MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Heart Healer, heart Stealer

Worldwalker · 03-01-2011, 10:14 AM

It's Worldwalker. I am not a manitou!

To have your title fixed, report your post to the mods (use the little ! on the left, right next to karma) and, in the text field, tell them "I want to change the title to ... (whatever you want it to be). We have nice mods here, and they'll fix it asap.

DRM is a bad thing. It does nothing to stop would-be pirates from copying your book -- it can be easily stripped, and they don't even need your ebook anyway. Look at the last Harry Potter book, which was available as an illicit ebook before it was out in print. Inside job, admittedly -- a guy in the warehouse "borrowed" and scanned a copy -- but it was out there. Or Science and Sanity, which I just bought last night: they've finally come out with it in electronic format (PDF, sadly, but I'm going to see if I can mung that into something that doesn't give my 505 spasms) but it's been around for years from darknet sources. DRM doesn't stop the pirates, and it barely slows them down. It does, however, make life hell for the legitimate users. It limits where you can read your books, like buying a paper book you can only read in your living room, not in your bedroom. Its primary goal is really device lock-in: If you have a Kindle and decide you'd rather have a Nook, and your books are DRM-locked, you have to buy your whole library all over again. I can read my paper books forever. I have a number that are over 100 years old. DRM-locked ebooks are dependent on the continuing existence of the authentication servers to enable them and the authorized devices that read them. For an ebook to survive for 100 years and still be readable, at 17 years apiece it would be on the last of its allowable readers, and -- unlike its paper kin -- become instantly useless. I can go on about this (see other threads for various people's takes on the subject) but the bottom line is that DRM hurts the good guys and doesn't much bother the bad guys, which makes it a Bad Thing. My wallet's vote is a very small vote indeed, but I won't vote in favor of Bad Things.

Oh, and you're not an Internet idiot. We've had those. I am not nice to them.

03-01-2011, 10:14 AM	#4
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	It's Worldwalker. I am not a manitou! To have your title fixed, report your post to the mods (use the little ! on the left, right next to karma) and, in the text field, tell them "I want to change the title to ... (whatever you want it to be). We have nice mods here, and they'll fix it asap. DRM is a bad thing. It does nothing to stop would-be pirates from copying your book -- it can be easily stripped, and they don't even need your ebook anyway. Look at the last Harry Potter book, which was available as an illicit ebook before it was out in print. Inside job, admittedly -- a guy in the warehouse "borrowed" and scanned a copy -- but it was out there. Or Science and Sanity, which I just bought last night: they've finally come out with it in electronic format (PDF, sadly, but I'm going to see if I can mung that into something that doesn't give my 505 spasms) but it's been around for years from darknet sources. DRM doesn't stop the pirates, and it barely slows them down. It does, however, make life hell for the legitimate users. It limits where you can read your books, like buying a paper book you can only read in your living room, not in your bedroom. Its primary goal is really device lock-in: If you have a Kindle and decide you'd rather have a Nook, and your books are DRM-locked, you have to buy your whole library all over again. I can read my paper books forever. I have a number that are over 100 years old. DRM-locked ebooks are dependent on the continuing existence of the authentication servers to enable them and the authorized devices that read them. For an ebook to survive for 100 years and still be readable, at 17 years apiece it would be on the last of its allowable readers, and -- unlike its paper kin -- become instantly useless. I can go on about this (see other threads for various people's takes on the subject) but the bottom line is that DRM hurts the good guys and doesn't much bother the bad guys, which makes it a Bad Thing. My wallet's vote is a very small vote indeed, but I won't vote in favor of Bad Things. Oh, and you're not an Internet idiot. We've had those. I am not nice to them.