STUDY SHOWS: Ditching DRM could reduce piracy, prices

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by frahse

Doesn't anyone contributing to this thread realize that they are singing into a high wind on the Texas plain? Their words and melody are being swept away by the publishers own studies showing that DRM helps, that it is necessary, and that it is a boon to the industry.. These studies were organized specifically with the intent to cut down on theft. (There I said it plainly - Theft!)

Studies like the one being talked about in this thread are viewed by the Right's Holders as nothing but propaganda that caters to a less than desirable element that the publishing industry has to protect itself from.

The book industry views DRM as financially necessary, and philosophically and morally correct. They are attempting to enforce the Seventh Commandment "Thou shall not steal."

How do you steal something you have bought and paid for?

Who, is paying for a pirated ebook?

What ebook has not been pirated because it was "protected" by DRM?

You are aware, are you not, that once a book is really "Pirated" and made
available to the public, for free, on the internet; it is forever out there and
no DRM on the ebook's sales will change that?

Most books are pirated long before the ebooks with DRM are released.
(In the case of the Harry Potter series, years before.)

DRM is intended to deal with the concept of "casual" sharing/distribution of
copies, by those who purchase the book. Once the novelty wares off, how
often do you think anyone would be willing to supply ebooks to "friends",
who aren't buying their own books, but getting them from you? I know I
tend to reserve the things that I purchase for my own use.

DRM costs money and cannot be shown to be able to prevent what
you are calling theft. Would that not be some kind of fraud in itself?

Luck;
Ken

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's theft. Calling it otherwise hides the real issue.

It's theft of intellectual property.

I disagree. If I steal your intellectual property that means you lose all rights to it because I took them.

If on the other hand I pirate something you have the rights to, I may have stolen that particular royalty payment, but you still own the rights to your work. And because I'm an honest pirate, if you tell me a way to pay you directly, that will guarantee that you get all the money rather than the majority of it going to publishers, ad agencies and other middle men, then I'll pay you. But if most of my payment ends up going to someone other than the person who created the book/song/movie/game, then there's something wrong with that as well.

All of the above is, of course, strictly hypothetical.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

I disagree. If I steal your intellectual property that means you lose all rights to it because I took them.

If on the other hand I pirate something you have the rights to, I may have stolen that particular royalty payment, but you still own the rights to your work. And because I'm an honest pirate, if you tell me a way to pay you directly, that will guarantee that you get all the money rather than the majority of it going to publishers, ad agencies and other middle men, then I'll pay you. But if most of my payment ends up going to someone other than the person who created the book/song/movie/game, then there's something wrong with that as well.

All of the above is, of course, strictly hypothetical.

lol thats kind of why i don't give money to charity. why should i when 90 cents out of every dollar goes to employees and the ceo. however i would give money directly to someone who needed it.

more authors might try what indie game developers do that:hey heres our game for free, pay what you think its worth. of course there would be those who pay nothing but i think a vast majority would give something. you may even end up getting a few bucks from pirates with a guilty conscience.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's theft. Calling it otherwise hides the real issue.

It's theft of intellectual property.

kennyc, you stand alone.

The others have woefully fallen.

"out of their own mouths they condemn themselves"

[OtterBooks]

I only steal paper books. There's no sport in pirating.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's theft. Calling it otherwise hides the real issue.

It's theft of intellectual property.

And the US Supreme Court agrees with you.

[Ken Maltby]

Perhaps, someone who is supporting having DRM on ebooks, can tell me how my buying
ebooks with DRM and then removing the DRM - leaving the ebook without DRM in my
possession - is a theft of some kind. How is the end result any different from my buying
the ebook without DRM, in the first place?

I just bought the first two books in Robin Hobb's "Rain Wilds Chronicles" (hoping its more
like her Farseer series, than the others), how is she or her publishers disadvantaged in
any way? I bought them from B&N, how is my possession of these DRM free copies a
danger to B&N? How does this aid piracy?

Luck;
Ken

[Bittybye]

I never stripped the DRM from a book until recently. I wanted to add a different cover to a book (I don't know why, I just did) and get the chapter navigation that the book didn't have as it was with the DRM.
So if I, I technological dunce can do it, anyone can do it. So saying DRM does anything but offer a mild challenge is either blind, stupid, or utterly ignorant.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

lol thats kind of why i don't give money to charity. why should i when 90 cents out of every dollar goes to employees and the ceo. however i would give money directly to someone who needed it...../..

Please pardon my forthrightness, but that is nonsense.....

First - and admittedly, a humanistic point - even if only 10% went to the intended recipients, it is at least 10% more than they had in the first place, and you could almost certainly afford to give the 90 + 10% anyway - at least you're doing some good.... [An altruistic point, true, but applicable if you really want to help the humanitarian cause concerned.]

Secondly, very few legitimate/reputable charity organisations have anywhere near that ratio of expenses to final "pay-out". In some -usually locally-based concerns- it is the exact opposite.
So, if the ratio upsets you, find charities that have a good balance of expense to donation. It is logical that the larger, more global, operations -like Oxfam, WaterAid, etc..- cost more to operate, but they also get to the most needy.
But if you do give directly to someone who is without, fair enough, it's your preference - but please don't slag off the great number of charities that do an amazing job of maintaining at least my faith in humanity.

We've all - even in these days of "suffering" for us by lowering our expectations - still got a lot more than the most needy in the world.

