DRM is necessary and good, stop complaining

[mores]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

I've got well over 2,000 Secure Mobipocket ebooks. (Okay, I've got over 4,900 DRM'd eReader ebooks as well, but let's take things one step at a time.)

*gulp* dude, what kind of money do you spend on ebooks ?
mobipocket has been around since 2000, so that means you've purchased about 285,7 books per year. average price of an ebook is something around 10 bucks, so you spend 2857 bucks a year just on mobipocket books ? that's 238 dollars A MONTH!

i think i want your job if you can afford that, AND have enough time to read 238 dollars worth of books

[lubberts]

Try a bit torrent search for any of their products.

NB: I can let my friend borrow a p-book and I do not hear any screams form authors or the publishing industry, yet an Ebook causes riots.

To me these two quotes from anti-DRM...advocates (that doesn't sound right...anti-advocate? It's a word now!!) pinpoint the exact problem that publishers and the true owners of the IP are facing. Sure, now you can lend a copy of the book that you own to a friend to read, but you do not have the ability to place the book on your front steps, and let tens of thousands of people copy it overnight for no charge in order to read it whenever they want. That's what these bittorrent and other programs for peer to peer file sharing effectively do. They do not let you loan, or share a book with one or two friends who will eventually probably pay to read the second installment, they are not designed to allow you to share a book with only the members of your family. They are designed PURELY for the purpose of giving whole and complete copies of said content to TONS of people.
With a Pbook, even if you shared the book with your whole family...of ten, and then said book was sold to a used book store, and then re-purchased and shared with a whole other family of ten, and so on 5 times (we all know that is very unlikely) then you have only allowed 49 other brains to digest that content without rewarding the person who created it. Forget the "who gets how much of each book sale" argument for the moment, because obviously they get enough (or just enough) to live and continue creating. Say in total that creator has a base audience of 1 million people who would like to read their book at the time that it is released. That means in pbook terms they will still be making 20,000 sales of that book, if every situation followed that un-likely model.
Now for that same situation lets assume that on bittorent the one legally paid for book is able to reach 100 people, a very meager estimate, and the same 1 million people want to read the book. Just in terms of accessability that means the difference of HALF the sales!! HALF!! imagine if your income was cut in half tommorow. Would you still be able to thirve? I wouldn't!! I'd have to change my line of work, and in the world of books, that means one less author. Now imagine that that author is the author that you most enjoy. The one you'd consider the diamond in the rough, not a ny times best seller, but someone you enjoy nonetheless. By getting rid of DRM you would allow the craptastic people of the world to deprive you of many more creations by your favorite author!!
And OK OK, I hear your argument about not wanting to be treated like a thief, but the very existence and proliferation of sites like the pirate bay and bittorent prove that while you may be the citizen to return the wallet full of hundreds when you happen upon it, most would not. Those people would be the ones to drive one of your favorite authors out of business, all because you could not stomach a bit of DRM...? isn't that like letting the poopers of society win? Be the example, and hopefully others will follow, and your shining example of law abidingness will lead all the rest of the masses to the light also.
Right. I'll hold my breath.

On another note, no one has really mentioned that the very pbooks that sit on your shelves also contain DRM. Granted it is much more easily "cracked" with the widespread availability of scanners and copiers this day and age, but you are limited by the format. There is no "right click copy" function or "copy and paste" function on that book.

computer almost out of battery, would like to proofread, but I'm too longwinded. Please, Argue with me!!

[hidari]

I have to say you bring up some good arguments. I think some form of DRM has some justification. But, Telling people that your salary or royalties will be cut in half will not garner much sympathy; especially, From the "Best Selling Author" crowd in their McMansions. It reminds me of Morgan Freeman, Prince and Metallica complaining about pirating of their works as they sit in million dollar mansions and drive BMWs down the street. All that does is get people more pissed off at these artists. I would have far more sympathy with a new writer and kindly buy his book at full price then to buy than some of the best seller drivel that seems to be ubiquitous on amazon and ebook sites.

