[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Even ignoring all that, the simplest rule isn't always the best to go by. Leaving products unprotected usually leads to theft... which is exactly what is happening to e-books. That is a simple fact.

No it is not, and for the billionth time copying != theft. Do we really have to trudge through all the studies that show file sharing increases sales? Do we have to, again and again argue the merits of a merit less, ineffectual system that punishes the paying consumer and lets everyone else do as they please?

Companies have to protect their product from loss through theft, or they go out of business, plain and simple. E-book customers (especially those here, on what is possibly the most popular e-book dedicated site in the world) seem to delight in saying "If I can't get it, I'll steal it... it's easy," which only sets off publishers and makes them concerned over loss, making them want to strengthen DRM against "pirating" customers.

Out of the many, many posts I've read on this site, the willing-to-pay and glad-to-pay ebook customer far outweighs the "I'll steal it" poster, which again is a fallacy. Digital products cannot be stolen, they are merely copied. Your real-world comparison between a physical book and an ebook makes no sense and never will.

Acting like the only existent forms of DRM in the world are akin to fixing a watch with a mallet is only being obtuse about the issue. It is simply not true. There are plenty of examples of screwdrivers out there that could do the job to everyone's satisfaction... they just have to be developed for this one industry (about the only one left that hasn't managed to do so).

Nothing obtuse about it. DRM doesn't work. It took the Music industry 10 years to figure it out, but they did in the end. Sales haven't diminished, the files from the DRM-less sites aren't shared any more than those ripped from DRM-less CD's. DRM never worked, it never will work, it's a pointless tech that only satisfies the technologically illiterate and swaddles them in a false sense of security.

But most importantly, even those screwdrivers have to be accepted by the public, instead of constantly whining that any and all DRM is EVIL and demanding unrealistic services from for-profit companies.

I'm not saying publishers don't have to change their expectations of the realities of the market... they do. But so do customers. It's a new day, it's a new product... and we all have to learn a new way to buy it, to use it, and what we can't do with it.

Some level of security (always imperfect, but reasonably effective in mitigating loss) can easily be a part of that, if it is executed properly. But if customers refuse to cooperate, even to the extent of providing useful feedback (which means something more constructive than "it stinks"), the only forms of security publishers will apply will be poorly-designed and overly-harsh, making it harder on all of us than it has to be.

Your whole point relies on the idea that DRM works or somehow stops 'copying' (in your vernacular "theft"). But it doesn't do that. It never has done that, and it's unlikely to perform that function in the future. The Music industry abandoned it as a loss, why push for the same 10 years of frustration in book publishing? It's the definition of insanity to continually repeat the same behavior over and over again and expect different results, is it not?