Would you be e-reading if DRM was unbreakable?

[drofgnal]

Useless poll. No option for yes, I'd still read ebooks with DRM.

[kyteflyer]

I'd still read DRMd books, but would prefer that they weren't DRMd. Not sure I could go back to paper, much as I really like it, just because the print seems too small for me now.

[Waylander]

No, I would go back to totally paper. I still read the same amount on paper as before my kindle, but I also read more on my kindle.

[Jdschi]

I love books, whether they are ebooks or paper. This means that I want to keep them around, indefinitely. I do reread books I like 2-4 times, 5-10 years apart. I really can't remember what happened in books I read 10 years ago, so I can enjoy them anew without spending anything.
With paperbooks, you just have to lug them around and store them somewhere, but then you can take a book out of its shelf once in a while and read at your leisure.
Now come DRM ebooks. With them, you have to hope that the format they're in does not become obsolete in the next decades and that the seller storing your "license" will still be around during the next decades.
I seriously doubt that. Digital things change FAST (anyone still remembers video tapes? LOL), and I highly doubt that many ebook retailers today will still be around in 30-40 years. But in 30-40 years, I still want to enjoy the books I've bought. Books are timeless. Without DRM, I can have as many backups of the stuff I want, in any format I want, so if the retailer I bought them from goes out of business, I still have my copy. If the format they're in does not match the device I read on, I can simply convert them.
I also don't think that it's valid to say one could simply rebuy the ebooks if your "license" becomes void one day - because just as books go out of print and become unavailable, ebooks might too if no one was interested in selling them. There is no guarantee that my favorite authors of today will still be read by anyone except me in 30 years, so there is no guarantee that I will be able to replace unusable ebooks by buying new "licenses" in the future. Of course it might happen that ebook readers got out of fashion in 30 years and I wouldn't be able to get a device to read them on - but I highly doubt that. As long as I can convert the files, I'm sure there will always be a way to read ebooks.

TL;DR: If DRM couldn't be broken, I would only buy cheap ebooks of which I knew that I wouldn't want to reread them or buy/read DRM free. I would go back to paperbooks for everything else. In fact, this is exactly what I did before I learned of the Apprentice, I think I bought exactly two ebooks before that and read only free classics on the reader. Only since I know of the Apprentice do I spend a substantial amount of money on ebooks, because I know that I will hopefully be able to keep them around indefinitely (or at least as long as my backup(s) holds out).

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

I suspect you mean convenient rather than simple. It's really pretty simple to make copies. Just turn on the copier, put the open book on the glass face-down, and press copy. Repeat those simple steps until you're done. That's time-consuming and possibly expensive (depending on the copier) so it's inconvenient, but not difficult or complex. (I'm sure that one or the other of those is the opposite of simple. Isn't it?)

BTW, my fear of losing books stems from a time when I lost several of the books in my TBR pile. Losing books I've already read is one thing but losing them (through no fault of my own either) before I've even read them, now that ticked me off!

You are right. It is simple, and I have done it in the past (photocopied/scanned).

And yes I can understand a fear of losing books but I don't think losing them is exclusively caused by DRM. For me the cost losing books was quite high in the days I read paper. I have lost books, had them stolen, borrowed and not returned, water damaged and probably other things.

It especially hurt if I lost a library book as rarely a year went by that I didn't lose one or more and the cost of replacing them was close to $20 plus the cost of the book IIRC. And then there were fines which I am sure cost me at least $50+ a year. My fault of course, as I would often just keep a book or two past it's due date and pay the fines. I did (and still do) get a lot of library books so even with the fines it came to less than 1/4 of the cost of buying second hand and trading and less than 10% of the cost of buying new. (I cut back on buying new when 20+ boxes of books were destroyed in a fire) Now thanks in part to DRM, I don't have to worry about fines etc. Worst case I have to borrow the book again if I haven't finished reading it

Helen

mgmueller: you clearly have a larger disposable income than some people. What you do with that income is certainly up to you, even if some of us think that repurchasing a favorite book just because you are using a device based upon a different standard (or the book is no longer available for whatever reason) is a poor financial decision.

