My perspective on buying books with DRM

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Kasper Hviid

[...]I understand why people want to hinder piracy - it just seem a bit much sometimes. Files can be copied. If you can't deal with that, why not just stick to selling physical books?

The publisher might say in return: We still sell physical books, if you don't like the way we do DRM, why not buy paper?

Originally Posted by Barcey

I believe that a more accurate analogy is a landlord putting a lock on your rented apartment so they can control who you let in. I might understand their desire to control how many people you have in the apartment but I don't agree that they get to control it and redefine rental laws. I might understand their concern that if you let 2 of your friends stay with you that your 2 friends won't rent their own apartments and there is less rental income for landlords. Understanding doesn't make it ok.

The problem with your analogy is that it really only compares to specific forms of DRM - so you are arguing the "how", not the "why". My post was about the "why".

[Nick_1964]

In our country they use social DRM,they now started at court with a new idea "epub is software, and you are entitled to sell the software and licence,when you destroy your own copy."
There is a new bookshop,you can buy your epub and it is placed on your "digital bookshelf" after reading it, you have to destroy your own copy (no one can verify you do) and you can place your book on the market of the bookshop as second hand.
If anyone buys it, the watermark is removed and replaced by a fresh one,and then is removed from your bookshelf.
So by example, I buy a book for €10 and after finishing I can sell it for a price that I can define myself.
When it is sold, I can't no longer access the copy, and 1,50 commission is transferred to the bookshop.
When I look for a title, I can see the new one, and the "second hand one".
The publishers are still looking for a way to forbid it,but until now it is legal.
You can only sell the books,you buyed from that bookshop.
So I buy the new title for €10,- after finish reading it, i can sell it by example for €6,50
Minus 1,50 commission I get €5 for the book, so paid €5,- in total.
The new owner again can sell it in the same bookshop,and again pays the 1,50 commission.
I don't think it is allowed by this forum to give the name of the bookshop.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

So I buy the new title for €10,- after finish reading it, i can sell it by example for €6,50
Minus 1,50 commission I get €5 for the book, so paid €5,- in total.
The new owner again can sell it in the same bookshop,and again pays the 1,50 commission.

Why would anybody ever buy a new book, in that case, given that, unlike a paper book, a "used" ebook is identical to the original?

The difficulty I see with this is the requirement that you get rid of your original. Without verification, that's an open invitation to piracy. How do you remove it from your account at the bookstore you bought it from? Many bookstores offer no facility for doing that. How do you ensure that it's removed from every backup you've ever made? If you make backups on DVD, that would involve physically destroying all your backups. If you make Cloud backups, how can you ensure that it's removed from all the backups that the Cloud service provider has made?

The whole thing seems unworkable.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by murg

Kudos for the reference

And the was NOT obvious.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The problem is, though, that with an ebook, you're not lending it to your friends; you're making an additional copy of it, and giving that copy to your friends. In paper book terms, it would be the equivalent of making a photocopy of a book, and giving your friends that photocopy.

I hate to repeat myself, but, as I've said before, at least where I live, this is legal both with the printed book and the ebook.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why would anybody ever buy a new book, in that case, given that, unlike a paper book, a "used" ebook is identical to the original?

That is no problem, because the 1,50 fee for the bookshop is more then enough profit, if 5 customers resell it, they have €7,50 profit.
And the book must be once selled new,before you can resell it, you can only sell books buyed there.

The difficulty I see with this is the requirement that you get rid of your original. Without verification, that's an open invitation to piracy. How do you remove it from your account at the bookstore you bought it from?

At the moment you sell it, is is automatically deleted from the bookshelf.

The whole thing seems unworkable.

It is based on the case of the capital software, that it is legal to resell a licence of software as long as you sell the original.
It is not possible for a buyer to sell the book twice on the store.
Only a new buyer can sell it again.

The european court used the UsesSoft/Oracle arrest 2012 where it is found legal to sell the licence of software, like you have a secondhand PC with software installed on it like windows, once registered and activated,it is legal to sell the pc,with the software installed on it.
Crucial,the publishers say the ebook is a book, the shop owner says, it is not a book,it is software..

[gmw]

Originally Posted by HarryT

[...] I agree that the ability to resell digital content would be desirable, but the practicalities of the situation make it difficult to do.

What we need is an app (or a form of DRM) that scrunches the corners of the pages, fades the cover and inside pages to a murky yellow background, and adds brown acid stains. On random books it should do a lot of underlining, maybe delete a page or two or put tears on the cover. The occasional book should have chocolate and coffees stains added, and every now then the remains of something unrecognisable but potentially horrible. The more times the book changes hands the more severe the damage would get. As the book got older you would have to shake the e-reader to make all the pages sit right, and paging turning would get harder to do, with some pages sticking together. ... And then a visit to a second-hand ebook store could be just like the old days.

