Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
DRM is Digital Rights Management where our rights are controlled and mostly taken away from us. Thanks to the DMCA, we have to break the law to be able to get our fair use.
|
Jon, with all due respect, let's try to be a bit more clear about DRM, other than making clear we don't like it!
David, DRM is designed to tie purchased content to a specific device (or a few), so it cannot be shared beyond those devices, and potentially flood the market with copies of a product that will not earn the publisher any income (which is why publishers like DRM).
Which sounds like a fine idea, but DRM
A) has been known to prevent consumers from transferring a bought product to a new legitimate device, especially when the company that issued the DRM'd product goes out of business, making it impossible to upgrade to a new device (and with the e-book market, this has happened far too often... this is why consumers hate DRM). DRM also
B) makes it difficult or impossible to convert an e-book from one format to another, often necessary due to the multitude of formats and readers. Unfortunately, though DRM is often breakable, it is also
C) supported by the DCMA, a federal law, making it illegal to circumvent in many cases.
So, consumers want restriction-free content, and publishers are sure that restriction-free content will cost them more than they will profit... and so far, a lack of acceptable (to all parties) alternatives has left the e-book universe at an impasse regarding DRM.
And that's it in a gnarled little nutshell.
By the way: Although PDFs aren't preferred by most e-book consumers, tagged PDFs can be perfectly good (though large) e-book formats, depending on the device used to read them and the PDF software loaded on it.