By the same measure, please appreciate that some of us don't have that sort of money or are simply more prudent about money. We have no interest in replacing books that we have already purchased because we are using a different device or because the book is no longer available for whatever reason.

Some of the analogies presented don't even make sense to us because they assume that our behaviors are similar to your behaviors. For example: I almost fell over laughing when you mentioned going to the cinema for temporary amusement. I go to the cinema once every few years because spending money in that way is frivolous. Another example: a private library of movies or upgrading with changing standards isn't accepted by everyone either. A lot of people clung on to VHS even after DVDs became popular. (Heck, I just watched a movie on VHS the other day.) These days, a lot of people are clinging onto DVDs even with options like iTunes at their disposal. Then there are people like me, who don't even have a video library. (I have a grand total of four, which were from iTunes gift codes. I would have never purchased them myself.)

As I said earlier, unbreakable DRM wouldn't change much for me. I'm so cheap that I rarely buy new books (e- or p-). Yet I can imagine that many people want to buy books, and either don't have the money or are prudent about how they spend it. When spending 15 minutes to setup a piece of software and spending 5 minutes a year setting up a batch process can save them hundreds or thousands of dollars, they will.

[PurpleStar]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

mgmueller: you clearly have a larger disposable income than some people. What you do with that income is certainly up to you, even if some of us think that repurchasing a favorite book just because you are using a device based upon a different standard (or the book is no longer available for whatever reason) is a poor financial decision.

By the same measure, please appreciate that some of us don't have that sort of money or are simply more prudent about money. We have no interest in replacing books that we have already purchased because we are using a different device or because the book is no longer available for whatever reason.

Some of the analogies presented don't even make sense to us because they assume that our behaviors are similar to your behaviors. For example: I almost fell over laughing when you mentioned going to the cinema for temporary amusement. I go to the cinema once every few years because spending money in that way is frivolous. Another example: a private library of movies or upgrading with changing standards isn't accepted by everyone either. A lot of people clung on to VHS even after DVDs became popular. (Heck, I just watched a movie on VHS the other day.) These days, a lot of people are clinging onto DVDs even with options like iTunes at their disposal. Then there are people like me, who don't even have a video library. (I have a grand total of four, which were from iTunes gift codes. I would have never purchased them myself.)

As I said earlier, unbreakable DRM wouldn't change much for me. I'm so cheap that I rarely buy new books (e- or p-). Yet I can imagine that many people want to buy books, and either don't have the money or are prudent about how they spend it. When spending 15 minutes to setup a piece of software and spending 5 minutes a year setting up a batch process can save them hundreds or thousands of dollars, they will.

There isn't much choice but to keep buying DVD's (or Blu-Rays). iTunes isn't really an option for movies because they're only viewable with Apple devices or Apple TV and I believe the DRM is unbreakable. Which is why I don't buy movies or tv shows from iTunes.

I suppose it would be the same for ebooks. I wouldn't buy them if I couldn't break the DRM. I would just buy DRM-Free ebooks or none at all and keep on reading paper books.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Jdschi

