Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
Its a fair question-if the ONLY stakeholders were customers. The other stakeholders are the authors and publishers who don't feel secure offering works for sale without DRM.
Since those stakeholders WON'T offer work for sale without DRM, the customers who want to read their work-the vast majority of customers-will put up with DRM rather than fore-go reading their work.
I might add that the exact same argument can be made for copyright. Copyright does nothing for the customer, except limit their right commercially exploit the book they bought. Indirectly, though it benefits the customers by prompting authors and publishers to produce work for sale that otherwise would not have been produced.
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In other words - there aren't any - to the customer.
Who pays for the entire structure!
Your other stakeholders have
nothing without the willing customer buying their product. Shall we look at the bankruptcy of GM, the American Television Hardware industry, ect...
Unfortunately, unlike the past, the customers
have a choice. It may be an illegal choice, but a choice, nonetheless. Your job is to convince them
not to do so. You cannot accomplish that by denying and degrading their concerns. Long term maintainability of a purchase is a common concern of any capital purchase. And believe it or not, all digital purchases are capital purchases, even if they cost a cent. Unimportant? It's what made the Japanese car industry the dominate player it is today.
Maybe you might want to read my monograph on the subject,
And the World Changed here at MobileRead. Don't worry, it's explicitly in the Public Domain.
Stop piracy? We haven't stopped real piracy, illegal drugs, illegal immigration, political corruption, prostitution, and a host of other ills. What makes you think that I.P. piracy is going to be stopped? Everyone with an all-in-one printer and a computer is a potential pirate. Going to go back to the analog age?
The trick is to co-opt the opposition. And you can't do that without offering positive-to-the-customer options.
But you don't have any...