[Worldwalker]

I'm not going to go dig through pages of posts to find the exact one to quote unless I need to, just respond to it. Specifically, to the publisher's spokesman who said that their DRM-locked ebooks did not appear on the darknet, only scans of their pbooks. Aside from questions of how he knows -- he's trying to prove a negative there -- that leads to two possibilities:

1. Pirates can't share DRM-locked ebooks.

2. Pirates won't share DRM-locked ebooks.

We can dispose of #1 in a matter of seconds. DRM removal is not only easy, it's trivially easy for a technically competent person -- and in this case, "technically competent" is "capable of finding and running a script". There are many people on MobileRead who buy DRM-locked ebooks and simply strip the DRM. There is no technical reason why a DRM'd ebook would not be copied. It's not even hard.

So we now have #2, the idea that pirates choose not to share DRM-locked ebooks. That is equally unlikely. If it was true, the DRM would be functioning as a "keep off the grass" sign, respected by each and every possible pirate. The people, remember, with that sense of entitlement, the people who want everything for free. Have you stopped laughing yet? Okay, good. Now where was I? Oh, yes. The idea that pirates would choose not to share DRM-locked ebooks, and dismissing that concept in gales of laughter.

So we've dismissed both possible ways in which DRM would be preventing sharing of that company's books. "Can't" clearly doesn't work*, and "don't" is just silly. Since either interpretation of what that fellow said is impossible, that leads to the only alternative: if your premise leads logically to impossible conclusions, your premise is broken.

In other words, he's not telling the truth. His company's ebooks do appear among shared files. Maybe he doesn't know this. Maybe he doesn't know how to find them. Maybe he has some ulterior motive for wanting to pretend DRM is preventing file sharing in the face of clear evidence that it isn't. But when he says that DRM prevents pirates -- that "10%" -- from copying and redistributing his company's ebooks, he's wrong.


*If it really becomes necessary to prove this to publishers' reps, I can rummage up some old story, set up an Amazon account, post the story with Amazon's DRM, and authorize MobileRead members to share it with the world and with the torrents. Does anyone here really believe that if I linked something I'd written and said "here, go ahead and strip the DRM and spread that file around", MR members would be incapable of doing so?