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Originally Posted by haertig
Which has been growing nicely since they got rid of the DRM. They still sell songs for the same price they used to (99 cents, same as in the old days IIRC), but these days that 99 cents gets you music that is DRM-free, and you can play it on any of your devices. Paradoxically, it appears that the best way to curtail piracy may be to stop trying to curtail it using heavy-handed techniques. And they probably increased profit-per-song as well, since adding DRM imparts a cost to the distribution.
Many/most people consider being able to use something you bought on any of your devices, and to back it up locally, to be "reasonable use". Despite the fact that the law defines this otherwise. DRM takes away this reasonable use. Many here (most?) will strip off DRM and convert eBooks as they see fit to use on their other devices. When a law re-defines reasonable behavior as criminal, then people will simply ignore the law. Same thing for "You didn't buy this, you only licensed it". Again, trying to make reasonable use into something criminal. The word "criminal" being used here for convenience only, I know this is actually a "civil" violation most of the time.
Then people who ignore the law are labeled pirates, regardless if they upload their DRM-stripped books for distribution to freeloaders or not. I imagine that many/most here do not redistribute eBooks, but indeed strip DRM for their own private "reasonable use".
Then, a bad thing can happen. Once customers start to feel that they are being taken advantage of (high prices, DRM-restrictions) then they start to rebel. And that rebellion can take on the form of "I'm not going to pay for this, I'm going to a real pirate site and download it for free". This isn't right, which is why I called it a "bad thing", but my point is that it is not an unexpected reaction. It's human nature.
Is it wrong to pirate a book? IMHO, yes. Is it wrong to put onerous DRM on that book and charge high prices? IMHO, yes to this question as well. Of course, two wrongs don't make a right. But an unanswered wrong doesn't make a right either. Apple appears to have gotten this message regarding iTunes (music downloads, at least). They indeed took a risk when they got rid of DRM. But it paid off in spades, as iTunes is doing very well. Even better than before. When you poke someone, realize that you'll probably get poked back. Doesn't matter that poking is ill-advised for either side. It's called "human nature".
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Actually Apple always opposed DRM, but that was the only way that the Music companies would allow the music be sold on iTunes. iTunes actually grew to be the biggest music store by a large margin with DRM. Apple being the biggest distributor bothered the music companies quite a bit, so they agreed to allow Amazon to sale music DRM free, which they hoped would grow Amazon so they would have Amazon and Apple in competition. About a year later, Jobs was able to strong arm the music companies into allowing him to sell music DRM free as well and DRM for downloadable music for the most part became a thing of the past.
The book publishers were trying the same sort of thing, setting up Apple to be the big competitor to Amazon, but Amazon was able to use their contacts in the US government to go after the publishers and Apple on anti-trust charges. Apple decided that a major push into ebooks wasn't really worth it, so Amazon still doesn't have any major competition. Ironically, the publishers got their agency model pricing from Amazon once Amazon was no longer worried about competition.
Yes, the best way to combat piracy is to make the desired works available in desired format, at a reasonable price. Piracy is never going to be stamped out completely. For the vast majority of the reading public, DRM is not an issue.