DRM and Purchasing?

[Doonge]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

An ebook very much has a physical component. It may be bits and bytes, but it's real. I can read it and manipulate it. That collection of bits and bytes is what I purchased.

He's the one specifying that one does not buy an ebook but buy a license to read an ebook, so he stress the distinction at times. At other times he seems to mix the word license and the word ebook. How convenient.

[John F]

This is an excellent discussion, but could we please get back to the main topic. Thank you.

[issybird]

Moderator Notice
I'm going to remind members of the essential difference between attacking an opinion and attacking a poster and ask everyone to mind his/her language and manners.

Originally Posted by John F

This is an excellent discussion, but could we please get back to the main topic. Thank you.

John F's thread and his request is to be observed. Thank you, also.

[issybird]

Off-topic post deleted. C'mon, folks, I'm not posting for my own amusement.

ETA: And a second one, too. Knock it off; you know to whom I'm talking!

[issybird]

I've had to delete a third post, all from the same poster.

Two points: First, it's a deplorable habit to start responding to posts before reading through a thread. Someone may have made your point, or refuted it. Or a mod may have posted, even!

Second, anyone who wishes to continue this discussion is welcome to open a new thread.

I hope this is the last off-topic post!

[darryl]

I'm very pleasantly surprised by the result of the Poll so far. As at the time of posting over 80% of people voting say they would not purchase ebooks if they could not remove DRM. It seems to be thought generally that an overwhelming majority of ebook readers don't know anything about drm and don't care if they do. I think this is probably correct. Mobileread members I expect are more passionate about their reading and better informed on issues like drm. I would have expected a poll like this to show a higher number who would not buy without being able to remove drm than would a similar poll amongst the general public, but 80% is beyond my wildest expectations. And amongst a group of presumably the most dedicated readers.

Having said that, I don't know what to make of it. I would love to think that tightening up drm would result in an 80% drop in ebook sales, but this clearly would not happen. But perhaps there would be some significant drop or at least a noticeable one if this were to occur. I hope we don't have to find out.

Another aspect which struck me in the comments is the number of people saying they have a queue of reading material which they will not be able to read in the rest of their lifetimes, and for this reason would not have any difficulty in ceasing to purchase new ebooks. I think this is a result of the far more affordable prices that have been on offer and are even beginning to filter into some Big 5 titles.

In the event that drm is tightened and there is a significant drop in sales, I expect that Amazon would react quickly to return to the previous status quo, perhaps by re-enabling kf8 downloads if they had discontinued them. I don't know that the Big 5 would do the same, nor do I think there is any chance that Adobe would revert to its previously compromised drm. At best it may lead the Big 5 to experiment with no drm or so-called Social drm.

An interesting topic for speculation, but I hope that it remains just that.

[Grey Ram]

I voted yes, because "DRM that cannot be removed" in never going to happen in ebooks. In other words, if we assume that one impossible thing has happened, then all kinds of other impossible things could happen too.

I remember that the Harry Potter books were initially released with one of the strongest DRM I can think off i.e. not as ebooks at all. What happened was that an army of dedicated fans not only scanned the books, but in some cases typed them directly and in others translated them to other languages before the official translation was available.

To me DRM has always been about being inconveniencing enough as to avoid blatant copying, but if a book is attractive enough that you "have" to pay for it even if it has such undesirable (to you) conditions attached, then it is worth re-typing to remove such conditions

[Rbneader]

Originally Posted by Grey Ram

I voted yes, because "DRM that cannot be removed" in never going to happen in ebooks. In other words, if we assume that one impossible thing has happened, then all kinds of other impossible things could happen too.

I remember that the Harry Potter books were initially released with one of the strongest DRM I can think off i.e. not as ebooks at all. What happened was that an army of dedicated fans not only scanned the books, but in some cases typed them directly and in others translated them to other languages before the official translation was available.

To me DRM has always been about being inconveniencing enough as to avoid blatant copying, but if a book is attractive enough that you "have" to pay for it even if it has such undesirable (to you) conditions attached, then it is worth re-typing to remove such conditions

Your post is predicated on 3 things:

1) That distributing pirated/re-typed books is never going to be successfully stopped
2) That many/most books will be released in physical form
3) That other people value sharing books enough to re-type them


Remember, Harry Potter was the most popular book series for a long time. Its sale numbers are up there with Shakespeare and the Bible. That's why people went to such effort. For 99% of books released, there isn't enough demand for that level of effort.

