[Happ]

A definition is not arbitrary just because there are competing definitions. That would make any definition arbitrary by definition. Rather, a definition is arbitrary if there is no good reason to believe that it is better than rival definitions. On the face of it, it is fair to pay authors who do the things we use. We would need a good argument against that, and just the desire to use what authors do without paying is not a good reason.

You are right that there are other reasons to be against DRM. My point, however, is that unless one has a viable alternative to pay the authors, being against DRM because it is evil is just not helpful. I bet any author and any industry boss would love not to have to support DRM. If you give them a good chance of making a living without DRM, no publisher or author would use it. Hell, it actually costs money to put a DRM system in place.

DRM is a pain in the neck for everyone, readers and authors and publishers alike. Just like security checks at the airport are a pain in the neck for everyone involved — and it costs money too. The point is that one puts up with it because one believes the alternatives would be a lot worse. So if you want to abolish DRM — as I do — you have to argue not that DRM is itself evil, but rather that there are good, viable, sensible alternatives.

As for public libraries, in most countries authors are not paid for books read in public libraries. But I agree that they should. This, however, would not be Orwellian because it would be based on books actually requested by readers, not download statistics.

Finally, if you have privacy worries over DRM you should be VERY worried about the Google model of business our digital age is turning up to be. This is a business based on a special kind of advertising that thrives on metrics about people’s digital behavior. And this is the ugly face of ‘free’ in Web-language. Firefox is free? Well, sort of. It is fed by Google. Why? Because people do not want to pay for software. Therefore, anyone who is against DRM and offers no viable alternative is a de facto supporter of the Google ad-based model of business, because if people do not pay authors, authors will have to be paid by ads. And THAT is Orwellian.