Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
I find the digerati's willingness to gamble the livelihood of authors and publishers on an unsupported theory just because it 's inconvenient to them quite callous and self centered, to be honest.
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"The digerati" ... "the digerati" ... "the digerati" ... y'know, that's
the people you're talking to. You might try not being what you think is insulting.
You're also being self-contradictory. Apparently everyone but you can see this. As far as I can tell, your definition of "the digerati" is (aside from your MobileRead audience) technically competent people who read ebooks. Read that again:
technically competent people who read ebooks. In other words,
people who are capable of stripping DRM if they find it inconvenient. The one group of people who are
not arguing against DRM out of personal involvement, because
DRM doesn't affect us unless we choose to let it. If someone on MobileRead, or someone like us, wants an illicit ebook, we know where to go to get it (I've been there a lot lately*). If we want to give an ebook to a thousand of our closest friends, we know how to do it.
DRM does not inconvenience us.
In fact, our best interest would be served by continuing with the status quo, and pretending that DRM works perfectly and stops Bad Things (tm) from happening, so that easy-to-strip DRM remains the standard and illicit ebooks remain readily available on easy-to-find download sites. At least, our best interest in the short term, and if the only thing we're interested in is having access to DRM-free books ourselves, and taking a self-centered view of the subject.
I'll say again what I said elsewhere:
We are book addicts. We need our books like an addict needs his drugs. We want books, more books, and still further books. Since we can't write fast enough ourselves, even though a fair number of people here
are authors, we have to depend on authors writing books we can buy. For that reason -- for purest self-interest -- it is
essential to us, at least those of us who don't share my love for books older than my parents, that the book industry remain healthy and thriving. Read that part again:
it's in our best interest.
We do not oppose DRM because it "inconveniences" us.
It doesn't. Stripping DRM is the work of a few moments to anyone here, at least anyone who falls within your definition of "digerati", and obtaining an illicit copy of a book is downright trivial. We oppose DRM because it's bad for authors and for the market. We oppose DRM because it doesn't do what its proponents claim it does, and it
does do very harmful things that they (and you) gloss over. There would be a lot more disagreement if it was beneficial to authors and harmful to readers, but there's no question of balance; it's not beneficial to authors, and the only people it
does benefit are companies like Amazon, and further back companies selling DRM.
*no, I haven't turned to the dark side; I've been looking for certain material on behalf of the rights owners. But it's fun to give stonetools a momentary feeling of hope!
