How do you feel about DRM?

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

That's stupid. The music industry has already proven that drm the worst way forward and seems to have largely abandoned it.

Some companies never learn.

They publish dictionaries, but their own does not include evolution.

[jmaejr]

I voted quit whining...there is too much whining about DRM. It's no different than if there is a program on TV...don't like it, don't watch it, don't like drugs, don't do them, don't like DRM, don't buy books that have it...

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

DRM doesn't work to stop piracy of books. DRM will never work to stop piracy of books. DRM can never work to stop piracy of books. The biggest problem in piracy is torrent sites and websites that host pirated materials. In both cases, it is not sufficient to merely stop some cases of piracy (i.e., the casual person who simply wants to send the file to a friend), it is necessary to stop the hard core pirates.

DRM software for books essentially is a cryptographic system where the cypher text, the plain text and the key must all be available to the end user. At most all that remains is for the attacker to reverse engineer the cryptographic system... probably by far the easiest step in breaking a cryptographic system (i.e., in the history of cryptography, finding out what system was used was always the easy part).

But even assuming that the cryptographic system could not be broken, there is nothing to stop the dedicated pirate from scanning the work in question, or even typing it in manually; it may seem like a lot of work, but I bet a skilled typist could type most any novel in less than a week.

Therefore, since DRM will never live up to its stated reason for being, it is evil and should go away.

--
Bill

and if digital already, an automatic page image saver and OCR will be quicker than scanning and of course than typing.

[Solicitous]

I love DRM. I don't know what all the fuss is about, I think it is an absolute brilliant management system. Nothing like buying an ebook, finding you need software installed on your PC...oops I run Linux, best look for a hack or a Windows boxen. Great, now what? Authorise my PC? What do I need to do that for? Ok, NOW my ereader? That needs to be authorised?? Friggin hell.

In all honesty DRM is a crock, but at the end of the day I feel Amazon has the best user-end experience with their DRM system. I liken DRM to locking your front door when you leave of a morning. You may feel secure but if someone really wants to break in they will, locked door or not. Same with DRM, if someone wants to pirate it they will.

[ndixon]

DRM is something I try to avoid. I only buy music in non-DRM formats (CD, MP3) and I'm only comfortable buying Kindle books now that I know there are ways to strip the DRM.

Everything else about the Kindle experience is great, but I avoided buying one until I was sure that DRM-stripping was possible. If Amazon ever updates its DRM scheme so that the current methods don't work any more, I'll stop buying Kindle books altogether.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

... I liken DRM to locking your front door when you leave of a morning. You may feel secure but if someone really wants to break in they will, locked door or not. Same with DRM, if someone wants to pirate it they will.

No, DRM is like having tiny little locks on every book on your bookshelf at home with the requirement to call Amazon (or other) and ask that they kindly remove the lock so you can read the book. After verifying your identity they will allow you to read the book.
I would point out that if the book is in your own home you can remove the little locks at will. No need to call anyone, no need for permission...

[grumbles]

If it has DRM, I remove it. If it has DRM I can't remove I won't buy it. It is just that simple.

As far as the legality of DRM removal -- I just don't care.

[tdonline]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

That's stupid. The music industry has already proven that drm the worst way forward and seems to have largely abandoned it.

Some companies never learn.

Yep. I was slow to take up digital music because in the early stages, iTunes and Apple dominated a small field. I didn't want an iPOd, I didn't want to use iTunes and I didn't want the AAC format. When I bought a MP3 player, I continued to buy CDs and ripped the music to the player (in my preferred format, OGG). When Amazon started selling DRM-free music, I finally started to buy digital music.

The people who want to get around DRM, can and will. The music biz is DRM-free now and yet I don't troll the internet, downloading every song I want. Due to financial constraints, I don't buy music like I used and my music collection has stagnated. I didn't bulk up the collection my downloading freebies whenever I wanted. If I like a song nowadays but not enough to buy it, I listen to it on Youtube.

[Harmon]

I think that DRM is a temporary nuisance, and will ultimately become irrelevant, just as it has in the music industry.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

No, DRM is like having tiny little locks on every book on your bookshelf at home with the requirement to call Amazon (or other) and ask that they kindly remove the lock so you can read the book.

It's worse than that.

Amazon DRM is like having tiny locks on your books, and you can only read the books at a reading table provided by Amazon that has a key attached for the locks on your books. But if you buy another Amazon reading table, you'll also need to ask Amazon to send you another set of your books with locks that match the key attached to your new table. And make very sure you don't try to read a book intended for one reading table at another reading table, as the key there won't unlock the lock.

And if one of your reading tables breaks, all the book for that reading table become useless, and you have to get new copies from Amazon to go with any new Amazon reading table you buy.

And, of course, Amazon books can't be read at a Sony reading table at all.

If it wasn't for a certain apprentice (Alf by name) who can tell you how to remove the locks entirely, I wouldn't be buying any ebooks from Amazon.

[anamardoll]

Pdurrant, I not only approve your post (now, with more karma!), I LOL'd at it.

[Quexos]

An exorcist is needed for DRM cause it's evil, EVIL I say !

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It's worse than that.

Amazon DRM is like having tiny locks on your books, and you can only read the books at a reading table provided by Amazon that has a key attached for the locks on your books. But if you buy another Amazon reading table, you'll also need to ask Amazon to send you another set of your books with locks that match the key attached to your new table. And make very sure you don't try to read a book intended for one reading table at another reading table, as the key there won't unlock the lock.

And if one of your reading tables breaks, all the book for that reading table become useless, and you have to get new copies for Amazon to go with any new Amazon reading table you buy.

And, of course, Amazon books can't be read at a Sony reading table at all.

If it wasn't for a certain apprentice (Alf by name) who can tell you how to remove the locks entirely, I wouldn't be buying any ebooks from Amazon.

I stand corrected! Man, I didn't know I was actually sugar-coating it in my post...

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Amazon DRM is like having tiny locks on your books, and you can only read the books at a reading table provided by Amazon that has a key attached for the locks on your books. But if you buy another Amazon reading table, you'll also need to ask Amazon to send you another set of your books with locks that match the key attached to your new table. And make very sure you don't try to read a book intended for one reading table at another reading table, as the key there won't unlock the lock.

And if one of your reading tables breaks, all the book for that reading table become useless, and you have to get new copies for Amazon to go with any new Amazon reading table you buy.

And, of course, Amazon books can't be read at a Sony reading table at all.

If it wasn't for a certain apprentice (Alf by name) who can tell you how to remove the locks entirely, I wouldn't be buying any ebooks from Amazon.

Interesting. Didn't realize Kindle DRM was that restrictive. At least with Adobe ADEPT, once you've downloaded a book, you just need to get keys for every table but the books you can easily move between tables (even using good ol' Windows Explorer). No need to request a new set of books.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

. . .

If it wasn't for a certain apprentice (Alf by name) who can tell you how to remove the locks entirely, I wouldn't be buying any ebooks from Amazon.

+1 to that. Or for that matter the day Sony. B&N, Kobo, etc. develops a DRM system that Alf or someone else can't provide the means to remove and so make my purchase really mine I will only purchase from sources without DRM. If that means my ratio of paper book to ebook purchases goes way up so be it. I have three different devices, each from a different manufacturer, that I read ebooks on. I insist that I be able to read any book I purchase on any one of my devices.

So I voted for "Some other option not thought of for this poll" as my choice. The missing option I would vote for is "As long as I can remove DRM it does not bother me."