Of course such an app might unfairly penalise true book lovers that take good care of their books ... so maybe it could use the accelerometer and other features of e-reading devices to judge whether you are a person that takes care of your books or not, and alter it's foxing algorithm accordingly.

I wonder if I should patent the idea.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by gmw

What we need is an app (or a form of DRM) that scrunches the corners of the pages, fades the cover and inside pages to a murky yellow background, and adds brown acid stains. On random books it should do a lot of underlining, maybe delete a page or two or put tears on the cover. The occasional book should have chocolate and coffees stains added, and every now then the remains of something unrecognisable but potentially horrible.

Sounds like an old library book where it is better not to think to long what that stain is

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

It don't disturb you.- >Good for you. But don't insult people who have a different opinion.

Seeing my name is my books do bother me. In quite the same way bad formatting or typo do. The first thing i did with the harry potter book was removing the watermark.

Actually, it was me who said that...

And the first thing I did with the Harry Potter books was comment out the UUID-style visible watermark and replace it with my name.

There are many people who would pay good money for ebooks with a dedication/author signature rather than the ugly watermark HP uses.

Furthermore, if you don't like the watermark because it was visibly ugly I don't blame you -- but do note, it is still watermarked; the HP watermark is many-tentacled like an octopus, and pervades most aspects of the code. CSS and filenames are the first things you see when you open it in the editor, and there are oh-so-many-ways to hide information in images, and those are just the ways I thought of off the top of my head.

Congratulations, you are every vendor's favorite customer -- one too naïve or halfhearted to do anything but fall for the distraction.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Library pbooks are often (once upon a time, always) different editions from the comercial versions with thicker paper and higher quality bindings. And different licensing terms and above all, pricing. Presumably there is an implicit (or explicit) performance license in the contract. Ditto for textbooks.

In the US a library or school reading would fall under fair use because it is a common and expected use. Probably the same at a bookstore or book club meeting. Most likely not at a theater or nightclub.

Common law draws heavily on common sense but that is sorely lacking in publishing circles so... who knows?

Perhaps the same lack of common sense is present in UK law, hence the lack of common law that is, in fact, common...

Or so it seems according to HarryT's explanation.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Actually, it was me who said that...

And the first thing I did with the Harry Potter books was comment out the UUID-style visible watermark and replace it with my name.

There are many people who would pay good money for ebooks with a dedication/author signature rather than the ugly watermark HP uses.

Furthermore, if you don't like the watermark because it was visibly ugly I don't blame you -- but do note, it is still watermarked; the HP watermark is many-tentacled like an octopus, and pervades most aspects of the code. CSS and filenames are the first things you see when you open it in the editor, and there are oh-so-many-ways to hide information in images, and those are just the ways I thought of off the top of my head.

Congratulations, you are every vendor's favorite customer -- one too naïve or halfhearted to do anything but fall for the distraction.

Yup, maybe if it was done in a nicer way. Still, it's not the book as it should be. In the same way, I tends to remove "ads" pages, fix formatting and so on. I want no mess in my books.
A watermark that isn't visible would annoy me less. Because i wouldn't see it when reading.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Perhaps the same lack of common sense is present in UK law, hence the lack of common law that is, in fact, common...

Or so it seems according to HarryT's explanation.

They do have a form of fair use in the UK, which is more than they do in other places. It just works differently.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Yup, maybe if it was done in a nicer way. Still, it's not the book as it should be. In the same way, I tends to remove "ads" pages, fix formatting and so on. I want no mess in my books.
A watermark that isn't visible would annoy me less. Because i wouldn't see it when reading.

Lucky we use the invisible one here in The Netherlands, it is only visible on the last page as a reminder.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by gmw

... snip ...



The problem with your analogy is that it really only compares to specific forms of DRM - so you are arguing the "how", not the "why". My post was about the "why".

I was arguing to the "why" as well. To understand why publishers use DRM you have to understand why a landlord would want to control the lock on their tenants apartment.

When talking about locks in relation to DRM we are only speaking about a specific form of DRM, we're in agreement on that.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Yup, maybe if it was done in a nicer way. Still, it's not the book as it should be. In the same way, I tends to remove "ads" pages, fix formatting and so on. I want no mess in my books.
A watermark that isn't visible would annoy me less. Because i wouldn't see it when reading.

Surely that means it isn't, after all, a matter of you being treated like a thief... which IIRC was your original complaint.

I quite understand ugly watermarks being annoying, but it isn't a moral issue...