Quote:
Originally Posted by bavardage
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While I respect--and mostly agree with--Doctorow's opinions, and am thrilled to have access to his books in digital form (and have converted CONTENT into a reader-sized PDF for myself), his arguments don't work for everyone.
His arguments *against DRM* apply to everyone. DRM will only last as long as it takes the average consumer to notice it & care about it, which will happen as soon as the tech gets common enough. His arguments *for free distribution of digital content* are less universal (which may be why he spends less time on them); they don't apply as well for authors whose sole sales formats are digital.
I believe that Doctorow is aware that
the future will be different, and old methods of publishing and promotion will not be effective. He doesn't pretend to know what will work in that future; he's working on the premise of "don't piss off the customers who'll be the main buyers in that world." But while he's got a lot of theory & background, and nicely points out a lot of the flaws of the current systems, that doesn't mean he's got good answers to move forward with.
I love his ideas; he gets me thinking about possibilities. But his ideas don't show any way to pick the best (least painful, most useful) methods from all those possibilities.