My time is money. Re-typing a book = hours and hours of time, not worth it no matter what the book is. There is literally no book worth that much.

If ebook DRM becomes uncrackable, I'll simply do what I did with video games when DRM became popular: stop buying new ones.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Grey Ram

I voted yes, because "DRM that cannot be removed" in never going to happen in ebooks. In other words, if we assume that one impossible thing has happened, then all kinds of other impossible things could happen too.

I remember that the Harry Potter books were initially released with one of the strongest DRM I can think off i.e. not as ebooks at all. What happened was that an army of dedicated fans not only scanned the books, but in some cases typed them directly and in others translated them to other languages before the official translation was available.

To me DRM has always been about being inconveniencing enough as to avoid blatant copying, but if a book is attractive enough that you "have" to pay for it even if it has such undesirable (to you) conditions attached, then it is worth re-typing to remove such conditions

There is currently drm that is not cracked yet - there have been a few posters at Apprentice Alf's blog for books downloaded with a recent version of ADE that cannot be opened in ADE 2.x. If that happens to someone who uses a Sony eink reader they wouldn't be able to read a purchased book. If it becomes more common I would hope it would be cracked, but I'm not willing to risk it.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Would you purchase ebooks if they had DRM that couldn't be removed?

My answer is an equivocal no, largely because it would place a serious restriction on which devices and software I could use to access the books.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

There is currently drm that is not cracked yet - there have been a few posters at Apprentice Alf's blog for books downloaded with a recent version of ADE that cannot be opened in ADE 2.x. If that happens to someone who uses a Sony eink reader they wouldn't be able to read a purchased book. If it becomes more common I would hope it would be cracked, but I'm not willing to risk it.

It will be cracked eventually. No DRM in the history of DRM (or "copy protection", as it used to be called) has ever stopped someone from making an illegal copy. The only thing it has ever done is inconvenience honest consumers.

[PurpleStar]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

It will be cracked eventually. No DRM in the history of DRM (or "copy protection", as it used to be called) has ever stopped someone from making an illegal copy. The only thing it has ever done is inconvenience honest consumers.

What about iBooks?? Can you crack that DRM?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

What about iBooks?? Can you crack that DRM?

Apple's "Fairplay" DRM has been broken a few times (see Requiem by Brahms). They're just more on top of changing things once it's been broken.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Rbneader

Your post is predicated on 3 things:

1) That distributing pirated/re-typed books is never going to be successfully stopped

Which is probably true. The files are small. There are too many ways to share them to identify and block them all. Whack-a-mole.

2) That many/most books will be released in physical form

No, that books will be re-leased in a form humans can read it (which is the point no?). If someone can read it, then they can re-type it.

3) That other people value sharing books enough to re-type them

We know this is true because it happened in the past. And not just for super popular books like Harry Potter.

Remember, Harry Potter was the most popular book series for a long time. Its sale numbers are up there with Shakespeare and the Bible. That's why people went to such effort. For 99% of books released, there isn't enough demand for that level of effort.

I disagree. I remember seeing pirated ebooks in the early '00s before ereaders were popular. They were usually text files or PDFs and clearly typed (or OCR-d) - often they had a version history so you could check if you had the latest! True it was easier to find best-sellers but there were a surprising number of lesser known titles. (I suspect that once those typing them got the method down they applied it to all their books)

My time is money. Re-typing a book = hours and hours of time, not worth it no matter what the book is. There is literally no book worth that much.

True for you, true for me too. However not true for everyone. And there only needs to be one person who cares enough to make a digital copy and if that copy is then shared it can be copied endlessly.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

What about iBooks?? Can you crack that DRM?

There is a commercial product out there that removes the DRM from books purchased on the iTunes bookstore. Works quite well and has been around for a while.

I tend to agree with the previous poster that this is a bit of a might mouse verse superman question. There is no such thing as an unbreakable DRM and never has been. Given how easy it is to scan a paper book in, or pay someone to do it for you, it's pretty unlike that anyone is going to go to much trouble trying to create one. As I've said in the past, I expect DRM for ebooks to go the way of DRM for music.