130 years ago the circus was a major form of entertainment for Europe and much of the world. The coming of Film and TV in the years that followed forced people to change jobs. If that happens to some writers out there, Then, so be it. Quite a few good writers had other careers as they wrote their books. The Golden age of Oil allows Authors in Developed countries to live a life of leisure and write as they wish. I doubt the same could be said for an author from Uzbekistan or The Congo.

Originally Posted by lubberts

To me these two quotes from anti-DRM...advocates (that doesn't sound right...anti-advocate? It's a word now!!) pinpoint the exact problem that publishers and the true owners of the IP are facing.. Just in terms of accessability that means the difference of HALF the sales!! HALF!! imagine if your income was cut in half tommorow. Would you still be able to thirve? I wouldn't!! I'd have to change my line of work, and in the world of books, that means one less author. Now imagine that that author is the author that you most enjoy. The one you'd consider the diamond in the rough, not a ny times best seller, but someone you enjoy nonetheless. By getting rid of DRM you would allow the craptastic people of the world to deprive you of many more creations by your favorite author!!
And OK OK, I hear your argument about not wanting to be treated like a thief, but the very existence and proliferation of sites like the pirate bay and bittorent prove that while you may be the citizen to return the wallet full of hundreds when you happen upon it, most would not. Those people would be the ones to drive one of your favorite authors out of business, all because you could not stomach a bit of DRM...?
computer almost out of battery, would like to proofread, but I'm too longwinded. Please, Argue with me!!

[micomicon]

JohnClif, thank you for engaging us in this discussion -- this is an important topic, and I for one am glad you are here to represent your POV.

Originally Posted by JohnClif

It's not about throttling the new medium, it's about ensuring that authors get paid at least as much under the new system as they did the old system.

This is, by definition, what I mean by "maintaining the status quo". A rhetorical sentence to illustrate the silliness: "It's not about throttling the new method of transportation, it's about ensuring horse-carriage manufacturers get paid at least as much under the new system as they did the old system."

Why must the new system ensure this?

What it also may do is remove the incentive for those people.

Yes, it may do that. OTOH, it may also create incentives for a myriad others, who would never have seriously thought about publishing, or who the old system would have shunned, to do so.

It may turn out that there are brilliant new business models to be explored that create much greater incentives for authors. But it will be hard to find out if we are having artificial restrictions placed on the medium in order to maintain the old business model.

To illustrate: imagine a world in which books carry advertising. (A sacrilege, I know; please bare with me.) Authors are compensated by the amount of times their works are read, not by copy sold. In this scenario, it is in the author's best interest to have as many copies out in the world, regardless of whether they are paid for or not. This is a model that is clearly hurt by the current situation, in which all the devices employ a different proprietary format, and in which the copying of books is actively discouraged.

FWIW, I much prefer the current business model -- I'd hate to have ads peppered through my reading. The point is that DRM limitations are a way of imposing the old business model on a medium that offers very different challenges and opportunities. Ebooks are being hurt by the complexity imposed by DRM and are probably not going to be a big market until this complexity goes away.

What makes capitalism work over pure socialism/communism is the ability for people to be compensated in proportion to the quality and quantity of work they produce as judged by the market.

It's interesting that you should mention this. I happen to think that in this case, DRM represents the totalitarian end of the spectrum; imposing artificial limitations on markets is a hallmark of totalitarian forms of government. Think, what side of this argument would Thomas Jefferson advocate?

The crux of the problem is that -- to use a tired, old metaphor -- authors have been selling bottles, not wine. Now we get to find out what the market is willing to pay for the wine itself, sans bottles.

Microsoft

I'm not gonna go near this... suffice it to say this company is not a model of "fairness", by any definition of the word, and an example of the dangers of monopolistic platform control to free markets.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by hidari

It reminds me of Morgan Freeman, Prince and Metallica complaining about pirating of their works as they sit in million dollar mansions and drive BMWs down the street. All that does is get people more pissed off at these artists.

In a free-market economy, though, anyone has the right to offer their product for sale at any price that they wish. Your choice, as a consumer, is to decide whether or not to buy it at that price. You certainly don't have any right, either legal or moral, to say "they're charging too much for it, so I'm going to steal it". That's no different whether the product is being sold by a millionaire or a pauper.

At the end of the day it's the market which will determine what a fair price is. If the price is too high, sales will be poor, and the seller will have to reduce their prices to remain competitive.

