Quote:
Originally Posted by OtterBooks
are there particulars about software based DRM that could be changed that would mitigate the concerns of those opposed to it in its current form, while satisfying those who feel that active management of IP is necessary and serves the greater good? Or is it an all-or-nothing issue?
|
I'll whack my dead horse some more and bring up the last Harry Potter book: it was on the torrents before it was in the bookstores, and it has
never had an official electronic version. Not only does no existing DRM stop piracy, but
not even having an ebook in the first place does not stop piracy.
It is
always necessary to display a book in some form in order for it to be used at all -- what would be the point of buying a book you couldn't read? And when it is displayed, it can be copied -- if nothing else, someone with a camera can take pictures of the screen. Once it is copied, it can be OCR'd. So DRM
cannot prevent piracy. It is not possible for any form of DRM, short of having a policeman stand by when you read to make sure you're not photographing the screen, to do so.
MobileRead's own library is proof of that: those are books which were published decades, in some cases centuries, before ebooks (DRM-locked or otherwise) ever existed. Not being an ebook would have to be the ultimate DRM. Yet they now exist as ebooks because someone scanned, OCR'd, and proofed them.
By increasing the extent to which DRM hampers legitimate use, you make using a book more and more inconvenient for the honest users, to the point that some percentage of them will say "the heck with this" and just download a DRM-free version of the book they bought but are unable to read. Then some of those users will skip the whole "buying" part, since they know they'll just be spending money on something that is useless in order to feel that they have paid a publisher to make their lives difficult, and just go download the thing. Formerly honest users are now pirates. That is not a win.
The bottom line is this: will more people give you money if you use DRM than if you don't use DRM?
Stonetools has called MR members names. He has insulted us in numerous ways (enough so that I'm starting to question whether he
is an industry shill ... you'd think a publisher would hire someone who didn't diss the customers). He has said we want writers to dig ditches. He has insulted our honesty, our integrity, our intelligence, and our common sense. He has thrown so much dust in the air that I'm still choking. The one thing he has
not done is provide proof, or even any sound evidence, that authors will make more money on DRM-locked books than they will on DRM-free books.