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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
DRM itself is in no consumer's interests. But if the seller offers the consumer something special they will get by putting up with their DRM--like exclusive content, lower priced packages, etc--DRM becomes acceptable (assuming the customer agrees that the exclusive content is indeed special). The operative theory is, the more special or exclusive content a seller offers, the more they can charge for them... which justifies their use of DRM, to make sure someone who did not pay the premium charge can't get the premium content.
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My point is that this is putting the cart before the horse. You're looking at a market that doesn't behave like markets used to. In order to tame the market and make it behave like old markets you're willing to spend fortunes on DRM. In essence, you'll be making "more special or exclusive content", "lower priced packages" in order to sugar down the bitter pill of DRM ... for what purpose? DRM in itself adds no value to the content-industry, quite to the contrary it is costing them money. The purpose was to sell content, not easy acceptance of DRM, unless I'm much mistaken.
Look at the deal you're outlining above. Would you rather:
a) buy exclusive content at a nice price WITH DRM, or
b) buy exclusive content at a nice price WITHOUT content
It's not a hard choice, is it?
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By that measure, there are a number of successful DRM and DRM-type systems out there... the Kindle store... cable and satellite television... etc.
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Any solution should be judged by the various alternatives. The fact that the kindle bookstore exists does not make it a success. It's only a success if enough consumers start using it and keep using it. Enough in this equation means "the income generated from the purchases of these users is higher than the income generated through the sale of non-DRM/lock-in content would have been". Is kindle at that point? I have no idea, as I don't know the numbers involved. I know that I would never personally buy a kindle and I would never buy a DRM'ed book either - and a lot of people I know feel the same way. But that's anecdotal evidence and neither here nor there.
Right... but "exclusive content" is in many cases enough for people to justify paying higher prices, and dealing with DRM. In the U.S., most men who hear the words "NFL Sunday Ticket" would understand what I mean.
You need to argue that these people are thieves that - with no DRM applied - would otherwise steal the content. Otherwise, what's the point to DRM? Presumably, the people willing to pay for exclusive content would do so, DRM or not.
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Actually, your thread indicates exactly why we're in this situation: E-books are a young commercial entity, there are a lot of methods to sell them being tried, and no one method has proven that much more effective than the others. When one selling method clearly rises to the top, and outsells the others hands-down, the entire industry will throw out everything else and go for that. until then, we have to put up with every selling trick under the sun, including DRM, and wait for the market to settle in and pick one.
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Nope, not as long as big content fears the brave new world. The music and movie industries have been ignoring new trends in distribution for more than ten years now - instead of accepting and embracing new markets they have been fighting them, willingly vilifying their consumers and tying them down in every possible way.
Regards
Fake