Details of DRM support built into Vista

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

I also agree that the lure of "free" is hard to resist, and right now music/books/movies digital models are simply not profitable enough, so they piggyback on the physical models, like the credit card users that pay their balances on time piggyback on the ones that pay those exorbitant interest rates, and that is most likely not sustainable in the long run. But the long run can be long.

The lure of "free" is only temporary. Most of us work for a living. We know that if we didn't get paid, we'd stop working. I don't work for free, so I don't expect an author to do so.

Even much of the "free" content that is on the web gets paid for. I donate to certain podcasts. I buy eBooks. I purchase MP3s. And the companies I go to stay in business, so I'm obviously not the only one who feels this way.

The issue, I believe, is value.

If the item is good value, most people will pay for it, even if the opportunity is available to get it for free.
If the item is poor value, most people will not pay for it, especially if the opportunity is available to get it for free.

This is hard for the Content Cartel to handle. They've had a stranglehold on content for a long time. So they no longer think "what do people want to see/hear?" and make it. Instead they make movies like the Hulk, and the complain that instant messaging ruined their profits. They make albums with 2 good songs, but still charge the full price for the CD, and then cry when sales drop.

[Liviu_5]

Hi,

Personally I think that this the crux of the matter. How to price digital content. DRM is (outside of the desire to control) just the reflex answer to emulate the physical world and the relative high prices there. There have been posted many articles about the big difference in profit margin between the physically distributed content (on a DVD the studio makes 15-20$, on a rental/digital download 3-5$, on a hardcover the publishers makes 10$ or so, on a pb/ebook priced like it, 2-4$ and so on - the numbers are approximations but the proportions are correct as far as I know)
So I still think that today there is no viable digital model outside of advertising; everything else piggybacks on physical; there may be profitable digital models, but the profits are slim and probably unsustainable with the current structure.
You price digital close to physical, you automatically have a lot of piracy, so you need drm though it does not really help. You price cheap, how do you make money?
Personally I think that universal pricing (content tax...) will be very hard to implement and I do not think it will work, but at least for books I can see succesful models based on serialization (on the type, I cut the book in 4-5, I charge 1.5$ per part, I post the first part in open format reachable with user password, I reach 20-25k, the second part comes up...)

Liviu

Originally Posted by rlauzon

The issue, I believe, is value.