DRM - Digital Rights Management - is any one of a variety of methods used to prevent digital products being copied freely.
Usually it involves encrypting the ebook. Of course, for the purchaser to be able to read the encrypted ebook, the software or device used to read the ebook must contain the decryption key.
DRM is a problem for several reasons.
- It doesn't prevent unauthorised copying - most DRM systems have been broken*, and paper books can be scanned.
- Publishers have to pay the DRM system providers a per-book fee for DRM
- If you change your ebook reader to a device that uses a different format, you can't read your old books on it
- If the DRM provider closes down, you're unable to move your books to a new device
- Even when it's working properly, buying a new reader or moving to a new computer usually requires you to re-download your ebooks, as the ebooks need to be re-encoded for the new device.
I stopped buying DRMed ebooks for about five years from 2003 to 2008 because of these problems. I only started buying them again because of the appearance of DRM removal scripts.
* By 'broken' I don't mean that the encryption can be removed from any file with no other info. All the DRM removal schemes around require you to have the decryption key. Luckily, these are readily available, as your device of software must contain the key.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lene1949
I don't know where to put this question, so if it's in the wrong place, please move it...
I have read a of about DRM - most times negative, sometimes positive....
I have no idea what it is... Can someone enlighten me?
Thanks
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