I love books, whether they are ebooks or paper. This means that I want to keep them around, indefinitely. I do reread books I like 2-4 times, 5-10 years apart. I really can't remember what happened in books I read 10 years ago, so I can enjoy them anew without spending anything.
With paperbooks, you just have to lug them around and store them somewhere, but then you can take a book out of its shelf once in a while and read at your leisure.
Now come DRM ebooks. With them, you have to hope that the format they're in does not become obsolete in the next decades and that the seller storing your "license" will still be around during the next decades.
I seriously doubt that. Digital things change FAST (anyone still remembers video tapes? LOL), and I highly doubt that many ebook retailers today will still be around in 30-40 years. But in 30-40 years, I still want to enjoy the books I've bought. Books are timeless. Without DRM, I can have as many backups of the stuff I want, in any format I want, so if the retailer I bought them from goes out of business, I still have my copy. If the format they're in does not match the device I read on, I can simply convert them.
I also don't think that it's valid to say one could simply rebuy the ebooks if your "license" becomes void one day - because just as books go out of print and become unavailable, ebooks might too if no one was interested in selling them. There is no guarantee that my favorite authors of today will still be read by anyone except me in 30 years, so there is no guarantee that I will be able to replace unusable ebooks by buying new "licenses" in the future. Of course it might happen that ebook readers got out of fashion in 30 years and I wouldn't be able to get a device to read them on - but I highly doubt that. As long as I can convert the files, I'm sure there will always be a way to read ebooks.

TL;DR: If DRM couldn't be broken, I would only buy cheap ebooks of which I knew that I wouldn't want to reread them or buy/read DRM free. I would go back to paperbooks for everything else. In fact, this is exactly what I did before I learned of the Apprentice, I think I bought exactly two ebooks before that and read only free classics on the reader. Only since I know of the Apprentice do I spend a substantial amount of money on ebooks, because I know that I will hopefully be able to keep them around indefinitely (or at least as long as my backup(s) holds out).

Not all that well researched. Video tape players are still available and probably will remain available for at least the next 20 years despite the fact that new movies don't seem to be available on video tape any more. The players will remain available as long as a substantial number of people still have tapes. Which we do. Our kids don't so our tapes will probably be thrown out when we die-but as long as we're alive we'll want to have a player so we can watch them.

Regarding ebooks, it's a question of the type of DRM & how you want to (re)read them. I have several ebooks in (or were in) secure eReader format. eReader software is still available. Secure eReader used your credit card number as the security code. Believe it or not, I was smart enough to store those expired credit cards in the same place where I store my other security information-so I can re-read those eBooks, in the original format, whenever I like and I anticipate being able to do so 30 years from now assuming I'm still alive. I may no longer be able to read them on my reader (haven't even checked to see if an eBook reader is available for Android to tell the truth) but I'm sure I can read them on my Windows laptop. Even if the software isn't compatible with whatever version of Windows is available then I'm sure I'll be able to set up a virtual PC running a compatible version. I do it often enough now for older games.

In short, the ability to (re)read DRMd ebooks in 30 years depends on two factors. 1) that you can download & store the ebooks. Streaming has been discussed & decided to be very unlikely. 2) that the DRM security is based on storable information, e.g. some sort of passcode. It's quite true that a lot of the current DRM is based on information specific to the device or software installation and is therefore likely to 'die' but not DRM is so based.

Of course this is theoretical as I don't believe unbreakable DRM is practical. The only method I can think of would be requiring a buyer to create a public/private key pair for each bookseller. The bookseller could encrypt the purchase with the buyer's public key so only the buyer could decrypt it. I'm still not sure it'd actually work but even if it did I suspect it would so greatly increase the seller's administrative overhead, and decrease their sales, that it wouldn't be practical. But that's just MO.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Of course this is theoretical as I don't believe unbreakable DRM is practical. The only method I can think of would be requiring a buyer to create a public/private key pair for each bookseller. The bookseller could encrypt the purchase with the buyer's public key so only the buyer could decrypt it. I'm still not sure it'd actually work but even if it did I suspect it would so greatly increase the seller's administrative overhead, and decrease their sales, that it wouldn't be practical. But that's just MO.

Ummm….. you may not have noticed, but in the scheme you suggest, the buyer has the private key needed to decrypt the content.

When we discuss unbreakable DRM, we don't mean DRM that's unbreakable by a third party, but a DRM that prevents the person buying the product from obtaining a DRM-free version of the product from the DRMed product.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Of course this is theoretical as I don't believe unbreakable DRM is practical. The only method I can think of would be requiring a buyer to create a public/private key pair for each bookseller.

