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A few thought on this:
- Anyone determined will get the content without paying for it
It doesn't matter if it's drm'd, not drm'd, watermarked or whatever. There will always be people who will break the rules, whatever the rules are. Personally I think that watermarking is the best way to go, but it's by no means 100% effective. Nothing is.
- The recording industry is suffering and the publishing should learn from that
I think it's a bit far to say that they're dying, but it's interesting to note that some of their highest sales ever was in the Napster heyday. Regardless of what you think about current copyright laws, suing your customers into oblivion is not a viable business model. The publishing houses need to realize that if you give consumers what they want at a reasonable price, you'll have a much smaller group breaking the rules (whatever those rules happen to be).
- DRM costs more than it saves
Lots of money goes into various DRM schemes, and the audio/video folks have been fighting a loosing battle for years. Save the money. Put in a watermark system that will identify who made the purchase and let them do whatever they want with it. Baen has been doing less than that, and they still make money.
- Ed
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