Help with ebook protection, thanks

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well said, Hitch. I completely agree with you.

Thanks, Harry.

As I said, wish I hadn't formed the opinion the hard way.

Hitch

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Thanks, Harry.

As I said, wish I hadn't formed the opinion the hard way.

Hitch

No, the trusted method of getting it from your friends down the pub is much preferred.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by gmw

No, the trusted method of getting it from your friends down the pub is much preferred.

LOL, indeed!

Hitch

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by saoir

She needs to invest more emotional time in the project and less in worrying about what might happen. The possibility of piracy and the 'possible' effect is grossly exaggerated.

I found this comment both pertinent and enlightening.

I copied it to my HD, thanks.

[varlog]

Originally Posted by Hitch

{sigh}.
People attribute NO value to digital products. They think it's okay to just take it and go. I would have been one of those arguing, before I started this business, that DRM was just SILLY. Now, I know better. The whole "oh, I want to read my books on my ninety-bajillion devices, and this inconveniences me" is just complaining; real geeky e-readers with multiple devices just get rid of DRM when they want. It's the other 99.99% of ebook readers that need DRM as a deterrent. Sadly, the public just isn't that honest. It's been a shocking revelation to me, and I'm sorry I know it. I wish I could have continued to happily trip through life thinking that the average person is honest. In a horrifyingly large percentage, they're not.

</rant>

Hitch

not my forum really...
but...
i think anyone depending on pay from individuals can well understand you feelings, but I think you mix two things into one. One is casual theft, other is stealing. As a professional you have a person to person contract with your client. If your contract says "I'll do the job, pay me if you will" you are attracting thiefs. You tell takers "Take me". The takers will come and steal from you!
By casual theft there is no contract, there is just opportunity: it is lying there, you can take it or leave it. The casuals come. The question is: would they pay for (or even look at ) it if it was not casually available? I think no.
As I see it the book readers have no choice: once they have they realized they love it, they have to acknowledge it (to 99%, there are always some f exceptions) with money. I'm even paying Brandon Sanderson because I've casually read Robert Jordan... well, Harriet is still there... The casuals become readers or vanish into no consequence.
So - no DRM! because it is only nuisance. Can you imagine what I have to do to bay "Skin Game" on my Linux system?. Casual theft would be much easier really! But then it would be stealing! Which book readers don't do if it is possible.

[ApK]

While I can see that DRM may indeed stop SOME casual sharing, I think it stops far less than you think. It does not stop the set of eBook shoppers who don't mess with DRM stripping. It only stops the subset of them who, one, have the means and motive to share files, that is, the have the tech ability to share files and a circle of friends capable of using them, and two, have no one in their circle capable of stripping DRM for them. I think that is actually a very small subset. I personally know not a single member of it.

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by Hitch

{sigh}.

Unless you're really seriously dedicated, you're not going to stand at a copier and make 50,000 copies of your paperback. You can lend it out, during which you can't read it, or not. It's a single-user item. The same isn't true for ebooks.



The very same thing that caused software to develop "licenses" back in the day, in the 80's. People don't give two seconds' thought to "casual theft," e.g., making a copy of a book they like for Susie, who likes it and makes a copy for Janie, and so on and so forth. (The "Lotus 1-2-3" saga). This type of theft, by people who don't think of what they are doing as theft, is put off by DRM. Not the "pirate" who puts a book up on PirateBay, one of Dotcomm's sites, etc.--the casual thief who doesn't give two thoughts to the author who wrote it or the publisher who published it.

There is a difference between sharing a book to 50 000 people or with friends. Especially since you can do it with paper books. Since books can be bought in physical and digital form, discrepancies are obvious for me. And what I see as a customer is that I have far fewer rights if I go digital. Paper books are very often read by more than one person. They can be given away etc. There was a day, when it was accepted that a book is readby 1-4 people on average. Now that would be argued as a "loss" by publishers. Who would buy a book a second time, so that another family member could read it?

