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Originally Posted by cjr72
Is that really the criteria for success as far as going DRM free on TOR's part though? I would think just showing that DRM free doesn't hurt their sales coupled with jettisoning whatever fees they have to pay for licensing a DRM scheme would be enough to consider it a success.
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Well, it remains to be seen whether they can show that. The anti DRM true believers certainly believe that-and now they get to demonstrate it.
Buried in the announcement abouthow wonderful DRM free is going to be is this little nugget:
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Fears about online piracy simply did not pan out: the books in question continued to sell just as well as before, if not better. This indicates that keeping e-books in DRM formats does not prevent piracy on its own, a publisher still needs an enforcement program.
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Charles Stross is on record as being against DRM , but being in favor of watermarking, in order to track who bought the book (Some see watermarking as being another form of DRM).
His answer to the threat of filesharing is not to pretend that it will somehow disappear when DRM goes away , but this:
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. For folks who, despite 1 and 2, collect other people's books and run file sharing sites, the publishers have an answer: lawyers. It's not a good answer and it's a process rather than a goal, but it works. NB: Priority goes to people who not only distribute content they don't own, but who try and turn a buck that way. Make it unprofitable and the incentive for a lot of piracy goes away.
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IOW, drop DRM: hire lawyers. Dropping DRM may be a good thing: but it will not be a money saver ( lawyers ain't cheap). And that will be show up in the price of the book. Ain't reality just grand?