Pan Macmillan: DRM Is Not Evil

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wodin

Speaking of annoying, I can’t wait until someone injures themselves trying to open one of those bubble armored plastic packages that almost everything is locked inside these days and sues the cr*** out of those guys with no regard for their bread and butter.

Ok, you can return to the topic now!

Anything in one of those types of packages has to now have an easy way to get in. I purchased something last month that has perforated edges on the back so I can open it from the back to get in easily and without injury. So anything you get that does not have this easy open is old stock. This is in the US.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Even ignoring all that, the simplest rule isn't always the best to go by. Leaving products unprotected usually leads to theft... which is exactly what is happening to e-books. That is a simple fact.

What happens is the publisher's fault. Lets say you have a K2. You have eBooks for the K2. But the eBooks have DRM. So Sony comes out with a larger screen device that you like since it's not crippled like the DX. You want it. But to be able to afford it you have to sell your K2. And you have eBooks you still have not yet read but cannot convert. So you go to the darknet to find them. And you do. And you find a lot more. So you think hhmmm... I can get a lot of eBooks for free. Now if DRM had not been there, Calibre could convert it to ePub for easy reading on your new Sony and you'd never have gone to the darknet to find out what you can get there for free. Thi sis not protecting anything. This is causing people to flock to the darknet to find eBooks that do not have DRM that are already in a format they can use or can be converted.

I refused to purchase eBooks that I cannot strip the DRM from and convert to a format of my choice if I need to. That is akin to telling me that the DVD I just bought is only playable on my DVD-ROM drive and not my DVD player.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The relationship also exists because publishers feel they are being labeled as EVIL, money-grubbing monsters who care not one whit about the customers they hope to sell to. They are constantly accused of being greedy idiots, consumers voice their desire for them to just collapse, and for their employees to find new jobs. Consumers see publishers' resistance to give up on DRM as a sure sign that the pubs are all thieves.

So, as you said, it works both ways.

We see high prices as the evilness of publishers. I've seen many eBooks going for more then the cost of buying the paper copy. Now if that is not wrong, what is? That is what causes us to want the people in charge to get stuffed. Same goes for those who think it is a good idea to give PDF as a free giveaway. They can go get stuffed too. These are they people we want to end up cleaning toilets for a living.

[Icarusbop]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The relationship also exists because publishers feel they are being labeled as EVIL, money-grubbing monsters who care not one whit about the customers they hope to sell to.

They are and they don't - it may not be the truth, but it is the impression they give (refusing to provide books people want, pricing ebooks higher than a HARDBACK (yes; I have seen this), ignoring users constant requests for 'portability' of their books they bought, ignoring rights granted by copyright, because apparently some of those rights 'don't apply to them' (ability to lend, and sell on books))

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

They are constantly accused of being greedy idiots, consumers voice their desire for them to just collapse, and for their employees to find new jobs.

They are, We don't (not IMO)

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Consumers see publishers' resistance to give up on DRM as a sure sign that the pubs are all thieves.

Don't see many people here calling publishers thieves... Greedy idiots who insist on enforcing their 'version' of rights onto their customers with half baked DRM ideas,which locks books onto specific devices, or specific vendors (usually both if they can), yes... but not thieves...

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What is worse and I have seen it on some Disney DVDs is that they force you to have to play all of the trailers. No way to get past them. That is even more annoying. At least with your annoyance, I can pop out the DVD, pop it back in and watch the trailers if I want.

I know, Disney really winds me up with this kind of tactic; makes you want to RIP the DVD you bought, so you can cut off the trailers....

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What happens is the publisher's fault. ......... This is not protecting anything. This is causing people to flock to the darknet to find eBooks that do not have DRM that are already in a format they can use or can be converted.

I refused to purchase eBooks that I cannot strip the DRM from and convert to a format of my choice if I need to. That is akin to telling me that the DVD I just bought is only playable on my DVD-ROM drive and not my DVD player.

I agree with all of this, wholeheartedley!

[Icarusbop]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

And the other thing I have been itching to say all along is that DRM usually ends up hurting innocent people ....

Hurting innocent people while doing nothing to stop real criminals sure looks evil to me.

I bought a PC game some years ago for £45 ish. It was great, however, now I have windows XP the protection on the game thinks it is a copy and won't run, telling me to insert the original disc - which it is. Something to do with XP I suspect, but that does not make me feel any better not being able to use something I legally bought.
So here I am with a legal copy of the game, and downloading a crack for it so I can use it!
Just an exampe of innocent poeple, being burnt by DRM (And this is not the only example I have) - then 'They' wonder why we (consumers) are resistant to it... (DRM)

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I'm not saying publishers don't have to change their expectations of the realities of the market... they do. But so do customers. It's a new day, it's a new product... and we all have to learn a new way to buy it, to use it, and what we can't do with it.

