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Originally Posted by Lemurion
Let's start at the beginning: Steve writes a novel; if I want to read his novel Steve deserves to be paid.
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Thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
The problem with most DRM implementations is that at least in practice they appear to have a minimal effect on preventing piracy (at best). The two things DRM seems to do well are annoy paying customers, and facilitate vendor lock-in.
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The key to DRM is getting people to accept it, AND to refuse to cooperate with those who would break it. The best way to do that is to offer incentives to simultaneously accept and preserve DRM.
The best incentive for accepting DRM is usually exclusive or special content. Often the best incentive for preserving DRM is the threat to cut you off from using the service or buying the product, if you are found to be aiding and abetting a DRM breaker. (The carrot-and-stick approach.) Cable and satellite TV companies use that tactic in the U.S., and as most people do not want to lose their TV service, they refuse to allow others to "pirate" their signal, and risk getting caught. In fact, U.S. cable and satellite TV services may be the best example of consumer-accepted DRM systems around.
And the second-best might be... Amazon. They have developed a DRM system for the Kindle that seems to be pretty effective: They have exclusive content, you can only access their content through their reader, they get paid per download, and the customers accepts this because they like its ease, speed and reading quality. A textbook example of a working DRM system. So it's clearly not impossible to use DRM in an acceptable way.