Are there any studies PROVING that DRM works?

[MrPLD]

Mmm... that would put me somewhere in the anti-DRM with a hint of militancy.

I do have a problem with the laws situation, despite there being no apparent/known-of successful prosecution. The issue is, if you ever are in a legal situation it's possible that laws like that can be conveniently bought against you to either discredit you or such ( most of us probably violate several laws on a daily basis ). Certainly a debate for a completely different thread.

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Off the top of my head:

Anti-DRM:

• Doesn't buy DRM'd books
• Possibly doesn't download DRM'd freebies
• Doesn't recommend DRM'd books or bookstores to friends; suggests they buy from Smashwords or Baen or FW's multiformat selection.
• May refer to DRM as an "infection"

Militantly anti-DRM:

• Keeps a list of links to Convertlit, Skindle, Inept, MobiDeDRM and so on websites; shares them with anyone who expresses concern about buying DRM'd ebooks
• Acquires & provides links to bootleg versions of DRM'd ebooks
• Lobbies politicians for changes in laws to allow legal removal of DRM
• Fond of pointing out that DRM laws make doc conversion a crime, despite fact that nobody has yet been prosecuted, anywhere, for removing DRM for personal use
• Points people to Konrath's & Doctorow's blogs to insist that authorial success doesn't rely on DRM
• Keeps anti-DRM essays open on computer; copy/pastes relevant paragraphs into recurring "piracy" arguments
• May refer to DRM'd ebooks as "infected with expensive rights restrictions."

In addition, I'd add that the militant will not cease bringing DRM and its horrors into as many threads as possible on MR.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by jeffcobb

Well as much as I wanted the instant gratification of revenge against Adobe for being such weenies, instead I downloaded a classic (Dracula, Bram Stoker) from Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345) and am enjoying every page. He was a great author and even reading it living in the desert as I am, his words made me feel the bleak coldness of the Carpathian mountains...

Ha! In your face, JSWolf!

(Sorry, bro -- I couldn't help myself! Low impulse control. )

One of my favorites also, jeffcobb!

[TallMomof2]

I purchase pdf knitting patterns online and many of them have social DRM. One that I'm using now has at the bottom of every page: "This pattern download is for the exclusive use of TallMomof2 at <my email address>. All rights reserved by the author. Please respect their copyright. NOT FOR RESALE." Sure, I could edit the file in Acrobat and remove that text but it's not worth it for a $1.99 pattern.

[Freeshadow]

@TallMomof2

that's the way
watermarking doesn't hurt anybody

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

In addition, I'd add that the militant will not cease bringing DRM and its horrors into as many threads as possible on MR.

But... DRM is the cause for the impending downfall of Western Civilization! Of *course* it has to be mentioned in as many threads as possible!

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

But... DRM is the cause for the impending downfall of Western Civilization! Of *course* it has to be mentioned in as many threads as possible!

The militant probable put it in their signatures (which I turned off long ago, and that's probably the reason why).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Ha! In your face, JSWolf!

(Sorry, bro -- I couldn't help myself! Low impulse control. )

One of my favorites also, jeffcobb!

One of the best Dracula stories is the movie Love at First Bite.

[Psykhe]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Yes, it was a poor analogy. Wasn't mine.

Nice try. The point is that the flaw in the analogy you "see" is not there. Because you compare the wrong things.

Stealing a bike is not dependant on the lock key/picking the lock.
Stealing an ebook is not depending on the decription key.

So oyu arguing about lock picking / decription key differences = utterly meaningless.

"Bad pirate person" circumvents the DRM and then puts the non-protected content up on a filesharing site. It happens all the time. Most people with pirated material don't circumvent the DRM themselves.

Do say? Really?

To repeat what I said:
"but a theoretical ability to give it to everyone does not make it something which actually happens."

It is quite possible to get circumvent the DRM of a movie and give it in theory to everyone on the planet for free.

Does it happen? Nope.

To repeat: DRM can be broken != DRM is useless.

It is (just like a bike lock) a way to *reduce* the likelyhood of loosing money (money as is loosing the bike you paid for or loosing money from sales you did not made).

But in a physical world, you can't just bypass the lock once and then share unlimited number of copies of the product with everyone. That's what makes DRM on digital products silly.

See above. The "share to everyone" is something which just does not happen in reality.

You can only steal a single bike once while a stolen ebook can be destributed multiple times, that is true. But that does not make "DRM on digital products silly".
To the contrary actually. Since the effect of breaking the protection can have a bigger effect on digital products than countering anti-theft mechanisms on physical products the theft protecting of digital ones is far more important too.

[Worldwalker]

The only thing being "protected" on digital products is the manufacturer's platform lock-in.

The people who download torrents of illicitly copied books a) do not read most of them, and b) would not pay $15 for a book whether or not they read it. They're not lost sales because a sale has to have the potential to happen in order to be lost. The publishers act like every book in a 2000-book torrent is a "lost sale" and claims that single download "cost" them $30,000. They act like someone who earns $25k a year would go out and spend $30k of that on books at full retail price if they didn't come along with the two or three books that person really wanted to read.

