Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
And the only reason they *chose* to do away with DRM was they were tired of Apple's one-price-fits-all policy and wanted a counter to Apple's iTunes domination. So they went DRM free with Amazon to allow them to window prices; high at release, lower over time. They *wanted* discounting.
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Er, not they didn't want discounting. They wanted higher prices for new releases, because the majority, by far, of sales will be in the first few months. Apple didn't want to do discounting, but they also didn't want to do the higher prices on new releases.
And music sales have been climing steadily since then, after years of declines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
In ebooks, the BPHs (alleged) "fear of Amazon" drove them into a conspiracy with Apple to raise prices and stop discounting.
Sorry, but I don't see the parallel. I don't think selling three minute disposable-music singles has much to teach us about selling digital novels. For starters the demographics and consumption modes are totally different. To say nothing of the revenue streams for the two industries. (I don't think many authors are going to sell out stadiums for readings of their latest book.)
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The parallell, if it is to be that, is that Tor is now playing the role of Amazon, and Amazon is playing the role of Apple. If Tor sees an increase of sales that they can attribute to removing DRM (and their execs
want to see that increase), then other publishers will be falling all over themselves to follow suit,
as happend with mp3 music. They use DRM because they believe it will increase their bottom line - the net profits. Once it because clear that isn't so, they will stop. It would be - literally - criminal for them not to, in the publicly held companies.