Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
If that is their only goal, you are likely correct.
But if their goal is a continuing ability to do well not just by book-buying readers, but by all their stakeholders (executives, stockholders, librarians, editors, authors), I think DRM-free is short-term thinking.
Even with today's weak DRM, the majority of book buyers and library borrowers do not strip it. What happens if five or ten years from now, the book buyer wants to re-read? Without DRM, they won't buy or borrow the book again. I know this feels unfair to some people, but its no more fair or unfair than having to buy a new copy of Windows when you get a new PC.
DRM elimination also indicates short-term thinking on the part of publishers who do it because, when more effective means of DRM are invented, book-buying readers would already have gotten used to being DRM-free. There would be a lot more resistance to starting up DRM from scratch than there will be to switching to a more effective system.
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Why are you comparing an ebook to software? It's really really not. There are no specific algorithms inside of an ebook...if there were, then two copyrights would be applied--that of the author of the book, and that of the author of the software. Since there is only one copyright applied, it is no different from any other written text. If I buy a paper book today, then I can re-read it as many times as I want to, whether it's tomorrow or 10 years from now. As long as it hasn't been lost or destroyed, I still have the ability to read it. The same should hold true for any text that I purchase.
Text is not software, and software is definitely not simply text.
Shari