Quote:
Originally Posted by crossi
Most casual sharing is likely among families and since they are likely on the same account DRM does nothing to stop that, nor should it. For the one or two friends who happen to share the same reading tastes book sharing is already possible legitimately. Or I might simply loan them my backup reader. Most of my friends either read very little or simply would have no interest in my books since peoples tastes in reading vary so much. Most of my books I couldn't get even my family to read if I dropped them in their lap. None of us like the same books. And for mere aquintances, why in the world would I allow them to freeload from me? They can buy their own books if they want it. So preventing casual sharing from making a significant cut in profits is a imaginary problem.
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crossi:
Well....let's think about that. Firstly, on about 99% of the retailers that have any real volume, you can "lend" an ebook, directly, from one email to another. That's a perfectly legal share.
But your operating assumption is that nobody who gets the book shared is going to share it with
anyone else. And that's just not what happens. Unfortunately, "sharees" have a tendency to reshare. Those patterns have been MORE than amply demonstrated with software--I don't know why you think it would be different with books?
The "Lotus 1-2-3" problem certainly wasn't imaginary. That was the first goad to licensing software. I know, because I was around for it. Gates' response, in creating licenses for his software, after watching what happened with Lotus, was certainly warranted, despite all the "Gates-hate" in the world.
{shrug}. I still don't understand the big issue. Everyone here knows how to get around DRM for their perfectly legit purposes, of putting their books on different devices, etc. It's not a big deal to do. DRM absolutely DOES stop casual theft, because the average, real person doesn't know how to crack it and won't try (for example: most of my clients can't download from a browser. They don't know how to "download" anything, unless a file is sent to them in email. I really don't think that those folks are going to be cracking DRM any time soon). It protects authors and publishers from that type of abuse. No, it doesn't protect against deliberate abuse, but the early studies on software theft and piracy was that casual thieving was actually the bigger cause of losses.
Hitch