Thread: How do you write a book in lrx format
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Old 05-20-2009, 12:14 PM   #61
Xenophon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by p3aul View Post
I am not a troll. I have read every one of your arguments and they are full of obvious flaws. I consider them invalid. You forget that I'm not the one writing the book. But if I were than I would certainly want copy protection. If you were writing books you would think so too. Or are you just an idealist? You can't argue with success and so far copy protection has been very successful. I too like open source. I admire those who write programs like Kovid who wrote Calibre, but unlike you, it wouldn't disappoint me or make me angry if he started charging for it. I would just pay him and thank him again for writing such a good program.
I agree with you about paying for things. I'd just pay for Calibre too.

But on the "you can't argue with success" front, well... You are the one who is arguing with success. The fiction publisher with the best results in eBooks is the one I mentioned in my previous post: Baen. They've used ebooks to raise sales of their paper books, AND as a new revenue source that brings in significant income. All without DRM. For over 10 years. Don't just take my word for it: Go check out the facts. An earlier poster gave you the link, but either you didn't read it, or you didn't believe what you read.

Here's some background for what follows: I'm 47. I work in the software industry, so my livelihood depends on copyright and patents. I believe in IP in general (although I disagree with some details of our current system). Finally, every single ebook, every piece of software, and every piece of music on any of my family's computers is 100% legit. No pirate copies anywhere. I emphasize all this so you understand that I'm not arguing from a viewpoint of "I wanna steal the content" or "Information wanna be fwee!"

I will never purchase DRM-d content, unless I can easily strip the DRM! I've had too many bad experiences with copy-protection and DRM in the past. Remember, I'm a paying customer -- no pirate copies at all!

Just a few of the bad experiences:
  • Licensed software where the company went out of business. When I upgraded to a new machine, there was NO WAY to authorize the software on the new computer.
  • I owned an REB-1100 ebook reader. I purchased quite a few eBooks to read on it. Then two things happened. First, the makers of the reader shut down operations. All my DRMd content could no longer be authorized with a new reader. Secondly, Sony came out with the PRS-500 and I bought one. And I couldn't move my eLibrary to the new device! Note: All the authors and copyright owners already had their money -- I paid for all the books. I just can't use them any more. That seems to me to be the equivalent of telling me that I can't move my library from my old house to my new one -- I must purchase new books instead.
  • I bought eBooks from Amazon back when. Amazon left the eBook business, stranding my paid-for content. Once again, there's a bunch of legitimate content that I can no longer use through no fault of my own!
I will not permit this to happen again. Any content I purchase will be DRM-free so that I may format-shift as I please.

And lest you think that format-shifting is wrong, the courts have clearly identified both format-shifting and time-shifting as practices that fall within traditional fair-use. It's both legally and ethically permitted.

So, your wife, as a content creator, is perfectly free to set whatever contractual terms she likes with her publisher. And the publisher is perfectly free to impose DRM if they like. That's all hunky-dory. And I'm free to refuse to purchase anything with DRM -- or to strip said DRM for personal use only (which is arguably legal even with the DMCA; legal experts disagree and the courts haven't ruled yet).

But, with all due respect, I think that if you investigate the experience of publishers like Baen (specifically, the posts here and here contain hard data, but all the essays in the series found here are worth your time. As are the ones here. All available free.), or booksellers like Fictionwise ("Multi-format [e.g. DRM-free] titles outsell DRM titles 3-1 or better.").

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