Quote:
Originally Posted by Over
The problem is the greed (or efficiency). I mean, as long as pople think that one pirated copy = one less sale, they will always perceive that as a waste, a leak. Plus, there is no evidence that mo DRM would raise sales in the long term. It even enhance the piracy problem: more casual piracy would certainly happen.
I understand your logic:
1 - 1000 mp3s: 400 bought, 600 pirated
2 - 10000 mp3s: 800 bought, 9200 pirated.
Well, selling 800 is better than 400... BUt would it be fair to increase the number of people hearing the mp3s for free, making the buyers the exception to the rule. The ones that will be mocked for spending money in something "everyone" is enjoying for free? It might even make buyers decide to pirate it, and scenario 2 turn to 3:
3- 10000 mp3s: 45 bought, 9955 pirated.
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I think your numbers are suspect. There isn't a lot of hard data on piracy, partly because it's extremely difficult to measure, but I find it hard to believe that going DRM-Free would lead to a 10-fold increase in piracy.
What evidence I do have is largely inferential but it doesn't support those numbers. Baen books has been their entire list in DRM-free electronic formats since 1999. If DRM-free releases led to an increase in casual piracy by a factor of 10, then we could expect Baen to have a much greater presence on the darknet than their market share would otherwise indicate.
That doesn't appear to be the case, in fact anecdotal evidence indicates the opposite: Baen books are apparently less common on the darknet than books from other publishers.
Fictionwise is the only major e-Bookstore I'm aware of that sells both DRM and DRM-free books, and they have gone on record as saying DRM-free (multi-format in their terminology) e-Books do sell better.
So currently there is no evidence that the removal of DRM leads to more piracy, and at least some that it may help sales. Most pirated e-Books are pirated from scans of the paper edition.
People have always been willing to pay more for convenience. Most DRM adds a layer of inconvenience, and that drives people to the darknet. Apple succeeded with iTunes because of ease, style and convenience, not DRM. The availability of DRM-free tracks on iTunes has not hurt their sales.
Focus on success not losses.