One mo' time...
Some arguments against DRM that I think don't work:
1. "I bought this ebook, I own it, I should be able to do what I want with it". Er, no you didn't. I know making this observation is about as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool, but according to the law, when you "bought" an ebook, you did not receive an absolute transfer of -title in an object in exchange of money: rather, you bought a license to access a copy of the digital file.Now you can argue that the license should not include DRM. You can and should argue that the price for the license should be much lower than the sale price of a pbook. What you cannot do is argue into a court of law and insist that
DRM is an unlawful restriction of your ownership rights. Well you can ,but you will likely be disappointed.
2."The music industry still exists, so that proves that casual sharing and piracy had no effect on the music industry and maybe even helped it. Look at the success of ITunes when they shifted to non-DRM."
The music industry-, including musicians, believe that they have been severely hurt . The revenues from the music industry fell 50% since the 1990s when casual sharing/piracy of music files became widespread.Even the paper that argues that filesharing isn't the sole reason forthe fall revenue agrees that file sharing contributed to at least 20
per cent of the decline-a substantial percentage.
3." The use of DRM treats the buyer of ebooks like a criminal". I'm sorry but this is horse#### (to put it delicately).Storeowners have every right to take precautions to protect their goods. When the goods are valuable and easily stolen, they have a right to take even greater precautions. Maybe there is a jewelry store somewhere that displays its most expensive products in open shelves, is noncholant about patrons handling their merchandise, and has an attitude of total trust to anyone who enters their stores. Most jewelry stores don't , and we understand why they don't.
We don't even have to consider jewelry stores. Think of the B&N store in downtown DC. To enter the store, I walk past a metal detecter and a security guard . The items in the store have RFID tags on the them, which alarm if I try to take the items out of the store without paying for them. Do I feel offended by all this? Do I clutch my pearls and moan that I am being treated like a potential criminal and I deserve the trust of the storeowner? No, and I don't know anyone who does.
THe attitude of the digerati appears to be that publishers and boooksellers can take whatever precautions they like to protect their goods against theft, but no right to take measures to prevent the theft of ebooks, unless such measures (A) work perfectly (B) never inconvenience the digerati. Not suprisingly, the powers that be in the book industry are mostly unconvinced.
Now what could convince the PTB? Some ideas:
A. Some big time author puts his book out there without DRM and it becomes a best seller without large scale casualsharing/piracy.
B. Lots of regular folk become incensed about DRM and stop buyiing books as a result. Right now, they're buying DRMED ebooks hand over fist, and seem OK with DRM .
C. Some major retail channel (maybe Apple once again?) goes non DRM. (Apple could afford to do so, but what's the business case for them to do so? Dunno).
If you can think of some other ways, suggest them. The purist arguments (publishers ashould give up on DRM, because its somehow morally wrong or its against publishers' long term intersts in ways that that the publishers can't measure) aren't convincing.
On to 500!
