Quote:
Originally Posted by soilwork
It is a way but I think economic incentives will drive publishers to drop DRM even if we don't email them. I described this rather briefly in my previous post mainly aimed at HarryT, but I guess he missed my post. 
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=119
From what I read, adding DRM to each book costs money. As more books are sold, publishers will realize that they are losing money by keeping DRM. They can have more money in their pocket (profit) even if they sell the same number of books (unit sales) by dropping DRM (cost reduction).
For example, let's say it costs 5cents to add DRM to each book. If a certain ebook sells 1 million copies, then publishers are losing money (1 million x 0.05 = $50,000) by keeping DRM. If the ebook sells 10 million copies, they are losing $500,000. As more books are sold, they are losing more money. This will make publishers rethink about keeping DRM especially when they realize that most DRMs are already useless anyway.
So, I will not worry too much about current DRM situation. It is good idea to email publishers but once the market is established, publishers (or at least their accountants) will realize that dropping DRM is more profitable for them even if they do not care about consumers' convenience at all. I think this is what happened to Apple iTunes as well. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alisa
I suspect the per-book cost of DRM is a good deal higher than your hypothetical figure, too. I can't see it being able to sustain companies like Mobipocket at that level. I think you're correct, too, in that the main thing publishers need to realize is that it doesn't prevent piracy. Nothing prevents piracy 100%. The best you can do is encourage people to pay for their content by making it convenient and reasonably priced.
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i just saw these posts, sorry to reply so late. i agree : the most important message to send publishers is that we want ebooks ! and the only thing that will convince them of that, is if we buy them. but you are right that buying formats depending on the crackability of the drm may help to show them how much we hate drm ; i certainly hope so.
as to cost, i believe it is even more than you think. in
various discussions with a publisher recently, i learned that in order to use adobe drm you must first pay adobe
10,000€ 
PLUS a small fee (0.15€) for each book served with drm ; i don't know the initial cost for mobipocket (if any) but i do know that they charge
10% of the sale price for every drm book served.
i've recently learned that french publishers at least are not at all interested in using drm, overall ; they realise it's a pointless waste of money which only aggravates their legitimate customers. so that is good news. the problem, is that often the authors themselves are in a panic about being pirated (like JK Rowling... and look where that got her).
i don't know how we can convince the authors that drm should be avoided but i think in some cases they may be the ones who are resisting even more than the publishers !