, there's a *chance* that if the reader liked it, she'll go buy a copy of her own... but there's also a chance that the buyer will just give it to her, or that she'll buy that copy from eBay or a used book store or a yard sale. Especially given how fast books go out of print.
The used book market--and more, the used book friendly-exchange communities--are every bit as much "threat" to publishers as the torrent networks.
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Ultimately, DRM is doomed to failure - it is only slightly effective is at all against copying and sharing. And I don't see resale happening for ebooks. If DRM doesn't exist, there's nothing to prevent someone from simply giving a copy away, so why should anyone bother to buy a used copy?
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Publishers (or more likely, innovative indie authors) *need* to find a way to allow used ebook exchanges--or they'll continue the way they're happening now, growing to the level that they occur in the music industry.
Music's less affected by them, because music artists make money from performances, which can't be digitized. Book authors don't have that option. (At least not as a steady revenue stream.) We desperately need a legit way to share ebooks with friends, one that's not contingent on "if this sounds interesting to you, buy a new copy from <website> at full price."