Sorry, Steve, but that is wrong. Customers do not have to change, they can do what they like. Without their money, publishers are toast (so is company x providing product y). Yours is a statement ignorant of both history and psychology.

That is not even talking about the current plan? which is apparently to make products harder to use, piss people off, and deliberately sell less of them because of this, and how they are priced.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Icarusbop

I bought a PC game some years ago for £45 ish. It was great, however, now I have windows XP the protection on the game thinks it is a copy and won't run, telling me to insert the original disc - which it is. Something to do with XP I suspect, but that does not make me feel any better not being able to use something I legally bought.
So here I am with a legal copy of the game, and downloading a crack for it so I can use it!

What did the game's publisher say when you contacted their technical support department to ask for assistance with the issue?

It is common for applications that are closely tied to the machine's hardware, such as games, to have issues with new operating systems. Generally the publisher will issue a patch to sort out the problem.

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Even ignoring all that, the simplest rule isn't always the best to go by. Leaving products unprotected usually leads to theft... which is exactly what is happening to e-books. That is a simple fact.

It rifles me when copying of the book is called theft. It is illegal, but it is not a THEFT. Loosing potential sale is NOT a theft. If I read the book in B&N drinking coffee, if I took it from my friend or library you will not call it a theft. If I legally bought it used, you are getting Nadda, but you will not dare to call it theft. But the result is the same lost sales.
Will you call me a thief if I verbatim narrate the story from the book to my children? The book I read in the library?
What if I narrate the dialog from Seinfield? Somebody will say I violate copyright, but is it stealing?
I am just thinking of good Biblical times, when you had to take somebody statue and deprive them of it for it to be a sin and a crime. And if you made a copy of ancient Greek statue in your neighbors yard you were just a hack not a criminal.
Money hungry lobbyists are a scary thing indeed.

[Jill74]

Originally Posted by wodin

Chocolate is NOT evil!!

lmao. Yeah that's true.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by dmikov

It rifles me when copying of the book is called theft. It is illegal, but it is not a THEFT. Loosing potential sale is NOT a theft. If I read the book in B&N drinking coffee, if I took it from my friend or library you will not call it a theft. If I legally bought it used, you are getting Nadda, but you will not dare to call it theft. But the result is the same lost sales.
Will you call me a thief if I verbatim narrate the story from the book to my children? The book I read in the library?
What if I narrate the dialog from Seinfield? Somebody will say I violate copyright, but is it stealing?
I am just thinking of good Biblical times, when you had to take somebody statue and deprive them of it for it to be a sin and a crime. And if you made a copy of ancient Greek statue in your neighbors yard you were just a hack not a criminal.
Money hungry lobbyists are a scary thing indeed.

The difference for digital items is that the copy is 100% the same as the original. And you agreed not to copy it, except for personal use, when you bought it. That is why the definition of theft had to be adjusted. If you want analogies, how about borrowing somebody's car without permission and then returning it in good shape. Is that no crime? Even if you call such copying not a theft, you call it illegal, too. And thus it should be punished if the copies are distributed.

If we go by your thinking, any design has no value. Copying any physical product (garments, shoes, electronics, furniture, etc) would not be a crime since you are only taking away sales. So in the end, only the low cost manufacturers would survive and everybody would have to live off third world wages, since no extra value is created through creative thinking. Look past short term personal benefits ("wow, I don't have to pay") and for benefits to all of us.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The difference for digital items is that the copy is 100% the same as the original. And you agreed not to copy it, except for personal use, when you bought it. That is why the definition of theft had to be adjusted.

Except the notion that it isn't theft originates with individuals (i.e.: "the people", if you will) whereas the notion that it is theft originates with corporations.

And since there are far more of the former than of the latter, I do not see how it will be tenable to keep personal/non-profit copyright infringement illegal on the long term... unless of course it perpetually continues to be hardly ever prosecuted.

Non-commercial copyright infringement by an individual is theft the way drinking alcohol is drug-abuse. Yes it is... but suggesting that calling it thus tells the whole story is so misleading it might as well be wrong.

Or so I believe.

- Ahi

[shousa]

If ebookprice <= 10%*bookprice then lease = true else lease = false

If (ebookhasDRM) = true AND (lease = false) then goingtopurchase = false
else goingtopurchase = true


Either it is a lease or a purchase - there are no other options.
If it is disguised as a purchase by having the price of a purchase but has DRM it is not a purchase but a lease.

