Why DRM is a lie

[Bob Russell]

TeleRead is commenting on article from the Register. Apparently, the author of that article "has a beautifully concise explanation of why DRM would fail in a free market: it costs more, but delivers less."

I'm not ready to jump on the DRM is evil bandwagon quite yet, but I think it has been used so heavy-handedly, and so intrusively, and even so deceptively (such as for content people think is theirs, but turns out to be non-permanent) that it's a real problem. It's holding back a lot of revenue streams for content providers as well as technological advancement of digital content in all forms. Including mobile technology, of course.

I'd be happy to launch my own full-scale rant about DRM, but apparently that article has plenty.

[Jorgen]

I'm not ready to jump on the DRM is evil bandwagon quite yet,

Why not? It will prevent you from reading the book you have bought unless you buy hardware supported by the company that added DRM to the book. If they sold you the book for, say, $1 it would be a different matter. But at the prices we pay for ebooks, DRM is evil.

Jorgen

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by Jorgen

If they sold you the book for, say, $1 it would be a different matter. But at the prices we pay for ebooks, DRM is evil.

I never got into e-books exactly because of the ridiculous prices. Half the price + DRM would be reasonable. I don't care about permanent ownership, because I never read a book more than once.

[rmeister0]

The big problem with most DRM schemes I've seen is their draconian implementation. Tying the content to a specific piece of machinery is a bad idea. Tying the content to only one piece of software is a bad idea. (Gemstar?)

After all, the machine didn't buy the content, and neither did the software. A human being bought the content.

Scott McNealy once talked about the undisclosed cost of a system purchase: the cost of getting out. I can get my iTunes purchases out of the iTunes/iPod ecosystem simply by burning a CD of my purchase. Palm's eReader has the best DRM system in terms of tying to the person and not hardware, but I do not yet know of a good exit strategy to get Palm Reader content out of the Palm system should the day come that Motrocity shuts down.

[Bob Russell]

Originally Posted by rmeister0

Scott McNealy once talked about the undisclosed cost of a system purchase: the cost of getting out. I can get my iTunes purchases out of the iTunes/iPod ecosystem simply by burning a CD of my purchase. Palm's eReader has the best DRM system in terms of tying to the person and not hardware, but I do not yet know of a good exit strategy to get Palm Reader content out of the Palm system should the day come that Motrocity shuts down.

Very good point. Unfortunately, the bias will always be towards lock-in. Vendors always prefer to be able to charge for the same things over and over, or at least make it hard for you to switch to another vendor. That's a bias that will always be there.

The good news is that overwhelming customer opinion (when they vote with their dollars), and with the help of lawmakers, plus some good open alternatives might save the day. It's a longshot, but we'll see. Especially after the first big waves of mainstream users runs into problems keeping their content when they go to other devices.