Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
The self evident fact that a copy without DRM is superior to a copy with DRM in terms of functionality and long term use. Therefore the existence of DRM encourages piracy by providing a motivation to remove the artificial restrictions imposed by it.
Now do note that I am not claiming that if there was no DRM there would be no piracy, but I am claiming that if there was no DRM there would be less piracy.
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When did the music industry give up on DRM? It might be interesting to see if there was a spike in profits that year or not. I don't think DRM drives piracy that much, myself. To most people it is invisible until they change their device. By that time they will have spent a fair amount of money on music they are no longer able to listen to. That would be more likely to send people back to CD shops than pirate sites.
With music, piracy had a good 10 year headstart on legal downloads. That would have been long enough to have an entire generation of consumers grow up knowing nothing but free downloads.
Ebooks have also had a 10 year headstart, but the demographic is a lot older so it's unlikely there will be anyone who has never bought a book in their life. So even if they only ever buy second hand books, they will still be used to paying for at least some of them. So the idea of paying for digital content won't be comletely alien.