People who want no DRM are impractical dreamers...

[sufue]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I know I can enjoy anything Baen publishes. Not all of it's going to be my favorites, and there might be the occasional book that hits me just wrong for personal reasons (cf OH JOHN RINGO NO), but I can count on them to produce content of interest to me.

I wish there were a Baen for mysteries...

[guyanonymous]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Two key examples are XBox Live and Valve's Steam. Both systems "phone home" to ensure that the game is a legit copy. If the account is invalid or the game is tampered with (in a manner detectable by the system), the player is typically barred from services such as online play.

And MS has implemented it in a way that frustrated more (PC) users with frustrating interface, ineffective cloud (not saving games properly, losing info etc), and flakey implementation (installs and subsequent running of software often messes up) because they force GFWLive on top of other DRM systems)...

Steam has done it better making it almost seamless in use, including auto-updates that work, a cloud that works, and the ability to 'go offline' and play your single player games without an internet connection (though I really never bother with this myself).

The downside, though - if Steam goes (or you do something that frustrates them), you can lose access to all your games. Though we've seen this is also the case with EA as of late as well.

That's the fatal flaw of DRM - essentially you're just leasing. The provider lock-in for 'managing your rights' or vendor lock-in for hardware can render what you lease unusable as it has done to purchasers of music, books, and movies with DRM in the past.

If software has DRM, it's well identified (usually) in the store page on steam, and the forum discussions make it very obvious quickly. There are a fair number of people (1%? 10?% Nobody knows) who refuse to purchase a game with selected DRM, Securom (sp?) being the most hated. EA and Sony have really done well upsetting people with faulty (ha...they're all faulty in the end) implementations of DRM that actually offend users enough to write petitions, form only activist groups, and launch lawsuits.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well you did answer. But I was looking for "serious, detailed answer" .The mere fact that you would continue to buy their work doesn't fully answer the question of whether writers and publishers can make a good living in a post DRM world. But hey, if that's the best you can do, well, thanks for playing.

You have yet to prove that DRM-free slows sales. You asked how I could "ensure" that authors will continue to make money. It's not a hard answer: I (and many others) will continue to buy their books. Was that so hard to understand? I didn't attack you, I didn't insult you. There's really no reason whatsoever for your tone here. I would appreciate an apology.

Originally Posted by stonetools

The industry insiders blame digital music for the collapse in revenue. This is substantial evidence that offering DRM free music hasn't helped things.

Faced with such data, it is far from clear that going DRM free will lead to a healthy publishing industry. You would have to explain why a similiar collapse in revenue would not happen in the publishing industry, as people got in the habit of sharing bestsellers with all their Facebook friends. Thanks in advance for your response.

Funny, you demand "facts", then present us with biased data that still doesn't prove anything. Digital music != DRM, and digital music causing a "collapse in revenue" still doesn't provide "substantial evidence" that DRM wasn't affecting sales.

Originally Posted by stonetools

And the most popular device? The Amazon Kindle, which has a proprietary format AND the most restrictive DRM. So all of the digerati who profess solicitude for the average user, relax: the average user is OK with DRM.

Buying a Kindle doesn't mean a person is buying Kindle books. And guess what? Amazon tends to (in my region) offer the best price AND the best selection, so yes, I do buy from it despite DRM.

Originally Posted by stonetools

I think DRM is a two edged sword. On one hand, it stops or slows down casual sharing, which is what the publishers are REALLY concerned about.

The publishing industry is against casual sharing?? This is news to me. Please provide data and facts to back this up. Because last I checked, casual sharing drives sales.

May be I'm evil, but as far as DRM goes I'd rather not see the boat rocked at this time. I know how to strip any DRM from any book I obtain and so don't consider it an issue. Leave things as they are, I don't want another newer and harder to crack DRM to come along.

[FF2]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

May be I'm evil, but as far as DRM goes I'd rather not see the boat rocked at this time. I know how to strip any DRM from any book I obtain and so don't consider it an issue. Leave things as they are, I don't want another newer and harder to crack DRM to come along.

+1 (extra characters)

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

May be I'm evil, but as far as DRM goes I'd rather not see the boat rocked at this time. I know how to strip any DRM from any book I obtain and so don't consider it an issue. Leave things as they are, I don't want another newer and harder to crack DRM to come along.

I remember when Microsoft's .LIT format was considered well nigh uncrackable

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by queentess

The publishing industry is against casual sharing?? This is news to me. Please provide data and facts to back this up. Because last I checked, casual sharing drives sales.