Look at me, as an example: I read public domain books or DRM-free books. Is every book I download from MobileRead, or every book I buy from Baen, a "lost sale" to a cabal publisher? They'd have you think so, since I'm not buying it from them. In practical, how-it-impacts-the-publisher terms (not going into legality here, just realpolitik) I'm no different from a "pirate"; I don't buy their books. I buy David Weber's books, and I read Charles Dickens' books, but I don't buy expensive ebooks from the cabal publishers. But I'm not a "lost sale" because the circumstances under which I'd pay more than MM paperback price, a lot more than used or discounted or charity MM paperback price, for an ebook don't exist. There is no situation in which that sale would be made. It's like saying that I'm a "lost sale" for Kindle books because I own a Sony.

Losing the bike you paid for means losing the bike; you don't have it anymore. "Losing" sales of an ebook is a lot more dubious. Would the person who read it have read it if they had to pay $15? Or if they couldn't get it for their platform? Or if they had to jump through hoops? Maybe they would have read it. Maybe they would have read it for $5, but not 15. Maybe they wouldn't have touched it. Maybe it was just some random book cluttering up the torrent they downloaded to get some other book. You can't know, and it's not only a different answer for different people, but for different books with the same person.

Also, it's "lose" not "loose". You're not really helping your credibility there.

[Psykhe]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

The people who download torrents of illicitly copied books a) do not read most of them, and b) would not pay $15 for a book whether or not they read it. They're not lost sales because a sale has to have the potential to happen in order to be lost. The publishers act like every book in a 2000-book torrent is a "lost sale" and claims that single download "cost" them $30,000. They act like someone who earns $25k a year would go out and spend $30k of that on books at full retail price if they didn't come along with the two or three books that person really wanted to read..

Your problem is that you are doing exactly the same thing you accuse the publishers of: Generalizing.

No, not every book (or in general digital copyrighted stuff) which is downloaded is automatically a lost sale.

But *neither* is it the opposite like you make it appear - never a lost sale. The reality is somewhere in between.

When you have the opition to a) pay 10$ for a book and b) download it for free things change fundamentally. Before you had option b) when you paid for a book you were paying for these things:

- the book (well, doh!)
- supporting a favourite author of yours

But once option b) is available the "book" part is suddenly out of the equation. Because you can get that for free. Now all your "get" from actually buying the book is the satisfaction of having supported the author.

But 10$ might not be worth alone for that for you.

There are of cource a fair amount of people who download something which they never would have bought. But there are also people (and I think those are the vast majority) who do so because it is quite simply *cheaper* (and who do not have a big enough loyality to the producer of said digital stuff to buy it instead).

DRM is adding a bit of a new variable for those people. It is, as said, delaying or limiting the spread of stolen digital content. This introduces something new: waiting time. This changes the equation to:

pay money (-)
support producer (+)
get it *now* (+)

vs

get it for free (+)
do not support producer (-)
wait an unknown period of time (-)


The "get it *now*" pushes quite a few people to buy digital stuff. Myself included. I bought myself several games and books which I wouldn't have if I would have be able to get them for free at the same time. And I didn't buy also quite a few games and books which I would have bought if here hasn't been a free version out which I could get without any real delay compared to the "pricey" version.

Now if you excuse me, I think the police just ringed.

Also, it's "lose" not "loose". You're not really helping your credibility there.

Yes, because making a spelling error totally makes an argument invalid. We can continue this conversation in german and I'll point out our grammar mistakes and rating your credability due to them. Deal?

Mind, I always cringe mentally when I hear someone making a basic grammar or spelling error, but rating a persons credibility from it is just plain out stupid. The only thing you can rate is how good that person is in the language. Unless you were talking about grammar and pronunciation of said language he can make as many errors as he wants without hurting his credibility.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Psykhe

This introduces something new: waiting time.

I wonder where you got the idea that there was any "waiting time", since DRM removal is very nearly instantaneous?
For instance, Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" was available on the "darknet" the very same day that it was released in the USA. DRM definitely did not limit or slow down the spread of digital content in that case. In some sense it even seems that DRM actually encourages piracy since the pirates seem to compete among themselves to see who can get something out the fastest, especially in the case of highly hyped releases.

[Worldwalker]

You're being very selective.

Originally Posted by Psykhe

pay money (-)
support producer (+)
get it *now* (+)

vs

get it for free (+)
do not support producer (-)
wait an unknown period of time (-)

Actually, it's more like this:

pay more money than you would for the paperback (-)
support producer with a few pennies (+)
get it whenever the publisher feels like it, or maybe not at all (-)
deal with hassles trying to actually use it (-)

vs

get it for free (+)
do not support producer with those few pennies (-)
get it the day it comes out if not before (+)
get it in the format you need (+)

For someone who doesn't care much about the author, or who knows how little of a book's cover price actually goes to the author, those downloads look like a better and better deal. If their consciences bother them, they can snail off anonymous money orders to authors, I suppose.