It is immoral on the basis that it is being held out as one thing that needs to be purchased only once to less computer savvy "average Joes".

If a message in BOLD was to come up prior to buying saying this "STOP - the ebook you are purchasing now has DRM. This means if you wish to keep it for years you may need to repurchase the item from another vendor should any of the following occur eg vendor goes broke et al" then I believe many would refrain from effectively leasing an ebook for the same price as what should be really a purchase.

o Steve Jordan: I hate DRM but I honestly pay for everything. I do not copy anything for free. I respect your view and your contributions. I do not respect those who copy for free. I think however if I purchase a book I should be able to read it to my child.
However I really think your statement that it is new and its being worked out is a cop-out in light of DRM even being lifted from the Itunes music store.

ebooks and music online are both digital. Is there really a difference? Both can be enjoyed for hours at a time and experienced again and again.

The people who pay deserve DRM free. The people who do illegal stuff and don't pay will do it anyway. Tell me the internet as not proven that already?!

[krischik]

Originally Posted by bmfrosty

Amazon is the only company that seems to have gotten things (almost) right in regards to drm'd ebooks

Only because they copied the DRM scheme from Mobipocket which had the same technique. Only Mobipocket got it better as they support 12 devices / operating systems and Amazon only 2.

So no praise from me: They took something good (as good as DRM can get) and made is worse.

Martin

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Even ignoring all that, the simplest rule isn't always the best to go by. Leaving products unprotected usually leads to theft... which is exactly what is happening to e-books. That is a simple fact..

This point of view contains at least 2 massive flaws:

1) The assumption that DRM prevents theft*
2) The asumption that most people will share DRM-free (copyrighted) media

#1 The fact is that DRM does not prevent piracy. Visit any torrent site and search for any movie, TV show, book, CD or software.

It is ignorant to state that DRM stops piracy. It doesn't. DRM may prevent some small amounts of 'casual' piracy, but that's not what the bulk of piracy is.

#2 is very cynical. It is also based on the false assumption of #1 that media with DRM is safer from piracy than non-DRM media.


I'd like to make 2 counter points:

1) At best, DRM puts a small dent in piracy by stopping 'casual' lending and copying. This is best case scenario for the copyright holders. The bulk of piracy is via downloading, and a DRM-free copy of a CD is usually available before the official release is available on iTunes.

2) At worst, DRM makes products unusable to the buyer. Some examples:

My housemate has bought songs on iTunes. He didn't realise that he can't play them on our media center because they have DRM. He also loses that music unless his next MP3 player is an iPod. I was planning on giving him my old Zune when I upgrade.

Confusion. When I bought an ebook reader Iwas astounded at all the different formats out there. I don't wish to lock myself into one format/company so I don't buy books with DRM

I understand that publishers/record labels, etc. need to protect their income, but they are going about it in a way that will destroy them.

I flat out refuse to buy anything digital with DRM, and more and more people are taking this stance. I don't mind DRM on rental material e.g. to watch a movie once or to subscribe to certain content. But I will only pay a price comparable to a physical product if I get to use it as I wish.

These idiotic corporations ignore the benefits of technology and try desperately to bend it to fit an old supply/demand system. They should realise that I have an ebook reader that can hold more books than a house full of book cases and I have an MP3 player that can hold thousands of music tracks...and I'm willing to pay for the media to populate these devices. But I'm not going to run the risk of buying something that in a year or two may become unusable due to DRM, and I'm not willing to pay the same price for a digital book that doesn't have the same manufacturing costs associated with it (shipping, materials, printing, etc., not to mention the - perhaps illogical - sense of value of a physical item).

Digital copying is not going to go away. If the publishers understood the technology they would know that. They need to take their dummies out and go and figure out a way to get people to pay for their products despite the ease of piracy. Some people will still pirate, but there is still a lot of money to be made by the companies that do the right thing by the customer.

Interesting facts:
bottled water makes a lot of money
iTunes sells millions of songs despite now being DRM-free and almost every song on iTunes is easily available on peer-to-peer sites
Since getting an ebook reader I have spent more money on books than in recent memory, and haven't bought a single item with DRM
I now buy all my music online, have bought quite a lot lately due to the ease and convenience of online buying, and have not once bought a track with DRM (*I accidentally bought 1 song with DRM. I have since deleted it because it doesn't work on my main music playing device).


* I know some posters don't like the term 'theft' here, but there's no point splitting hairs or obfuscating the issue. Copying copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder is bad regardless of the fact it's not a physical object. The issue here is whether DRM is workable, not whether all media should be freely copied.

[Alfy]

DRMs are evil and this is the future:
A bleak future (if you're not careful)