Ditching DRM on all e-books. Could Apple do it again?

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

Music is DRM-free because it was apparent that people wanted to listen it in whatever way they wanted to. You can put it on your phone, you can put it on an iPod, you can listen on a computer, etc, etc. For ME personally, the biggest issue with music is that it QUICKLY becomes out-of-print. Singles that came out six months ago can no longer be purchased via iTunes, and there goes a loss of b-sides I'll probably never find again unless I find a used copy of a CD print that someone's tossing out. And I really don't want to expand my CD collection anymore at this point.

There are always going to be people that will end up paying $200 to go to a concert after downloading pirated music from that artist/band. There's also going to be that chance that merchandise gets bought too. The airplay and streaming royalties help a lot too. Music is sociable and word-of-mouth helps to strengthen the fan base and bring those customers that are willing to still pay for a song or album.

There is no business strategy to selling books other than to sell books. If the book wasn't popular to begin with, they aren't going to make the movie. And the same thing goes for merchandise. Unless someone that had the power to make things happen, REALLY liked it.

Our generation has the thinking that "labels are bad" and that they're ripping money off of deserving clients. Having DRM-less books would only lead people to start applying that thinking to publishers. It would also destroy the textbook industry because it would be easy enough to set up a server in a college/university and secretly share materials and save students THOUSANDS every year.

I think it's perfectly fine to want to read your ebooks on whatever reader and screen you want, but it's not okay that the general public will see this as an easy way to get every bestseller in the last 50 years in an easy to download torrent.

And yes, I have torrented textbooks. Only a few though. This last semester our teacher showed us some stuff from a book she was using in another class, so I decided to check it out since it looked interesting (it had multiple editions, and it was one of the really old ones anyway). That and a PDF copy of the textbook I used a few years ago. I sent that to a friend to let her have a look at how they were teaching us the same subject she was about to take.

I would never torrent a textbook just to not have to pay to use it for the entire semester though.

First year at engineering school everyone downloaded visual studio, we needed it. Second year, school subscribe to msdnaa. We have a safe and easy way to get the program we need, and Microsoft get some money. Everyone win.

[Jessica Lares]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

First year at engineering school everyone downloaded visual studio, we needed it. Second year, school subscribe to msdnaa. We have a safe and easy way to get the program we need, and Microsoft get some money. Everyone win.

Yeah, that's why I'm in that free Autodesk Student program, and then pay for Adobe's Creative Cloud at student pricing. I couldn't pay for ProTools though.

The problem with textbooks is that, if you can't afford them, how are you able to afford going to college/university?

[Edward M. Grant]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Pirates don't provide that revenue stream, so something needs to be done about it.

DRM does nothing to stop pirates, because they download the books from pirate sites with the DRM already stripped out.

DRM does stop me from converting a 'protected' Kindle book into PDF so I can read it in my lunch break in my day job, where personal electronics aren't allowed.

This is why I only buy DRM-free Kindle books, unless I forget to check before buying it.