I understand why some people want drm. What I do not accept is the way it is done. It seems to just take rights away from customers.

[gmw]

I don't think we need to repeat the whole 100 page discussion on DRM here. A quick search of MobileRead will quickly reveal enough to sate most people's desire for such an inconclusive mess. (There's even one that I started! )

DRM comes in many forms, some more intrusive than others. As self-published authors we have choices. Like most other facets of self-publishing, this requires some self-education. We must read what is actually on offer and make our own choices as best suits our own work and our own natures.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well said, Hitch. I completely agree with you.

Me to!

Helen

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by varlog

not my forum really...
but...
i think anyone depending on pay from individuals can well understand you feelings, but I think you mix two things into one. One is casual theft, other is stealing. As a professional you have a person to person contract with your client. If your contract says "I'll do the job, pay me if you will" you are attracting thiefs. You tell takers "Take me". The takers will come and steal from you!
By casual theft there is no contract, there is just opportunity: it is lying there, you can take it or leave it. The casuals come. The question is: would they pay for (or even look at ) it if it was not casually available? I think no.
As I see it the book readers have no choice: once they have they realized they love it, they have to acknowledge it (to 99%, there are always some f exceptions) with money. I'm even paying Brandon Sanderson because I've casually read Robert Jordan... well, Harriet is still there... The casuals become readers or vanish into no consequence.
So - no DRM! because it is only nuisance. Can you imagine what I have to do to bay "Skin Game" on my Linux system?. Casual theft would be much easier really! But then it would be stealing! Which book readers don't do if it is possible.

Is casual theft not stealing? And is putting an unprotected product out, whether it is electronic or a physical item saying take me?

If 99% of people would have no choice but to pay for what they could get dishonestly, we would have no locks, no electronic surveillance, no bar coded items or those plastic things they put on cloths to prevent you from just walking out the door with them. No car alarms or burglar alarms, or insurance to pay. It should be that way, but it seems to me that it isn't that way.

I agree that the majority of people are honest, but if 99% were we would not need so many police. And even the possibly 60% who are as honest as they know how to be, do the oddest things. Basically upright citizens changing the eggs in an egg carton so they can get extra large for the price of small in the Safeway. What is up with that, they save a few cents but are actually penalizing the person who buys the small eggs that have been switched, plus costing the store and egg producer goodwill.

And there are a lot of book readers in maximum security institutions, and libraries and B&M bookstores have barcode security systems on their books and have had for a long time? Why is that I wonder?

Literacy has no correlation to dishonesty AFAIK.

Helen

[cromag]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

... Basically upright citizens changing the eggs in an egg carton so they can get extra large for the price of small in the Safeway. What is up with that, they save a few cents but are actually penalizing the person who buys the small eggs that have been switched, plus costing the store and egg producer goodwill.
...
Helen

Hey! I was just making sure I got 12 unbroken eggs! They were the same size ... honest!

[varlog]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Is casual theft not stealing? And is putting an unprotected product out, whether it is electronic or a physical item saying take me?

...

Helen

{sigh} really not my forum...

Of course casual theft is still theft. I was trying to say something different.
Just tree points and I'm out.

1. DRM is not preventing (not)/casual theft. All the books are already there on the Net, stripped of DRM and shouting "take me".
2. If you somehow prevent one exchanging one's eggs from S to L, being the person one is, one will surly find some other way to get one's bargain, because that's one's way!
3. If it is easier to replace S eggs with L eggs than just buy L eggs then even an honest person would be tempted.

and still there is that:

Hey! I was just making sure I got 12 unbroken eggs! They were the same size ... honest!

out

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by varlog

{sigh} really not my forum...

Of course casual theft is still theft. I was trying to say something different.
Just tree points and I'm out.