The people I really don't want to support are the publishers who make my life as difficult as they can. They're the ones demanding hardcover prices for ebooks. They're the ones applying DRM, geographic restrictions, and delays. They're the ones screwing the authors out of their fair pay. They're the ones giving chain bookstores huge discounts so the independents can't compete. They're the ones pushing celebrity tell-alls or politicians' whines while letting midlist authors die on the vine. They're the ones who will neither print nor release books, leaving the authors without the rights to their own backlists. They are, in short, the last people I would want to support, not the only.

That's why I buy books from publishers who get it. That's why I download public domain books. That's why I won't buy from the cartel publishers, because they're looking out for only their own interests, not mine, not the author's, not the bookseller's, not anyone else's. You want to support the cartel: how about telling them to give the public what they want, instead of trying to force the public to want what they give them?

Everything someone says affects how they're seen. Yes, that can include using the wrong words for things. Someone can say "wutevah wurds i wanna uu shuld be gud enuf 4 u cuz u kin reed it" but they're not going to have the same credibility among people who value good writing that they would have if they'd taken the time to use that shared communication protocol called "language". I can guarantee you that, were I writing in German, I'd have my posts checked by a native speaker to be sure I was saying what I meant, and not just hoping someone could figure it out.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

@ Worldwalker I would normally agree about poor grammer, spelling, syntax, etc. will damage the credibility of someone (it galls me to see poor use of English on forums, etc. primarily used by Yanks) but we (and by we, I mean everyone here) need to keep in mind that this is an international forum and English is not everyone's first language. Making things even more "interesting" is there are many different "flavors" ("flavours" for you folks across the pond from me) of English spoken around the world (and even within a single country; look at all the dialects within the U.S. alone). Not all posters are going to have the luxury of having a native speaker handy to verify their translations, either. We so called native English speakers (and there are many who will swear we Yanks haven't used English in years, including me) need to be accomodating of those who do not speak it as a first (or sole) language and be thankful we are not having to try to read and post in their language.

[Psykhe]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Actually, it's more like this:

pay more money than you would for the paperback (-)
support producer with a few pennies (+)
get it whenever the publisher feels like it, or maybe not at all (-)
deal with hassles trying to actually use it (-)

vs

get it for free (+)
do not support producer with those few pennies (-)
get it the day it comes out if not before (+)
get it in the format you need (+)

I am not being selective, I am just comparing the actual differences. What your wrote does partly contradict each or is not comparing a bought vs a stolen ebook. Or has nothing at all to do with DRM.

pay more money than you would for the paperback (-)
vs
get it the day it comes out if not before (+)

Only a very small minority of books are available as (cheaper) paperpack version on the day they come out. On release day ebooks are in the majority of all cases (a tiny bit) less expensive as the hardcover.
(As a sidenote, there isn't really moneygrabbing or overpricing involved there, production cost difference between a hardcover and a massmarket paperpack aren't nearly anywhere as large the their price difference. In general production (with this I mean printing, etc, not the text layout and stuff) is no large part of a book price. The big majority of the money you pay is for the privilege of reading it early. So ebooks do not really produce more profit than hardcovers.)

Later, when there are cheaper paper versions around the ebooks do not *always* follow through, but that is a) not universal (at i.e. Bean cost 6$ which is on par with paperpacks) and has nothing to do with DRM. Of cource, another book I was looking for yesterday was 15$ as ebook and available as used paper book for 3$. Guess which ebook I certainly won't buy?
It is simply one issue with ebooks vs normal books, not one with ebooks with drm vs ebooks without them or bought ebooks vs stolen ebooks.

Also, "got it the day it comes out if not before"? I am calling BS on that (bolded) one.

get it whenever the publisher feels like it, or maybe not at all (-)

If the publisher decides not to release it as ebook then the whole DRM thing is a moot point anyway since as far as I know it there isn't one on printed books. Your point?

For someone who doesn't care much about the author, or who knows how little of a book's cover price actually goes to the author, those downloads look like a better and better deal. If their consciences bother them, they can snail off anonymous money orders to authors, I suppose.

Actually according to what the Author Charles Stross says book publishers are not evil conglomerates making billions from our money like the much beloved music industry. And he presents his point pretty convicingly. There is much much more work behind a book than what the author does.
Very nice article, it was certainly enlightening to me. It might be painful to you though, considering your opinion of the situation seems to be set in stone.

That's why I buy books from publishers who get it. That's why I download public domain books. That's why I won't buy from the cartel publishers, because they're looking out for only their own interests, not mine, not the author's, not the bookseller's, not anyone else's. You want to support the cartel: how about telling them to give the public what they want, instead of trying to force the public to want what they give them?

And this has to do with the effect of DRM how exactly?

I can guarantee you that, were I writing in German, I'd have my posts checked by a native speaker to be sure I was saying what I meant, and not just hoping someone could figure it out.

Firstly:

Secondly: Then do it instead of talking tough. No need to do everything, this quoted paragraph alone will do fine.