[Steven Lyle Jordan]

My feeling is that DRM is an ultimately useless tool, since it can be so easily circumvented. Exactly the same goes for social DRM... it really doesn't prevent piracy, since DRM documentation can still be broken or stripped out.

Larisa's comment about consumer honesty is on the right track, but it needs something specific from the author/publisher's end as well: A product that the consumer sees as worthy to be purchased, and therefore not to be taken advantage of.

It's called "value-added" products. Sell something that the customer likes and appreciates you for providing, and that customer is less likely to steal from you, nor to aid others in stealing from you. That means providing quality products, fair prices, and other things that make a customer feel they are respected and appreciated themselves.

This has been the underlying mantra of my Right Brane selling model since the beginning, and in my case, it works well. Other variations of it could be used for more famous authors, major publishing houses and boutique shops.

Two other things to consider here--One: The idea of DRM is directly tied to the concept of a book as a physical product to be secured. I've pointed out before that the e-book, being an electronic file, is a unique product, and may demand a selling paradigm that is nothing like the paradigms we use today for any other product (or a unique combination of paradigms, say, a mix of literature and television program paradigms, or of lit and end-cap selling).

Two: We are right at the tipping point of the future author/publisher/consumer/product relationship... all four are changing at dizzying speed, and it's very hard to see how any of them will shape up, together or separately. I expect to see years of experimentation across the board, until a few more successful methods rise to the top, and are adapted by the majority of parties. DRM is only one tool, often used because companies do not know of the other tools. As the other tools surface, and some prove their worth, they will be seen as effective alternatives to DRM.