Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The kind of thing that DRM is designed to prevent is the person who buys a book and then casually gives a copy of it to a few of their friends, because they see nothing wrong in doing so. It's not there to prevent serious piracy.
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Well that's what I'm saying, doesn't drm cost more than this ?
I wonder if giving a copy to a friend is such a bad thing to publishers. It's not for nothing amazon and others give away freebies who are the first off series. It's a form of publicity. I often have bought the books after reading a PB someone lend to me if I liked it, or bought others from the same author.
I don't say everyone should start to give away copys, but that I wonder if there would really be a loss for authors and publishers compared to maintaining the whole drm thing.
Personally I don't believe drm helps to keep honest people honest. Education can help to raise honest people and and people can be made aware of what is right and what not, it's not drm that does that, it's a personal choice.
If ebooks are sold at an honest price, are easy to get and are easy to manage most people will do the right thing. Drm, regional restrictions, walled gardens and such don't contribute to that, they restrict choices in such a ridiculous way that they make people do things they normally wouldn't do such as lying about location or download pirated versions if getting them legally isn't possible, and circumvent drm to be able to read books.
To be clear, all my ebooks are bought legally and I don't give them to others, and I never downloaded a pirated book, but I know of others who did for that reason.
As far as I can see the only real benefits to drm are to manage the lending off books in libraries, and most of all to keep people in a walled garden and in that it's very effective.