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Because my opinion is based on solid data.
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THey have looked at the same data and come to a different conclusion.
OK, let's sum up.
We know of one small genre publisher who has had success offering non DRMED work (Baen
There is a one publisher of niche nonfiction is is successful offering non DRMED work (O'Reilly)
There are a handful of authors who make a living offering non DRM work. ( Most of those apparently publish in the proprietary Kindle format and apparently make their sales for reading on a closed device, but let that pass
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This is not a significant record upon which to base a major gamble like dropping DRM.
THose arguing for the gamble argue the following:
1. DRM is really annoying to us experts.
2.Large scale casual sharing won't happen ( because nobody likes getting emailed free copies of bestsellers, I guess).
3.Even if it does does happen, it will generate more sales of obscure books. What about its effect on bestsellers?-Er, have I told you DRM is REALLY annoying?).
4. A tiny number of authors and publishers have made a living in niche markets offering non DRM work. Whats the evidence that going without DRM will work on a larger scale? Well, what's the evidence It WON"T work? Hey, lets give it a go, cause, you know, what could go wrong?
5. People could lose their books because some store could go out of business! Well, wouldn't it be easy to strip DRM in that emergency situation? Well yes, but that's not the point.
5. DRM is really, really, REALLY annoying.
Based on this, its obvious to me why publishers aren't leaping into the dark. I think the better approach would be to allay the concerns of the digerati by pressing for a better DRM regime-but that really won't satisfy the purists. Anyway, I think there really isn't much more to say about the answer to my question. We just don't know, and when people don't know, they opt for the status quo.
In this article
[URL="http://www.idealog.com/blog/what-the-powers-that-be-think-about-drm-and-an-explanation-of-the-cloud#"/URL]
at least one publisher( and the poster,) thinks the solution is to move everything to the cloud . Apparently, HTML 5.0 will allow the offline reading of ebooks stored in the cloud, so you can read ebooks without requiring a persistent wifi or cellular connection. Maybe that's solution.
Discuss.