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Originally Posted by speakingtohe
My big question as always, is why make DRM a point in the price you pay while you are able to strip it.
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Price considerations don't include DRM.
If I know beforehand that I can reliably strip it, then I'll buy the media if I want them (books, games...), but if I already know the DRM can't be stripped, then I won't buy, no matter what. I don't even pirate it, because hacks/cracks are more often backdoors or trojans than not.
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I agree that it would be nice to be able to sell or trade an ebook, but until this can be done in a way fair to the author/publisher/vendor on the same basis as paper books, (1 copy = 1 trade/sale) how can this be taken as a God given right?
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I don't care about transfering, selling, trading, or anything.
I care about being able to read the stuff on the reader of my choice. When I bought the Kindle, I considered it the best reader, but I consider EPUB the best format. (Because the tools to create or modify it are better than the ones for any other format.) Stripping the DRM out of bought EPUBs allows me to convert them and thus read them on the Kindle, something I wouldn't otherwise be able to do.
This was the reason why I got into buying ebooks instead of reading only classics on the e-reader. Hadn't this been possible, I would have bought nothing. Ever.
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Theft deterrents that don't always work, but that everyone has to put up with, honest or not.
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I fully understand, but your comparison is flawed. Items you buy (such as clothing) may have anti-theft measures, but those are removed after you buy the item. With ebooks, and other media, that is not the case. The DRM/lock stays on. You wouldn't want to wear a dress, with a big card latched to it, stating your name, to make sure no one else would be able to wear it, would you?
Look at GOG.com. They understand.
They sell old (and some not so old) games between $2 and $19 or so, and they have sales often. Also, they don't have DRM. You download the game, and you can install it on 10 computers if you want to. They only *ask* you to please not give the game to other people, and only install it onto your own machines.
It seems to work, because they're still in business. Some time ago, they had a counter up; when they reached the X-millionth game, the buyer of that game would receive their *entire* game catalog for free. I've been watching that counter, and Gog.com sold between 2-5 games PER SECOND.
They won't do that always, but if that counter is any indication, they're making money hand over fist.
Of course. There will be people who make deals. "You buy those 5 games, I buy these, and then we'll swap them." It happens. Gog.com knows. Still, they don't go whining that "they could have sold 20 games": they celebrate that they sold 10. Had they used DRM that needed to be cracked, the buyers would probably have downloaded pre-cracked illegal versions, and Gog.com wouldn't have sold anything.
Actually, many people refuse to buy games if they are not on Gog.com.
(And some others like Steam, whose DRM seems to be very light; you seem to be able to install the game wherever you want, as long as you don't launch it on more than one computer at the same time.)
edit: Oh, and to pile some more praise on gog.com: even if you have a game already, it can be attractive to buy it with them. They combine the game with all expansions (if it had any), patches, and any needed fixes to run it on modern operating systems. For DOS-games, they build DOSBox right into it. And to make everything complete, they give you three manual, wallpapers, concept art, and the soundtrack in 320Kbps MP3. Some games are worth the price for the soundtrack alone.
As I said, Gog.com understands. If they have a game, it's not worth it to pirate it.
DRM serves no purpose, except for making life difficult for paying users. Non-paying users don't have any of the problems the paying ones have to contend with, and for many people, that lowers the value of media such as ebooks; and for some people, like me, the value immediately becomes $0, if DRM cannot be removed.