Quote:
Originally Posted by Fayth
I disagree. I have plenty of friends and family who know nothing about torrents. Some of those know about limewire and programs like that, but are afraid to use them because they don't want viruses. I understand that this is the minority in this day and age, but there are still a decent amount of people out there who don't know how easily accessible pirated content is.
That being said, I still believe DRM is useless. Those people who don't know how to torrent likely aren't going out of their way to copy files and give them to friends.
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I think you're
half-right. I think the vast majority of people have no idea what torrents are or how to use them. But I think that, particularly in the book culture, there's a strong impulse to lend books to other readers. All the people I know would think nothing of lending a book to a friend. I've certainly done that more than a few times with paper books. I think that same impulse would lead readers to give books to other readers. Now, I don't see the non-technical book lover going on to a torrent site and sharing their book with 100,000 of their closest "friends", but because e-readers are a tech gadget, technically-adept people are going to be attracted to them.
I would also point this out: Music and books are fundamentally different steps in communication -- not just different
types of communication. Proposing that authors make their money from public readings, book signings, etc., will result in fewer people writing, and it will ultimately send us back to being an oral culture, rather than a written culture. That would be a massive step backward for society.