Rant over....

[carpetmojo]

Forgot to include these as an example......................

Donating to Oxfam
For every £1 you give to Oxfam
Oxfam piechart
83p is spent directly on emergency, development and campaigning work
10p is spent on support and governance
7p is invested to generate future income
Average 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11.

Couldn't get the pie-chart to copy.......

And, Cancer Research :-

How your donations help beat cancer

For every £1 donated, 80 pence is available to spend on our work to beat cancer. We receive no government funding for our research.

We spent £332 million on our annual research activity in 2010/11. In almost every type of cancer, we fund more research than any other organisation in the UK.

All figures from UK cahrities, more if you want them, but I'm sure your charities are similar.

[kennyc]

Can we keep on-topic please.

[TheSFReader]

Is this on-topic ?

(copy of my blog post)
After the happy news of Kindle's arrival in France, I feel a little unease for a few days :

While the choice of some Kindle publishers (self and classical alike) is to not have DRMs, it seems Kindle France applies DRMs ebooks regardless, and in addition, regardless of that choice. This is also true for foreign books. So if some self-publisher, adding the book in the US KDP, decides to have no DRM, it is nonetheless used for the "French" ebook store.

A few self-publishersI know have confirmed having been presented in KDP with the choice of DRM/noDRM, while Bragelonne (one of the major SF/Fantasy classical publisher), opposed to their use told me (Twitter inside) :
"Not us. We provide the files without DRMs. We can't do anything about it, Sorry".
"DRMs at Amazon are not of our initiative, we have no choice with the .azw layer".
"We provide the files without DRMs, after that it's Amazon's cloud that make it encrypted".

From what I've seen, even books published without DRMs through other Kindle platforms (Kindle US for example) are present on the KindleFR store WITH the handcuffs.

What I don't understand is that until now, and on all the national Kindle platforms, Amazon clearly stated regarding its DRM policy, that they don't decide it, but leave it to the publishers to decide. Not only was it clear, but it also WORKED that way. Well, if some publishers want to shoot themselves in the foot, that's their right after all, but here, the DRMs seem to have been applied regardless of the publisher's choice.

Finally, even if Amazon's Help page state that a restriction may be in place, at least some kind of HINT may be better, to show that the books ARE DRM ridden.
It may be possible that the DRM encryption are used systematically, whether the number of devices being limited.
It also may be a simple bug , in which case it may be important to raise it as soon as possible, so that it's corrected and not too many DRMised books are sold.
Lastly, it may be a strategical choice, in which case it's most important to mobilize against Amazon strong-arming DRMs in the French Kindle Store, before perhaps establishing them worldwide.

[DiapDealer]

If the author's and publisher's wishes to sell a DRM-free ebook are being ignored/over-ridden when sold on Amazon France, then yes... that's a big deal that needs to be remedied ASAP.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by frahse

Doesn't anyone contributing to this thread realize that they are singing into a high wind on the Texas plain? Their words and melody are being swept away by the publishers own studies showing that DRM helps, that it is necessary, and that it is a boon to the industry.. These studies were organized specifically with the intent to cut down on theft. (There I said it plainly - Theft!)

You're missing one of the key points to this whole issue- that the only people actually stopped by DRM are honest users trying to do such legal things as make a backup copy in case their reader gets stolen or destroyed. Theft will still happen regardless of how tight a security you put on an ebook, but making a backup copy for your own personal use is definitely not theft.

Studies like the one being talked about in this thread are viewed by the Right's Holders as nothing but propaganda that caters to a less than desirable element that the publishing industry has to protect itself from.

The book industry views DRM as financially necessary, and philosophically and morally correct. They are attempting to enforce the Seventh Commandment "Thou shall not steal."

Sounds more to me like them and their "Rights Holders" are just sore that they've lost the ability to serve as a gatekeeper to publishing. Would some of those "Rights Holders" also be the ones who legally steal copyrights from new authors using abusive Work For Hire contracts that only pay a pittance?

Edit: Now that I think about it, if you're that willing to let big business and these anonymous "Rights Holders" dictate what the people will buy, you're also ignorant of one of the cornerstones of Capitalism- demand. It doesn't matter how much supply of DRM ebooks you have, if people demand non-DRM ones then that's what they'll buy and leave your DRM ebooks rotting on the digital shelf.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Perhaps, someone who is supporting having DRM on ebooks, can tell me how my buying
ebooks with DRM and then removing the DRM - leaving the ebook without DRM in my
possession - is a theft of some kind. How is the end result any different from my buying
the ebook without DRM, in the first place?

Because the only reason you would do that is so you can upload the book to a torrent site. Haven't you followed the debate enough to know that there is no other reason to remove DRM? As the customer, you are a pirate, that's why the DRM has to be there. If you were honest things might be different, but you're not, so the DRM has to be there to keep you from giving the book away or lend it to a friend.

Good god, how did publishers survive when all they sold was paper books and they had no control over what we did with them?

Originally Posted by teh603

You're missing one of the key points to this whole issue- that the only people actually stopped by DRM are honest users trying to do such legal things as make a backup copy in case their reader gets stolen or destroyed. Theft will still happen regardless of how tight a security you put on an ebook, but making a backup copy for your own personal use is definitely not

And on that note, if the DRM on my books prevents me from moving them from my broken 950 to my replacement before sending the broken one back to Sony, I'm going to be pissed.