Thread: interesting take on DRM
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Old 10-16-2008, 01:12 PM   #73
Lemurion
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
There is another problem besides DRM and it's in some ways worse then DRM. It's exclusivity. Amazon is the best one for that and unless you own a Kindle, you cannot get anything Amazon has that nobody else does. So you have to spend $360 (roughly) for a Kindle just to get access to a $10 (or so) eBook. Tor is giving Amazon exclusive rights to eBooks. This means that those of us who do not own a Kindle cannot read the rest of the series that we started because Tor gave away a lot of Book Ones. How does this help? it doesn't. What it does is take the larger group of people (non-Kindle eBook readers) and pisses them off so they won't buy Tor eBooks if they ever get released outside of Amazon. So basically, it's bad for business. It's bad for eBooks, it's worse then DRM.

Yes, I've seen Walmart & Target have exclusive CDs or versions on CD. That's ok. You can still go to Target or Walmart and get these or if you want, order online and get. You are not forced to buy some expensive device from either to be able to purchase these exclusive CDs. But Amazon forces you to get a Kindle to get their exclusive releases.

At least with DRM, I can read that book now. With exclusivity, chances are I'll not be one of the ones who can get it and that means I cannot read it. So yes, it's worse then DRM. It hurts sales, pisses off customers and denies consumers the choice to read what they want.
Also those Walmart and Target exclusives aren't the same as Amazon's. Take the Iron Man DVD that was released last month. Both Walmart and Target have their own exclusive versions, but if someone just wants the movie (without the exclusive extras) they can get it anywhere.

That's a big difference from Kindle or nothing.

I agree that it's a huge problem, however I don't know that I would separate it from DRM. The artificial distinction between Amazon's Kindle and mobi DRM is a clear statement that maintaining this kind of vendor lock-in and forced exclusivity is the whole purpose of DRM.

Get rid of DRM and this kind of exclusionary tactic becomes much less viable.
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