Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
The industry insiders blame digital music for the collapse in revenue. This is substantial evidence that offering DRM free music hasn't helped things.
Faced with such data, it is far from clear that going DRM free will lead to a healthy publishing industry. You would have to explain why a similiar collapse in revenue would not happen in the publishing industry, as people got in the habit of sharing bestsellers with all their Facebook friends. Thanks in advance for your response.
|
(bold added)
Note that the problem is digital music itself, not whether the music they sell digitally has or has not got DRM.
The music industry would be facing the same or, IMO, a worse crisis, if it had not gone DRM-free. Any problem of piracy isn't due to the digital tracks they sell, whether they have DRM or not. It's the digital tracks people download from torrents instead of buying.
The question for publishers isn't "Will we be OK if we go DRM-free?" but "Which will hep us get the best out of an inevitable transition to ebooks, DRMed or DRM-free ebooks?"
IMO, going DRM-free will be best for publishers, authors and readers.