Are there any studies PROVING that DRM works?

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

The content publishers are always repackaging old wine in new bottles.

This is quite true, they are always repackaging, the difference is that you can at least migrate them yourself if you wanted without incurring legal grey waters by using a DRM stripping system.

I should personally be biased for DRM, after all I'm a software developer (commercial and Open), electronics designer/manufacturer and now also a publisher (in-house, not generic titles) but I think that part of my brain never developed

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

I will venture to say that DRM does work on specific platforms, namely anything tied to iTunes and iBooks. Without a crack, all readers are forced to either legitimately buy the book, or steal it from an alternative source.

There is always a third "forced" alternative: To Not Buy. Phrasing it as if you must have the ebook is leading the issue... you don't need the book. Therefore you have no justification for getting it in any form but a legal one.

[Worldwalker]

The issue is the definition of "a legal one". According to you, that's re-buying content you already own because the publisher decided to charge you for it a second time. According to a lot of people, buying it once should be sufficient, and they should be able to keep on using it.

For example, the transition in musical formats: the reason people bought new music instead of, say, copying their vinyl records to tape, was they were getting something, usually better sound quality. They had something they didn't have before. In the case of an ebook, however, they're not getting anything they didn't have before. They're being charged to continue doing something they were already doing, and for a "service" (format shifting) that, if the publisher had not added forced controls to the book, they could and would routinely do themselves.

Take my cassettes: I have some cassettes that are, absent eBay searches, quite literally irreplaceable. The publisher is decades out of business and the cassettes (and the songs on them) have never been released in any other form. I'd buy CDs of that music in an instant, but they don't exist. At least one of the artists is dead. According to the publishers' shills, I should simply accept that those tapes are going to wear out or break, and expect that in a few years, I won't be able to listen to the music anymore. Things like that are why I think said shills should be stranded for life on desert islands (one per) with nothing to listen to but "The Barney Song". The tapes are MP3s now, and even if the physical cassettes die, I can keep on listening to the music I paid for -- which, by the way, the "license" is always careful to emphasize is distinct from the physical medium. I would rather have bought up-to-date CDs that didn't sound like transfers of decades-old cassettes, but without having that option, I had to do what worked. And the shills who just want me to throw out the aging tapes can collectively go hang.

It's the same with ebooks. If I bought an ebook for Reader A, and then a couple of years later switched to Reader B, and the publisher was required to do nothing to support that change, then the publisher should not be charging for that change. "You have to pay us again if you want to read the book you already have on your new reader, even though it's still the same book, and your old reader is in the junk" works great for publishers. It works great for publishers' shills. But it doesn't work great for human beings, who know intuitively that they're getting ripped.

And as for some of the loaded language here ... "steal" isn't enough anymore; we had "burglarize" up a way ... that makes it easy to spot who's a shill, or acting as one. "Burglarize" has a very specific meaning, namely to enter a building and convert an object to the burglar's own use, thereby taking it away from its legitimate owner. Illicit copying of ebooks does not involve entering anything. Nor does it take those books away from their legitimate owners. If your building is unentered and your ebooks are still yours, you haven't been burglarized. Copying of ebooks is, in most jurisdictions, illegal. In many, driven by the publishing industry, it's more illegal that acts which harm individuals -- corporations, apparently, are more important than citizens. But it isn't stealing -- that has a definition, and copies that don't take away the original aren't it. And it certainly isn't burglary. Trying to pretend that it is either just muddies the waters, and just makes people think that the whole thing is ridiculous, which in turn means that at least some of them will chuck out baby, bathwater, and tub, and just go to the darknet for their ebooks rather than support the people who say that letting their mother read a book is "burglary".

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

BD audio.

What's BD audio? I was under the impression all sound on a Blu-ray movie was encoded with one of several Doby codecs. I have not yet seen a Blu-ray which is solely music.

[LCF]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

There is always a third "forced" alternative: To Not Buy. Phrasing it as if you must have the ebook is leading the issue... you don't need the book. Therefore you have no justification for getting it in any form but a legal one.

This alternative is not realistic. It's based on sacrificing your own well being for the favor of some publishing house. I, personally, don't see the point.

Edit: Post is blurry and probably misinterpreting Steve Lyle Jordan's words. Investigation is running as you read this. Might run for a *very* long time, so please ignore the post

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by LCF

This alternative is not realistic. It's based on sacrificing your own well being for the favor of some publishing house. I, personally, don't see the point.

Actually, it is very realistic. You can always buy it in p-book form. If not in print or you do not wish to pay full price, you can usually find it in the used market. It is so very rarely one cannot find a legal alternative to buying a DRM free book, cannot see it being that big of a sacrifice.

I do not buy books with DRM. Period. If I can't get the e-book DRM free, I buy the paper version, chop off the spine, and scan it. Reading the resulting image only PDF may involve some compromises, but nothing I haven't found to be as unacceptable as buying DRM restricted books.

