Sony's New German Ebookstore Features Thousands Of DRM-Free Books

[kesey]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...ee-books.shtml

"DRM is becoming less and less prevalent these days as more companies are realizing that the backlash from crippling the purchases of paying customers far outweighs any perceived prevention of infringement. It's not a wholesale conversion, but new DRM-free converts are appearing more frequently, including some surprising holdouts.

The Digital Reader brings us the news that Sony, of all companies, is opening its own ebookstore in Germany, bringing with it a large selection of DRM-free books.
The press release mentions that not all of the Epub ebooks sold by Sony come with the onerous Adobe DE DRM. Some of the ebooks, numbering in the “thousands”, use digital watermarks instead.

Apparently several German publishers have decided to go with this low-hassle security, including Bastei Luebbe Verlag, which publishes novels by Ken Follett, Andreas Eschbach, and Dan Brown (it is not clear that any of these authors’ novels are DRM free).
Rather than inject malignant coding that often fails to distinguish between paying customers and file sharers, these German publishers are opting for digital watermarking, which generally works as well as nastier forms of DRM but without the negative side effects. Booxtream is handling the watermarking for Sony, having proved its worth to publishers by providing this service to one of the biggest ebook storefronts of all time, Pottermore.

So, what convinced Sony to go DRM-free on thousands of titles? Perhaps it was observing Booxtream's success in deterring piracy without having to resort to draconian measures.
According to Huub van der Pol, the founder of Booxtream’s parent company iContact, the official release of the Harry Potter ebooks saw a decrease in piracy of the series.

Once the titles were available legally, and were easy to use, pirates saw little reason to post copies of the ebooks online.
As Hoffelder points out, you can't make that same claim about DRM-loaded ebooks. In nearly every case, the DRM is discarded easily by enterprising file sharers, or just as often by consumers, who strip their purchases of this handicap in order to move them to other devices -- or simply to make sure the publisher, bookstore or the DRM itself doesn't suddenly decide to render their purchases unavailable or useless. Some customers may download the pirated version even if they've purchased it, just to have an easily portable version unhampered by DRM. Why punish your paying customers in order to temporarily annoy/entertain infringers?

The other key to Booxtream and Pottermore's success is the simplest one to solve: make the book(s) available for sale at reasonable prices and with as few limitations as possible. Do this, and your "piracy problem" will very possibly solve itself. "

[JoeD]

So, what convinced Sony to go DRM-free on thousands of titles? Perhaps it was observing Booxtream's success in deterring piracy without having to resort to draconian measures.
According to Huub van der Pol, the founder of Booxtream’s parent company iContact, the official release of the Harry Potter ebooks saw a decrease in piracy of the series.

Well they would want to point that out, suggesting it's because of watermarking no doubt.

The HP books were all available on piracy sites long before the official version. Would it be a stretch to imagine a case where usually law abiding readers having no way to legally buy the ebooks simple pirate it (along with all the pirates who will pirate it regardless). When the official version becomes available, pirates continue to pirate but the otherwise law abiding readers now buy it instead.

There's members of this forum who bought a paper copy to justify downloading the pirated versions of the ebooks, others that pirated it and said they'd buy a legal copy once that option was made available.

So, could it be that the same fall in piracy would have occurred had the official books gone on sale DRM free rather than watermarked and that it was the act of making the books legally available as ebooks that caused a reduction in piracy and nothing to do with the watermarking protection.

make the book(s) available for sale at reasonable prices and with as few limitations as possible.

This is much more likely

Arguments about watermarking DRM vs encryption DRM aside (see the other thread on here for that debate), it's a step towards no DRM. Considering encryption based DRM may have included watermarking to boot, we are potentially down to one layer of DRM now rather than 2 and a less restrictive layer too (concerns raised in other thread accepted).

[xendula]

Originally Posted by JoeD

There's members of this forum who bought a paper copy to justify downloading the pirated versions of the ebooks, others that pirated it and said they'd buy a legal copy once that option was made available.

I may be one of those people who bought the pversions as soon as they became available, but prefered to read the ebooks that were not legally available, but readily available nonetheless. I would have even bought the legal ebooks when they came out, just to have the official versions, but to have to sign up for Pottermore for this was a no-go.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by kesey

The other key to Booxtream and Pottermore's success is the simplest one to solve: make the book(s) available for sale at reasonable prices and with as few limitations as possible. Do this, and your "piracy problem" will very possibly solve itself. "

Just that in Germany's case, which has fixed pricing on ebooks, all stores offer the same price, so ease of use and the presence of DRM are the only differentiators in the market.

[HarryT]

I am left puzzled after reading this article. Are Sony releasing DRM-free books, or are they releasing watermarked books? Given that watermarking is unquestionably a form of DRM, both statements cannot be true.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I am left puzzled after reading this article. Are Sony releasing DRM-free books, or are they releasing watermarked books? Given that watermarking is unquestionably a form of DRM, both statements cannot be true.

I got the impression they're just incorrectly using the term DRM as though it only applies to encryption based DRM and not other forms too such as watermarking.

So DRM free is really, encryption free but using watermarking for DRM.

I think the negative aspects of encryption/activation based DRM are so great that the term DRM is often used to refer solely to those methods. Despite it been technically incorrect as the DRM term should encompass all forms of DRM and not just the most restrictive.