What Are Your Thoughts: Digital Rights Management

Discussion Topic: Digital Rights Management (DRM)

This is a topic I seem to find myself talking to someone or another about almost daily. So I figured I would give my opinion on it.

I’m not sure if Rise of Xosha has a DRM on it. I think it does, but it’s only the Amazon digital that does if it does.

The initial point of DRM was to prevent people from pirating books, but there is technology that makes them invalid. Not only can people simply scan a paperback or hard cover and make a pdf which can then be converted via Calibre or some other converting program into other ebook formats, there are DRM removal tools that can take a kindle book, an epub, a pdf, hell a library LIT file, and have the DRM stripped off it in less than a second.

Everyone who has had a book pirated from them has blamed Smashwords because to get on their distributing list (where your book goes to B&N, Kobo, Sony, etc), there can NOT be a DRM on the file. So it has always been naturally assumed that if a book got pirated it was because the file came from Smashwords. There’s a big flaw in that theory though. Indies and Self Pubs are the only ones who can publish through Smashwords.. So if ALL the pirated books come from Smashwords, then how did the Big 6 authors’ books get pirated? That in itself proves that Smashwords, while the probably the most frequently used to pirate, is NOT the only one being pirated from.

ALL Digital books can have a DRM put on them. Amazon does it them self, but there’s an Adobe program that will place a DRM on Epubs and PDFs. Apple has one for iTunes, and Marlin Trust Management Organization has one for Android products. Which once again proves my point on how easy it is to remove said DRM to pirate a book, if that’s the person’s goal.

So with that in mind, Let’s look at the Pros and Cons of the DRM

PRO

DRM protects the writer, the publishing company, and the e-books from unlawful sharing

CON

With the invention of DRM Removal Programs, the DRM’s ONE Pro is pretty much null and void now isn’t it? Bet your ass 99% of famous authors use DRMs on ALL outlets their ebooks are sold on, yet go randomly pick a famous author and go to any pirating site and you’ll find every book they’ve ever written.

CON

Buyers are limited to reading particular e-books using only certain devices

This DOES hold true. ALL ebooks I’ve gotten off Amazon whether free, gifted, or bought, I’ve been confined to reading on my Kindle for PC app since I don’t have wifi to have the books transferred to my kindle and no wifi means I can’t have it sent directly to the kindle. Amazon is the ONLY place I’ve had this problem (most books on B&N do NOT have a DRM on them unless the author places it there them self, and since most published on B&N went through smashwords, well you know how that works)

CON

DRMs are NOT free. They cut into an author’s royalties. Authors go look even on Amazon, that’s why they give you the option on whether or not to apply it.

CON

DRMs glitch A LOT. Most Customer service incidents involving an ebook not working or vanishing off an ereader is due to the DRM glitching

CON

Most people who have had an issue with a DRM, will think twice before purchasing another book with a DRM

I’m not trying to tell anyone not to put a DRM on their books. I’m not telling them to either. I just want people to know the facts before they pretty much waste money. DRMs no longer do the job they were invented to do. The proof of that can be found on pirating sites if you look.

What are your thoughts on this topic? This is a discussion so comments are more than welcome >^.^<