Thread: DRM for Public Domain works at B&N
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Old 08-05-2009, 12:03 PM   #44
Kali Yuga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe View Post
I love it, all your reactions to culture are business like, you talk of 'non-binding' and 'charges' and 'commercial purposes'.
What I am doing is staying focused on the topic at hand, namely your apparently irrational position on the commercial aspects of distribution of works in the public domain. There's no reason to discuss aesthetic considerations or the epistemological aspects of a "shared culture," for example, as that is irrelevant to the point of contention.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
This is our culture, it shouldn't be locked up by companies for no good reason.
What you are consistently failing to recognize is that even with B&N and other e-book vendors putting DRM on public domain book, the books are not getting "locked up."

Public domain books are available from a variety of sources. Some charge, some don't. Some use DRM, some don't. Adding DRM and/or charging for a public domain book has zero effect on the other distributors. I.e. the free flow of information is not changed because B&N put DRM on its public domain books.

If B&N was taking actions to prevent others from distributing public domain books, THEN you would have a point that extends beyond opinion and/or personal preferences. They aren't, so you don't.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
DRM has never worked... it keeps the 'honest' away from their own content. It does nothing to stop those who would take the content without payment, etc etc.
*shrug* You didn't ask me to design an inhumanly flawless DRM system or provide an extended technical defense of existing DRM implementations. You asked me to present a rational case for using DRM, and you got it.

Now, you can make the case that "a non-DRM distribution system" is better or has certain advantages over a DRM system, but that's another discussion altogether. And it doesn't alter the fundamental question at hand -- namely that regardless of the effectiveness of DRM, B&N unquestionably has the rights to put DRM on their files if they so choose, and since that action does not in any way, shape or form block others from freely and openly distributing public domain books, there is no "cultural conscience" at work to prevent them from doing so.
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