Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamlet53
Yeah, will have you read some of the posts here from people who claim, presumably with a straight face, that getting their e-books free from pirate sites instead buying the book DRM'ed or not, is not hurting the authors or publishers a bit. I understand the logic; getting stuff for free is just so much nicer than having to pay for it.
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Color me an optimist. I happen to believe that the majority of the market is willing to pay for what they get, if they want it, it's properly priced, and is easy to buy.
I think DRM implicitly presumes the majority of the market
isn't honest, and will cheerfully rip you off given a chance. The question I always want to ask folks who hold that opinion is "Why do you think so? Is it because it's what
you would do, and you think everyone else is just like you? Or do you assume that no,
tyou're a good guy who wouldn't do that, but you're in the minority and everyone else would?"
I find either position anathema, though I can intellectually understand why folks might hold them.
I
don't understand folks who think getting stuff free from pirate sites isn't harming authors or publishers. There is lots of stuff out there on pirate sites, and you can download torrents with thousands of books in on go. That in itself is meaningless. Simple downloads don't count. What matters is books that are downloaded from pirate sites and read
instead of buying a legitimate copy. That's an actual lost sale, but quantifying those losses is likely impossible. You can track illegal downloads, but you have no way to know what is actually read.
Meanwhile, I still think the folks who prefer to grab pirate copies instead of actually buying a book are a small enough minority that ebooks and publishing can survive without DRM. Again, convenience rules. There's a new ebook out you want. Which is faster and easier - going online to Amazon, Barnes and Noble or the like and buying a copy, or searching for it on a pirate site? (And depending on the book, the legit copy may be a better quality edition.)
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Dennis