DRM Good or Bad?

[frahse]

One above said he would skip my books with DRM. That is alright, but he could buy a nice used paper back or hardbound copy that he can transfer anywhere he wants, for anywhere from $4.00 to a good bit more.

And friends, one reason I don't publicize my name here is I don't want MR frequenters mad at me. On my own site, I am much more politic. Here I let my hair down. I come here to check the pulse of the fervent, the aficionado.



About security, about DRM, about people.
If you look about you will see locks, gates, grills, alarms, etc., everywhere. There is a reason for that. DRM goes along with that.

And finally I will challenge something that many of you have said that I feel is wrong. That is about whether DRM is effective and if it stops "theft."

I will give you an estimate and that is all we can really do, that for 92% of the eBook reading public, DRM is totally effective, and that is where I make my money. People get their eReader, they download their book, read it, and move on with their life. Maybe sometime years in the future they will wish to reread 10% of the books they have already read. They don't have time to worry about having a different eReader. This is the normal reader.

Plus I will estimate that of the 8% remaining people, we can divide that into 5% that never buy a DRM book, ignore it, or more than likely get it from somewhere else, and 3% that buy a DRM book, and then de-DRM it, and do all sorts of things with it.

Further on those numbers, I will say that doesn't count the "dabbler" someone that one time or even a few times does something nefarious with DRM or pirating, or borrowing, etc. I remember swiping a cookie or two when I was a kid.

Realize that the MR crowd is very special.

[Freeshadow]

@frahse: referring to the examples you gave - alas you're absolutely right; there are enough people out there trying to screw one if they can and it's rather hard to guess who in advance. Appearance, sex, ethnicity or age doesn’t help with it. Unfortunately HansTWN is right too. The difference between post and presale measures is a significant factor in this game.
The point we will always come to a halt at is, that DRM doesn't manage rights but restrictions. Thus it is not able to take motivations into account. The objectively very same activity may be legal or not depending on who undertakes it and why s/he does it. Whilst this is a basic aspect checked when determining if a criminal act has been tried or accomplished, no DRM system is capable to do it, because it's a case-specific decision with attributes to be checked which are out of range of an automated system. Sad but true. The only possible solution I can think of would be to sell not files but physical data carriers - maybe SD-card alikes with RO circuitry. The item being legal proof of possession. Like CDs kept although you transfer the music as mp3 to your players.

The so-called argument used by some people that all this anti-DRM arguing is useless because the average consumer doesn't care is worthless, because as it's been repeatedly pointed out, when the shit hits the fan, they start to care, alas too late. A wonderful case-study of such a widespread fan-hit can be done by STFW for "Avatar" and "blue-ray"

[Freeshadow]

+1 to what Elfwreck and frahse said as MR is a highly concentrated point of (e)bibliophiles, creators and authors and as such an exception to the intensity of being interested or professionally involved in the subject.

[ScalyFreak]

In the video game industry, it's generally accepted that 5% of customers are responsible for 85% of the money spent on buying games every year. With eBooks, a large number of those 5% hang out at MR, and are the ones that a lot of less tech-savvy customers rely on for help and advice when they decide what eReader to buy and where to buy their eBooks.

Just something to keep in mind before dismissing the opinions in this thread as coming from an insignificant minority that doesn't matter.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by frahse

I will give you an estimate and that is all we can really do, that for 92% of the eBook reading public, DRM is totally effective, and that is where I make my money. People get their eReader, they download their book, read it, and move on with their life. Maybe sometime years in the future they will wish to reread 10% of the books they have already read. They don't have time to worry about having a different eReader. This is the normal reader.

The point I would argue is that for your 92%, the DRM is not "effective," it's irrelevant. I predict you would see the same results from most of that 92% even if you didn't use DRM.

To call DRM "effective" for that 92%, you're assuming that if not for DRM, all those people would have given a copy of your book to someone else, presumably who would have otherwise bought it. I think most of those 92% never gave that a thought. Of those who did give it a thought, some portion did it anyway, because all current DRM (cept Apple's) is trivial to bypass if you want to, and some portion was stopped by the DRM. How much bigger is the size of that last group compared to the size of the anti-DRM group segment who might have bought your book if it didn't have DRM?
I honestly don't know the answer to that last, but factor in the cost of DRM, the impediment to space and format shifting, and the small possibility of lock-out, and I cannot see how it could be so much bigger as to be worth it.

ApK

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Justin Nemo

Yes, I totally agree.

One other DRM issue. If the store you bought the eBook from goes out of business and you needed to redownload the eBook to update the DRM.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by frahse

About security, about DRM, about people.
If you look about you will see locks, gates, grills, alarms, etc., everywhere. There is a reason for that. DRM goes along with that.

Locks and gates are to keep unwanted people out of other people's property. DRM is to keep people away from their own purchases.