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Baen exists in a small niche. I am not convinced their model would survive Joe Public exposure once e-readers are common.

I was thinking of writing a small article on it, but couldn't find the time, so I'll just summarize here quickly.
There is a new Russian company, LitRes, which recently opened an e-book shop (http://www.litres.ru/). It has some pretty remarkable features:

• All books have no DRM, and are available in the following formats: fb2.zip, rtf.zip, html.zip, txt.zip, doc, prc.zip, rb, java.
• Any book can be read completely online, for free (with weak copy/paste protection and some ads). Authors still get compensated.
• Average price for a 700KB book is 25 roubles (around $1)
• Currently 1922 books are available. The main slowdown is not the number of texts available in e-form, but having to settle contracts with every author (majority of contracts are signed directly with authors, not publishers).
• Several authors have their complete bibliography available.
• Reportedly, authors get a 30% royalty
• Selected authors can be "rewarded" by sending an arbitrary sum directly to them
• Books can be offered for free, if desired so by the author
• A lot of content on the site comes from the major "pirate" online libraries (now owned by LitRes), where content was scanned and OCRed by volunteers. Many major contributors now work in LitRes (and some are actually founders).
• Whenever possible, LitRes offers "master" text from the author/publisher. If not, it is scanned, OCRed and proofed from hardcopy. Because they were doing it for years, LitRes employees are professionals in this, and the book texts have not many errors.
• The "pirate" libraries still offer many works for download (over 30000 in total), when the rights are not yet settled with LitRes and the author/publisher did not request a takedown. New works are added every day.
• It's still very easy to find about any book for free, either on one of the less known online libraries or in big torrent collections with complete archives of the "big" libraties. Only the worst offenders, which try to ignore takedown requests, are pursued by LitRes.

[PHugger]

Originally Posted by JohnClif

I don't think it's unreasonable or immoral to expect the purchaser to respect the purchase agreement, i.e., don't distribute copies of the ebook to people who haven't paid for it.

I completely agree - I draw a line between honest legitimate customers and pirates. I firmly believe that one should be cultivated and the other plucked like a weed. Current DRM technology is too burdensome for the legitimate customers, while it's target -the pirates, dance around it. It's like firing a shotgun into a flock of birds in order to kill the bat that flies with them. This is a technical problem and the current easy solutions aren't working.

I guess I'm advocating DRM that stops piracy and still treats me like an honest customer.



PCH

[PHugger]

Originally Posted by igorsk

There is a new Russian company, LitRes, which recently opened an e-book shop (http://www.litres.ru/). It has some pretty remarkable features.....

ALLOFMP3 for books? Sad thing is that people will likely fall for this as the publishing lobby isn't as strong as the RIAA.




PCH

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by PHugger

ALLOFMP3 for books? Sad thing is that people will likely fall for this as the publishing lobby isn't as strong as the RIAA.

"Sad thing", "fall for this"? I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate?

[HappyMartin]

I dont get the argument about drm being so very inconvenient nor the outrage about being treated like a thief.

Say you decide at 3 a.m. that you would like a new T.V. You wonder off to the shops to buy one but the shops are locked. Why do they not simply stay open all nite and you can just leave the money for what you want on the counter. Take the tv and off you go. Perhaps you would pay and are not a thief but the shop is locked to prevent the thieves from taking the tv. This is not treating you like a thief, it is trying to protect property from being stolen.

I don't feel like a thief when I see a locked door or scanners at shop exits. I don't feel like a terrorist when negotiating the hell that is current airport security.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by JohnClif

Those who are against DRM have yet to answer how they would ensure that authors/publishers get compensated fairly without it. And, 'fairly' means they get paid according to their terms, not yours. The customer's choice is to buy or not buy, not rip off the author/publisher because they disagree with the price.

This shows the big misunderstanding about drm. How does drm ensures that authors/publishers get compensated fairly?? Sell something reasonably popular or with a cult following and with all drm in the world (and for that matter without doing an e-version) it is going to find its way on the net quite fast.

Sell something obscure and drm or not it does not matter, most likely nobody is going to bother uploading it or reading it for that matter.

