My perspective on buying books with DRM

[cyanic]

I'll make this short. DRM is really annoying, but there's one reason why I don't really mind a book having DRM. It's that most of the time I can remove the DRM, and if I can't right now, I'll eventually find a way. Once the DRM can be removed from a book, it's just as good as DRM-free (though there's still the matter of format conversions, which I can deal with slowly). Once I find that the DRM from a certain store can be removed, I may actually be more inclined to purchase from them. In the end, if it's cheap and effectively DRM-free, I'll take it. Some people have their own principles which makes them reject any DRM protected books, but I accept that my boycotting of DRM isn't going to change much in the tide of everyone else who don't care, so I might as well take advantage of the situation.

[amazon author]

It's a cat and mouse game, one day may come when removing DRM will be impossible or at least it will be very easy to trace the person who removed the DRM or shared it, etc.

[PandathePanda]

Originally Posted by amazon author

It's a cat and mouse game, one day may come when removing DRM will be impossible or at least it will be very easy to trace the person who removed the DRM or shared it, etc.

I doubt there will be a drm that will be able to be used to trace where a share come from.

I tested software a few years back who claimed to be able to this, and was able to "crack it" (that was me job) and produce untracable copies.

DRM is an attempt by big business to "protect" their profit and not really anything beyond that. Yet it's the consumer who draws the short straw. IE the Simcity 5 fiasco when it was launced. The drm meant you had to be onloine the whole time, their defence was the offline single player game mode was not build in to the game, that was till the pirates released their crack and showed that EA was talking hogwash.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by amazon author

It's a cat and mouse game, one day may come when removing DRM will be impossible or at least it will be very easy to trace the person who removed the DRM or shared it, etc.

Being able to easily trace a person who pirated (ie "shared") a book seems to me to be an extremely desirable thing.

Originally Posted by PandathePanda

I doubt there will be a drm that will be able to be used to trace where a share come from.

This is one of the aims of watermarking.

[Josieb1]

I agree that pirating and sharing of books illegally needs to stop and be traced if possible but not everyone who strips DRM does so in order to share books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I agree that pirating and sharing of books illegally needs to stop and be traced if possible but not everyone who strips DRM does so in order to share books.

I completely agree: most people here at MR strip DRM for entirely legitimate reasons. But DRM methods such as watermarking, which allow the buyer of a book to be traced, need not impose any onerous restrictions on the purchaser in terms of ease of use of the book.

[darryl]

My perspective on DRM is similar to Harry's in most respects. I see little point in boycotting it, but I absolutely require that I be able to remove it. It is as simple as that. I already refuse to buy anything from ITunes, no matter how much of a bargain it may be. If Vendors of epub books switch on the new Adobe DRM scheme, I will purchase from Amazon and other Vendors with no DRM or DRM which can be removed. That is, of course, until that new DRM is cracked and the status quo restored. In the unlikely event that all Vendors use DRM which cannot be removed, I will only purchase DRM free ebooks. Anything else that I desperately want to read can wait till it is available in the library, if I can manage to resist the no doubt freely available and plentiful pirate copies which will no doubt be around. I don't expect the situation to arise. The more effective the DRM is, the greater the challenge for some very talented hackers. I have no objections to watermarking provided it is unobtrusive.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Being able to easily trace a person who pirated (ie "shared") a book seems to me to be an extremely desirable thing.

This is one of the aims of watermarking.

I hate the idea of watermarking almost as much as drm.
I mean, treating your customer like thief ?? What company right in their mind do that ??

I buy my book to read them, not share them on the internet !!

[Calenorn]

I'm not boycotting DRM-books in hopes of changing the publishing industry. I'm simply trying to see how much I can find to read that comes without DRM. And there is PLENTY! Most classic literature is public domain, and I could easily read just that for the rest of my days and never run out of material. Add there is a wide selection of contemporary titles available from those self-published authors (and few courageous companies) that have decided to run DRM-free.

But the REAL answer is that the publishers should stop mugging public libraries for their ebooks. If borrowing ebooks from a public library were just as easy as borrowing a printed version, then much of the reason people tamper with DRM would be removed. Many of us don't have access to a good selection of ebooks via the local library.