Can you think of another example of mandatory limited access *after* purchase? I can think of a few that might be tied up with public safety (if you buy a ranch, you may be required to maintain the fences around livestock), but nothing based on "we will decide how you can use what you paid for."

Even guns aren't required to be locked so that only the purchaser can use it, no matter how much safer we'd be if that were the case.

And finally I will challenge something that many of you have said that I feel is wrong. That is about whether DRM is effective and if it stops "theft."

I will give you an estimate and that is all we can really do, that for 92% of the eBook reading public, DRM is totally effective,

Effective in what way? In what way does DRM *make money?* What sales are you getting for DRM'd books that you would not get from open formats?

and that is where I make my money. People get their eReader, they download their book, read it, and move on with their life. Maybe sometime years in the future they will wish to reread 10% of the books they have already read. They don't have time to worry about having a different eReader. This is the normal reader.

Ah, the "books as produce" model... read and set aside; there'll be something new to read next month, so it doesn't matter if this book is non-functional next year.

Doesn't say much about your confidence in your skill as an author, if you expect that nobody wants to re-read your books or pass them along to their kids. I mean, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money from casual readers and not care about long-term interest in your books, but it's not an attitude I hear from many authors.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Can you think of another example of mandatory limited access *after* purchase?

Guns, in pretty much all countries other than the US, need to be locked up when not in use. Reason being, guns are dangerous things that can kill people if the wrong person gets their hands on them.

I'm sure an argument can be made that certain books are very dangerous, but an abstract idea has yet to be fatal to anyone.

[Freeshadow]

We don't know what he writes about, but there are in fact books where rereading or passing forward in n+ years is pointless because of the topic.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Can you think of another example of mandatory limited access *after* purchase?

Sure. How about:
Cars (need to obey all those road rules, maintain a license and registration, buy insurance), park it in the wrong place and it'll get impounded),
Planes (even more so),
Alcohol (can't serve it to kids or resell it, carry it open in your car, or even drink it in public),
Copyrighted paper books (can't makes copies and sell them, can't publish a story based on the content.)

There's lots more. Rules, restrictions, license requirements, are nothing new or abhorrent. It's the particulars of the restrictions of DRM and the unfair impact of it on our other rights that I find objectionable.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by ApK

Sure. How about:
Cars (need to obey all those road rules, maintain a license and registration, buy insurance), park it in the wrong place and it'll get impounded),
Planes (even more so),
Alcohol (can't serve it to kids or resell it, carry it open in your car, or even drink it in public),
Copyrighted paper books (can't makes copies and sell them, can't publish a story based on the content.)

The difference between DRM and all your other examples is that the other items are regulated and restricted in order to protect the buyer and the people around him/her from harm. With an eBook, that is not a factor.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

The difference between DRM and all your other examples is that the other items are regulated and restricted in order to protect the buyer and the people around him/her from harm. With an eBook, that is not a factor.

The intent of DRM is to protect the copyright owners from harm (and by extension, protect society from what would happen if the IP producers were harmed and stopped producing). I think DRM (and also copyright law) fails in it's execution, not it's intent.

If DRM DIDN'T add to the cost of ebooks, DIDN'T hamper fair use, DIDN'T impede space and format shifting, DIDN'T bring about the possibility of lock out, and only in some teeny way, prevented some some small fraction of infringement, I would not be involved in these threads (if these threads exisited under those conditions) and I'd consider anti-DRM folks in the "wacko extremist" category.

ApK

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by ApK

The intent of DRM is to protect the copyright owners from harm

Exactly. Not the buyer. But the traffic laws and regulations are there to protect the buyer of a car, not the seller. There are other laws for that. So we're back to DRM having a negative effect for the buyer of the eBook, and the positive aspects of it never applying to the customer other than indirectly and at best very vaguely.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Justin Nemo

Why would you want to set your pdf so that you can only open it with a password, that would really upset people and defeat the object.

Yes that would just upset people.
JUST like DRM upsets them.

A password protected pdf is really just another form of DRM. - Digital Rights Management.

pdf files that are sold as DRM protected e-books have even better protection than just password.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

Exactly. Not the buyer. But the traffic laws and regulations are there to protect the buyer of a car, not the seller. There are other laws for that. So we're back to DRM having a negative effect for the buyer of the eBook, and the positive aspects of it never applying to the customer other than indirectly and at best very vaguely.

I don't see anything inherently wrong with that idea. This is the writer's section. I presumed the title of this thread referred to whether DRM was good or bad for the writers. Any goodness DRM might offer a writer would be evidenced as direct to their bottom line, but all the badness to the writer that we are pointing out is only indirect and vague. Goodwill, problems maybe down the road, possible lost sales to anti-DRMers, possible lost sales resulting from sharing, etc.