Books on Board asking for my country of residence?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by blunty

Although many who actually care enough to write to forums are so anti DRM, many others will see the business need to protect intellectual property from a free for all where no one can earn a living out of writing because the readers expect it all for free.

yes, but this is precisely the sort of attitude that seems to show they are blindly (and stupidly) making the same mistakes as the music industry at the beginning of digital music. that is a false dichotomy, first of all, and second of all it is common knowledge that drm does not prevent illegal copying, the only people it affects are legitimate, paying customers. i continue to hope that at the very least, if the publishing industry *does* insist on making the exact same mistakes as the music industry, at the very least perhaps they will get through them faster and take less time to finally figure things out and begin to function with a reasonable system. i have hope for this because there are already some publishers offering drm-free epub files, for instance. but then there are a lot more still insisting on drm, and now trying to limit purchases based on geographic location...

well, we will see.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by blunty

Although many who actually care enough to write to forums are so anti DRM, many others will see the business need to protect intellectual property from a free for all where no one can earn a living out of writing because the readers expect it all for free.

You have a false equivalence here - absence of DRM does not mean a free for all where sales plummet because readers expect everything for free.

Baen books does not use DRM and they make a profit on ebooks.

Some of their authors have a policy of giving ebooks away for free about six months to a year after the paperback release of the title and are still making money.

Yes there is a need to protect intellectual property rights and maintain profitability, but that does not necessarily require the use of DRM. I think that's where some of the pro-DRM people miss the point. Many anti-DRM people are not saying IP rights are bad; they're saying don't use something that doesn't work and just annoys paying customers.

[Stringer]

This thing is quite simple actually. Just like with the multimedia industry, you either sell stuff world wide, or you share it for free through p2p and nobody asks your opinion for that. Or well, I don't know if these e-books actually are on the p2p networks, but I would imagine so. Especially if and when they constantly are becoming more popular. It is not a question about if those titles are world wide available, it is more about question if the authors actually want to be paid for it.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

You have a false equivalence here - absence of DRM does not mean a free for all where sales plummet because readers expect everything for free.

Baen books does not use DRM and they make a profit on ebooks.

Some of their authors have a policy of giving ebooks away for free about six months to a year after the paperback release of the title and are still making money.

Yes there is a need to protect intellectual property rights and maintain profitability, but that does not necessarily require the use of DRM. I think that's where some of the pro-DRM people miss the point. Many anti-DRM people are not saying IP rights are bad; they're saying don't use something that doesn't work and just annoys paying customers.

You couldn't be more right. I'm not anti-copyright, I'm anti ridiculous, out-of-date, non-working copyright. Creative Commons already provides a brilliant intellectual property license for any creator, that is very flexible and modern in its approach.