For an individual customer, DRM stinks; but the big publishing companies shaking down public libraries is utterly immoral.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

I hate the idea of watermarking almost as much as drm.

Watermarking is a form of DRM.

I mean, treating your customer like thief ?? What company right in their mind do that ??

You're honest, but sadly not everyone is. You probably lock your house door when you go out because you can't rely on the fact that everyone is as honest as you are.

I buy my book to read them, not share them on the internet !!

But unfortunately, the same is not true for everyone.

[PandathePanda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is one of the aims of watermarking.

I regularly get books from publishers/authors ( mostly ARCs, but a few giveaways/competitions)
and got one or two pdfs that was watermarked, and took me a few mintues to get rid of them. But I never use pdfs as I normally get either an epub or mobi with it, and using mantano on my tablet I only use epubs if I can.

[fjtorres]

I will have nothing to do with app-locked ebooks.
(Non-negotiable)
That means no ebooks I can't get as standalone files.
I can tolerate password protected files so long as I know the key. Hide the key and I'm gone.

Back in the day I bought DRM-free and LIT.
When Mobi was cracked, I added it to the approved list.
When Fictionwise went away, I switched to Kindle for the few encrypted ebooks I buy.

I don't upload or share except to my mother, whose Kindle is tied to my account anyway, so watermark DRM doesn't bother me. I just want to move my books from device to device as appropriate and/or necessary.

But that is me. I reread with some frequency and I switch toys from time to time.

I can understand that people who do neither can be and very often are quite happy using encrypted DRM systems that are account locked (as opposed to device or app-locked). It is all a matter of being able to use the product in a reasonable fashion without the DRM getting in the way.

For example, I have no problem with the DRM terms for digital downloads on the XBOX 360: hardware-tied to the console you first buy it on (or assign the license to) so anybody can access it on that device *plus* it is also tied to the account of the buyer so it can be used on any device where that account is active, so it can be downloaded and used on other consoles. The combination covers 99.9% of usage scenarios so you rarely if ever notice the content is DRM'ed. Of course, just because I'm comfortable with the terms doesn't mean I don't prefer to buy the disk version whenever the price is comparable.

I don't see it as a "matter of principle"--producers are entitled to make a living--but I won't give money to anybody who gets in the way of my specific needs. It's my money and I won't settle for anything less.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by darryl

My perspective on DRM is similar to Harry's in most respects. I see little point in boycotting it, but I absolutely require that I be able to remove it. It is as simple as that. I already refuse to buy anything from ITunes, no matter how much of a bargain it may be. If Vendors of epub books switch on the new Adobe DRM scheme, I will purchase from Amazon and other Vendors with no DRM or DRM which can be removed. That is, of course, until that new DRM is cracked and the status quo restored. In the unlikely event that all Vendors use DRM which cannot be removed, I will only purchase DRM free ebooks. Anything else that I desperately want to read can wait till it is available in the library, if I can manage to resist the no doubt freely available and plentiful pirate copies which will no doubt be around. I don't expect the situation to arise. The more effective the DRM is, the greater the challenge for some very talented hackers. I have no objections to watermarking provided it is unobtrusive.

I won't touch itunes either. I have different ereaders with different formats but I am lucky in that it's rare I have to buy a book from Amazon or Kobo as the genre I read, MM Romance, is full of small independant publishers and retailers which sell DRM free. AllRomance is my Amazon equivalent.

[Sydney's Mom]

I like buying books from various places. Amazon only has mobi, and most everyone else only has epub. I wouldn't have a problem if there was a way to accomplish format shifting without stripping DRM. That would seem to solve everyone's issue, but of course that would require some cooperation among Amazon and other vendors, and that is not likely to happen soon (bet the Cubs win the World Series first).

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Being able to easily trace a person who pirated (ie "shared") a book seems to me to be an extremely desirable thing.

We've had this discussion not long ago, in a different thread. Sharing (among family and friends) is not the same as pirating at all. Moral arguments aside, the one is legal (details depending upon your place of residence), the other one isn't -- I therefore object to the "i.e."

Being able to trace persons who break the law may be desirable, but on the other hand, here it is part of the increasing traceability of everything we do -- an increase of control, which can easily be abused...