1. DRM is not preventing (not)/casual theft. All the books are already there on the Net, stripped of DRM and shouting "take me".
2. If you somehow prevent one exchanging one's eggs from S to L, being the person one is, one will surly find some other way to get one's bargain, because that's one's way!
3. If it is easier to replace S eggs with L eggs than just buy L eggs then even an honest person would be tempted.

Sorry if misunderstood you. To me casual theft is someone who unthinkingly passes a copy to another person or two, and then they pass left to another person or two. The number of copies distributed in this way can and does increase exponentially, with no one realising that it is not perfectly above board and legal.

Most pirated copies are done knowingly and not in a casual manner. Of course my definition is really only my opinion.

I actually cannot see it being easier to move 12 eggs from the large size carton and move the small eggs to the large size carton, in plain view of other shoppers, than to just take the large size carton to the cash and pay for it. Of course you would save a few cents, maybe even 30 cents which might be considered an incentive? I have seen this twice and I don't spend a lot of time in the egg department. I didn't turn them in or even complain, because I assumed that anyone who would do this is probably more in need of psychiatric help than an upbraiding, and no good would be done by reporting them.

Still I started checking my eggs for size and on an occasion or two I spotted broken ones.

Originally Posted by cromag

Hey! I was just making sure I got 12 unbroken eggs! They were the same size ... honest!

I did not go to the trouble of replacing the broken ones as it was easier to just take another carton that had unbroken eggs. Didn't want to deal with taking out the broken gooey ones and putting an unblemished egg in the gooey space left behind. Just me I am afraid.

Helen

[crossi]

Most casual sharing is likely among families and since they are likely on the same account DRM does nothing to stop that, nor should it. For the one or two friends who happen to share the same reading tastes book sharing is already possible legitimately. Or I might simply loan them my backup reader. Most of my friends either read very little or simply would have no interest in my books since peoples tastes in reading vary so much. Most of my books I couldn't get even my family to read if I dropped them in their lap. None of us like the same books. And for mere aquintances, why in the world would I allow them to freeload from me? They can buy their own books if they want it. So preventing casual sharing from making a significant cut in profits is a imaginary problem.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by crossi

Most casual sharing is likely among families and since they are likely on the same account DRM does nothing to stop that, nor should it. For the one or two friends who happen to share the same reading tastes book sharing is already possible legitimately. Or I might simply loan them my backup reader. Most of my friends either read very little or simply would have no interest in my books since peoples tastes in reading vary so much. Most of my books I couldn't get even my family to read if I dropped them in their lap. None of us like the same books. And for mere aquintances, why in the world would I allow them to freeload from me? They can buy their own books if they want it. So preventing casual sharing from making a significant cut in profits is a imaginary problem.

crossi:

Well....let's think about that. Firstly, on about 99% of the retailers that have any real volume, you can "lend" an ebook, directly, from one email to another. That's a perfectly legal share.

But your operating assumption is that nobody who gets the book shared is going to share it with anyone else. And that's just not what happens. Unfortunately, "sharees" have a tendency to reshare. Those patterns have been MORE than amply demonstrated with software--I don't know why you think it would be different with books?

The "Lotus 1-2-3" problem certainly wasn't imaginary. That was the first goad to licensing software. I know, because I was around for it. Gates' response, in creating licenses for his software, after watching what happened with Lotus, was certainly warranted, despite all the "Gates-hate" in the world.

{shrug}. I still don't understand the big issue. Everyone here knows how to get around DRM for their perfectly legit purposes, of putting their books on different devices, etc. It's not a big deal to do. DRM absolutely DOES stop casual theft, because the average, real person doesn't know how to crack it and won't try (for example: most of my clients can't download from a browser. They don't know how to "download" anything, unless a file is sent to them in email. I really don't think that those folks are going to be cracking DRM any time soon). It protects authors and publishers from that type of abuse. No, it doesn't protect against deliberate abuse, but the early studies on software theft and piracy was that casual thieving was actually the bigger cause of losses.

Hitch