Quote:
Originally Posted by alansplace
drm, what's to debate about drm? every ebook reader owner/user agrees that drm should DIE!!!!
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I disagree. There's rational logic behind the original idea of DRM. It prevents or at least discourages people from sharing books with each other. Before you ask "What's wrong with sharing books? I do that with actual books all the time.", you must note that sharing books online is extremely easy and there's no penalty to the original uploader (with regular books, they can't read it for the duration they share it for) unless the law catches up with them.
However, as people crack DRM, companies try to create new, harsher methods of DRM to make it more difficult. For example, Blizzard's latest games require that you constantly (or at least periodically) connect to the internet, so that they can verify your account.
If companies don't continually update their DRM to stricter standards, they are punished. For example, Amazon's DRM is very convenient for the user, but because of that, it is extremely weak. As a result, there are plenty of Amazon books floating around the internet, with the DRM removed. In this particular case, Amazon's loss is probably minimal enough so as to not deeply concern them.
I once ran into an ebook (more like etextbook) store that had my name and address embedded onto each page of purchased books. I assume that this discouraged pirates from sharing their copy, because they could easily be targeted. I could still share this ebook with friends (that already know where I live), but not with people I hardly know. IMO, this is what the ideal DRM would serve to do. However, as effective as this style of DRM is, it can still get annoying; No doubt that Kindle owners would be very angered if they lost an inch of space on their screen just to display their contact information.
Don't get me wrong; I hate modern DRM as much as every other person. However, it's not that DRM should die. It's the way that DRM is implemented that should die. The question is, what would replace current implementations?