Quote:
Originally Posted by odamizu
Let me test my understanding:
1. The music industry gave up on DRM in hopes that allowing Amazon to offer DRM-free music would break Apple's monopoly on digital music sales and also because ripping DRM-free music from a CD was so easy as to make DRM pointless.
2. With books, Amazon was the one with a monopoly, and book publishers along with Apple tried to counter that with agency pricing, which blew up in their faces. With the exception of an enlightened few who have gone DRM-free, most big publishers are heading in the opposite direction and tightening DRM, pressuring Barnes & Noble to increase their security and prompting Adobe to develop "hardened DRM" starting with ADE 3.
3. That said, DRM-removal tools are readily available, making it a non-issue for people who want to remove DRM. That, in addition to most people being unruffled by DRM and willing to stay locked in their chosen eco-system, means there's virtually no pressure on publishers or booksellers to stop using DRM, resulting in "a silly 'we have DRM but you can remove it' situation," to quote RobertDDL.
The only wrinkle here is that in some (many?) places, circumventing DRM is either illegal or in a legal gray area. Here at MobileRead there are limits on what can be discussed with regard to DRM removal, suggesting these laws are not entirely toothless -- which leads to the next question:
What is the likelihood that anti-circumvention laws will ever be tested and upheld in court against non-pirate readers who just want to read ebooks on the device of their choice?
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I don't know that publishers are going in the opposite direction. I suspect that the tightening of DRM was being pushed more B&N than by the publishers.
To answer your question, I think there is very little likelihood that the anti-circumvention laws will ever be tested in court against individuals who just want to read ebooks on the device of their choice. I haven't seen anyone in the ebook industry go after individuals like the music industry did.