You're missing the point there. None of the current DRM is 'broken' in the cryptographic sense. DRM stripping is really only about people who ALREADY HAVE THE PROPER ACCESS to read the material using it ways the DRM doesn't specifically allow, and doing it conveniently.
Imagine the toughest unbreakable DRM you can. Now buy the book, read it, and point a video cam at the screen while you do it. Poof, DRM free copy.
Some one will then invent an Android app to video, OCR and create an epub automatically.

Someone here postulated 'unbreakable' DRM would require everyone to read in a secured location under guard, and they probably need to have their memory wiped afterwards....*

The fact of this is the root of the argument that DRM does not deter committed crooks, it just inconveniences legitimate users.

ApK

* In the Navy, this was called a SCIF. Except for the memory wiping part. I don't remember any memory wiping...

[SeaBookGuy]

I have 300 or so library TBR books, so I'm sure I could manage to find one next after I finish the current one.

[Sydney's Mom]

I have almost 7000 unread books, which sounds like a lot, but only 3000 are likely to be read. I always purchase/rent in Epub, and free books are always kindle. If I buy a kindle book, it is something I mean to read immediately. But I will read a pbook from the library if I think the price is too high. What does price have to do with it? If DRM were unbreakable, I think there would be less competition (I would be forced to buy at Amazon, not always the cheapest vendor), and hence prices would rise. I read a lot of pbooks during Agency, because the price of ebooks were too high.

I couldn't ever stop reading, no matter how high the prices went or no matter how unbreakable the DRM was. I would just do what I did right before ebooks. There are unlimited requests for pbooks at my library, and unlimited checkouts. I used to request 10 at a time, and with 3 weeks, I was able to finish before the time was up.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Of course this is theoretical as I don't believe unbreakable DRM is practical. The only method I can think of would be requiring a buyer to create a public/private key pair for each bookseller. The bookseller could encrypt the purchase with the buyer's public key so only the buyer could decrypt it. I'm still not sure it'd actually work but even if it did I suspect it would so greatly increase the seller's administrative overhead, and decrease their sales, that it wouldn't be practical. But that's just MO.

Isn't this kind of what iTunes already does? And the program that decrypts it just uses the private key that you need to have in order to use your purchase!

Of course it hasn't been updated for the latest version of iTunes, but I believe that was due to lack of interest and the fact that you can still downgrade iTunes and use it there.

[latepaul]

OK, here's an interesting way to think about the issue. Suppose the worst consequences of unbreakable DRM were true, that you end up only being able to keep your ebooks until readers and formats change and after that you have to re-buy in the new format. A scenario that's extremely unlikely in the real world even if the impossible unbreakable DRM existed IMO, but let's assume it for the sake of argument. So, what then?

Well - you see a new book. It's priced at X, you know that formats change about every N years. You also know you want to read this book and if it's good you may want to re-read it.

So the question becomes - am I willing to pay X for this book, knowing I'll get N years out of it? And if I end up wanting more I'll have to pay. And the point is - for most books there is a value N and X where the answer is yes for most people. And guess what N and X are under the control of the ebook vendors. So they can make sure that they are at a value that works for most people (in order to maximise their profits).

In reality N will always be presented as infinite - you get to keep it - but in effect whilst there'd be no sharp cut-off, the efforts the vendors make to give you access to your existing books in new formats - by making readers backwards-compatible, providing conversion services etc, would make N a finite but large number.

Which means for most people the deal is reasonable. Or can certainly be made reasonable at the right price.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Isn't this kind of what iTunes already does? And the program that decrypts it just uses the private key that you need to have in order to use your purchase!

It's exactly what Alf does. It uses ADE's or K4PC's decription key. The difference is that ADE just shows you the book when it's decripted, Alf and friends actually save the decripted book to a new file.