[LCF]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Actually, it is very realistic. You can always buy it in p-book form. If not in print or you do not wish to pay full price, you can usually find it in the used market. It is so very rarely one cannot find a legal alternative to buying a DRM free book, cannot see it being that big of a sacrifice.

I do not buy books with DRM. Period. If I can't get the e-book DRM free, I buy the paper version, chop off the spine, and scan it. Reading the resulting image only PDF may involve some compromises, but nothing I haven't found to be as unacceptable as buying DRM restricted books.

Yes, of course. I meant buying DRM books.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

...

If I can't get the e-book DRM free, I buy the paper version, chop off the spine, and scan it. ...

Isn't that illegal?

[Freeshadow]

may depend on the jurisdiction, but AFAIK no since a pbook has no "copy protection countermeasures" you 'd need to break. (as long as you keep a proof you used your pbook for (say always keep front cover + pages n n+x n+y) somewhere in a box you should be on the safe side.

apart from that - at least in germany royalty agencies are charging a slice of prizes paid for blank media, printers, cdwriters et ct.
therefore they concludently state by this chsarging that copying without drm removal done for private purposes falls under fair use. anything else would mean they were not entitled to charge what they do.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by LCF

This alternative is not realistic. It's based on sacrificing your own well being for the favor of some publishing house. I, personally, don't see the point.

Sure it is. I've never bought a DRM-restricted ebook, and I have no shortage of books to read. I buy DRM-free ebooks, or I download DRM-free public domain books (many of them from right here in MobileRead), or I read pbooks, which might be new, or used, or from libraries. I've felt no hardship from not rushing right out to pay publishers' inflated ebook prices for the latest best-sellers.

In short, my well-being is just fine, and the publishing houses can go hang.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by John F

Isn't that illegal?

It isn't where I live (USA). Circumventing DRM is illegal but books do not have DRM so doing a media shift (which differs from copying in that the original gets destroyed) is not illegal. I thought about keeping the covers and a page or two but since the reason for my scanning all my p-books is to get rid of the need for physical storage, I decided against it. The chances of any law enforcement agency questioning me about the source of my "e-books" is somewhere between fat and slim. It's also pretty obvious that the books were destroyed in the scanning process. Besides, in this country (with the exception of the IRS ) the burden of proof would be on the government to prove I had illegally copied the books with actually owning them, something they would be unable to do since I didn't.

[Fat Abe]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

What's BD audio? I was under the impression all sound on a Blu-ray movie was encoded with one of several Doby codecs. I have not yet seen a Blu-ray which is solely music.

http://www.amazon.com/Neil-Young-Arc...7542085&sr=8-1

Expensive and only meant for the die hard fan. Some discs are essentially sound only, with still photos. Audio is reputed to be 24-bit/192 Khz stereo PCM. (Due to the vintage of some of the material, I tend to doubt that the concerts were digitally recorded at the stated resolution and sampling rate). I own the box set, but got bored after listening to one disc. Mr. Young's music is best experienced in a live concert. God bless him for carrying on.

[LCF]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Sure it is. I've never bought a DRM-restricted ebook, and I have no shortage of books to read. I buy DRM-free ebooks, or I download DRM-free public domain books (many of them from right here in MobileRead), or I read pbooks, which might be new, or used, or from libraries. I've felt no hardship from not rushing right out to pay publishers' inflated ebook prices for the latest best-sellers.

In short, my well-being is just fine, and the publishing houses can go hang.

This is the second response in this direction, so I guess I've missed the point of Steven Lyle Jordan's alternative. Either that, or I didn't state my point of view clear enough. Either way, it might be better if you just ignore my first post in this thread.

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Audio is reputed to be 24-bit/192 Khz stereo PCM.

Wow, 18 bits for the audio and 6 bits of noise Compared to the current crop of amplifiers we're going to need the new ones go to at least 14 on the dial

yes, I'm being a bit silly... just that I do a lot of electronics, of which dealing with 24-bit ADC samples is fairly common, except you usually throw away anything more than the 18th bit unless you're in a very nice controlled environment.

I suppose to be fair 24-bit was a natural progression from 16 for modular design reasons.

I wonder if the audio studios are going to start destroying the dynamic-range on this new format too :roll eyes:

Paul.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

http://www.amazon.com/Neil-Young-Arc...7542085&sr=8-1

Expensive and only meant for the die hard fan. Some discs are essentially sound only, with still photos. Audio is reputed to be 24-bit/192 Khz stereo PCM. (Due to the vintage of some of the material, I tend to doubt that the concerts were digitally recorded at the stated resolution and sampling rate). I own the box set, but got bored after listening to one disc. Mr. Young's music is best experienced in a live concert. God bless him for carrying on.

Don't blame me for this quote, I love Neil Young's music, and I apologize in advance for having already posted this in the past to MR, but a local DJ whose name I no longer recall once said that Neil Young needs Hi-Fi like van Gogh needed stereo.