The fact that many Big 6 ebooks are locked away from the Kindle & Nook sharing features, as limited and pathetic as they are, says that the publishing industry thinks the ability to share books is bad for them.

Mike Shatzkin asked some questions of publishing industry execs and high-profile agents, and 12 of the 13 agreed ... that DRM’s main benefit is to prevent casual sharing.

Amazon used to claim it was a violation of their TOS to loan your Kindle with books on it to someone else. (They initially said libraries couldn't loan out Kindles, either.) And Fictionwise's TOS says

All eBooks at Fictionwise.com are the exclusive property of the publisher or its licensors and is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. The download of these product(s) is intended for the Fictionwise Member's personal and noncommercial use. Any other use of eBooks downloaded from Fictionwise.com is strictly prohibited. Users may not modify, transmit, publish, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the content of these product(s), in whole or in part.

I think their TOS is unenforceable. I think they're selling, not licensing, and the fact that the button says "ready to buy? add to cart" and the shopping cart says "Buy Item(s)" not "click to license use of this content," along with other aspects of buying, means the TOS isn't valid. But it's very clear that they intend each ebook to be read by only one person, the one who paid them. Can't hand them to someone else, not even on your own device.

The publishing industry is, for the most part, considering ebooks as a market for single-use products, and trying to enforce that concept with clickthrough licenses that don't explain their terms.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

And MS has implemented it in a way that frustrated more (PC) users with frustrating interface, ineffective cloud (not saving games properly, losing info etc), and flakey implementation (installs and subsequent running of software often messes up) because they force GFWLive on top of other DRM systems)...

Steam has done it better making it almost seamless in use, including auto-updates that work, a cloud that works, and the ability to 'go offline' and play your single player games without an internet connection (though I really never bother with this myself).

The downside, though - if Steam goes (or you do something that frustrates them), you can lose access to all your games. Though we've seen this is also the case with EA as of late as well.

That's the fatal flaw of DRM - essentially you're just leasing. The provider lock-in for 'managing your rights' or vendor lock-in for hardware can render what you lease unusable as it has done to purchasers of music, books, and movies with DRM in the past.

If software has DRM, it's well identified (usually) in the store page on steam, and the forum discussions make it very obvious quickly. There are a fair number of people (1%? 10?% Nobody knows) who refuse to purchase a game with selected DRM, Securom (sp?) being the most hated. EA and Sony have really done well upsetting people with faulty (ha...they're all faulty in the end) implementations of DRM that actually offend users enough to write petitions, form only activist groups, and launch lawsuits.

I stopped PC gaming because of DRM. Two games in a row where I couldn't play, due to issues with the DRM. I switched to consoles, because there the DRM is still there but is invisible. You buy disk, you insert disk, you play game. Easy as that.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

I stopped PC gaming because of DRM. Two games in a row where I couldn't play, due to issues with the DRM. I switched to consoles, because there the DRM is still there but is invisible. You buy disk, you insert disk, you play game. Easy as that.

Exactly. At some point the drm just hinders the buyer too much, and said buyer decide he's better off without the game / movie / book / whatever.
Starcraft II tempted me, but the whole battle.net activation. Mmm, no no...
Activation on on-line sales (steam), ok make sense. Though i love the gog.com system better. Download the game, then install whenever and wherever you want.
But buying a game on a CD and the game requires Internet to install ?? Now what. Got myself screw by this with Half Life (cd version), it wouldn't start because of no Internet. (I just moved, and was waiting to get a line running, took about a month...)

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The publishing industry is, for the most part, considering ebooks as a market for single-use products, and trying to enforce that concept with clickthrough licenses that don't explain their terms.

Well, if it's going to be single use, they really need to rethink the agency pricing...

[MasterGame]

It took the music industry about a decade to realize that DRM served no purpose other than to irritate the law-abiding people who actually paid for their music. How long will it take the publishing industry to realize the same thing?

[DiapDealer]

How long will it take the publishing industry to realize the same thing?

I'm guessing they'll figure it out after they're left standing on the dock shouting and crying at their departing ship.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm guessing they'll figure it out after they're left standing on the dock shouting and crying at their departing ship.

ding-ding-ding-ding

apparently...

[Penforhire]

Steam works for me, partly because Valve has a positive track record, but it isn't perfect. I leave my home desktop turned on 24/7. When I fire up my laptop I discover I'm still logged into Steam and it won't let me remotely switch my log-in. I discover that just by trying to start certain games (which are already installed and validated on my laptop, grrr).

[kennyc]

Now the thing I'm wondering what in the publishing world has happened to our intrepid O.P.