To me the crux of the matter is not drm, but how the money will come with e-content, and I agree that it is a tricky issue, with no clear answers right now.

[andyafro]

I believes it's wrong the way DRM linits your choices. ok copyright is good but once you have purchased your book or music it should be yours to do with what you want.

There should be a program that allows a person to use what they have bought with any device as long as it can be proved they have bought it.

The problem is the tecnology is moving faster then they music industry or the ebook one. This is what happened when people started sharing music over the net it became not about what you could find but what you couldn't find but wanted.

This is the same with the ebook industry people are starting to take notice but there's not enough books out there. you see a book you want but you can't find it anywhere other then on some torrent site or other websites, all you wanted to do was read that book (same as listen to that song you have not heard in ages thats not in the shop anymore)
but you being branded a criminal for finding it even though its not been made available.

And what happens when that file format is not longer available like your bbeb files you get from sony connect, they useless when the format is finished but the fact is you paided for them isn't that in it's self fraud (the book is yours till we decide you can have it) to me i would rather get it in ms reader format and break it into html that way i have a copy of a book i paided for and is rightly mine.

I say let go of the DRM and let trusted websites and buisiness run and regulate themselves and concetrate on shutting down the websites that don't.

Fact is you can put as much DRM on something as u want but you gonna lose cos someone will break it eventually and it has to be that way because at the moment it's not fair.

Maybe and special hard drive would be good a portable one that only lets your books on it, as long as they on this drive they can be used as you please. off the hard drive they would have restrictions. that way its with you plus if books had a watermark (like mentioned in earlier post) these books could be tracked back to you making you reponsible for your copy. With out the need for DRM. i mean your ebook reader must come with a code that registers when you buy a book like on connect.

It's time for something new because the music industry history has shown that drm doesnt work. people will find a way to get what they want.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by andyafro

I believes it's wrong the way DRM linits your choices. ok copyright is good but once you have purchased your book or music it should be yours to do with what you want.

But what happens when what you want to do is to give copies of it to all your friends, or post it on a bittorrent site for 10,000 other people to download? You can understand, surely, that most publishers are going to want to try and take steps to prevent people from doing that?

We need to find the right balance between the rights of the consumer and the rights of the producer.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But what happens when what you want to do is to give copies of it to all your friends, or post it on a bittorrent site for 10,000 other people to download? You can understand, surely, that most publishers are going to want to try and take steps to prevent people from doing that?

We need to find the right balance between the rights of the consumer and the rights of the producer.

Again the question is how drm stops content being shared on bit-torrent or whenever?? If you are someone who does that, what stops you from getting a drm-free copy and sharing it (for anything popular despite any and all drm there will be someone who will get that on the Net).

If you do not want to bother or you do not know how to get that drm-free copy why would you rush and upload your drm-free copy ??

This argument that drm stops the casual user from sharing is flawed because I do not think that there is anyone who is able to upload his drm-free content and not able to find a drm-free of said content if available. So the argument would hold water only if you could prove that having drm content leads to no copy anywhere on the Net. Experience shows that to be false, the determinant for Net availability being popularity/cult following, not lack of drm...

Drm just annoys people, adds to cost and complexity, and detracts from real issues like how to ensure a decent revenue stream to content creators/enablers from digital content.

[micomicon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But what happens when what you want to do is to give copies of it to all your friends, or post it on a bittorrent site for 10,000 other people to download?

What is preventing unscrupulous users from doing this now? Why are we still buying books if DRM can be (and has been) removed from particular ebooks? I suspect there must be tens of thousands of books out in the darknet, readily available for downloading. Yet here we are, still buying books. Why?

Two answers come to mind:

1. Convenience - it's much easier/faster to obtain ebooks via legit channels, even with the inconvenience of having to deal with multiple formats and DRM.
2. Ethics - most people are not criminals; they understand that authors need to be remunerated for their work. Many (I would think most) of us believe in the importance of adhering to a social compact.

Originally Posted by igorsk

"Sad thing", "fall for this"? I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate?

igorsk, if I understood correctly the way this site works, it is engaging in criminal behavior by not respecting copyright law. It seems the equivalent of darknet, except that it's charging customers for stolen goods.