Stross: publishers' insistence on DRM "hands Amazon a stick with which to beat them"

[Tamahome]

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/29/stro...

[Kevin]

DRM is bad for books and authors

I think eBooks with drm should be free, they should be given to the people who buy a dead tree version of the book like a digital copy of a movie often comes on the DVD. The free eBook would be for the customer's convenience a searchable easy to carry library. The paper copy would be to insure the customer always has a readable copy even if Amazon goes out of business or decides to upgrade it's readers, like VHS/Beta to DVD and you wind up buying the same movies over again and to a lesser extent DVD to BD. I still have copies of paper books I bought in the 1970's that I still read. Will Kindle or Nook or Sony drm eBooks still be readable in 2050 (not that I'll still be around to find out). So before you pick an eBook reader ask yourself if you really want to keep a readable book for life, and go download a .txt or other format non drm book from Cory Doctorow.

Interesting post from Author Charles Stross

[Mike]

I don't think it's that simple. For one thing, even if Amazon ceases to exist there will in all probability be a successor that takes over and produces devices or software capable of reading Amazon's ebooks. For another, you probably get 90%+ of the value of owning that book in the first few years of owning it. It's a rare book that you come back to after 20 years. Thirdly, I don't believe the claim that DRM doesn't reduce piracy. If people could just as easily download a book for free as from Amazon, do you really believe book publishers wouldn't lose profits? Sure, not every pirated copy means a lost sale, but many of them do.

[Kevin]

Mike wrote: "For another, you probably get 90%+ of the value of owning that book in the first few years of owning it. It's a rare book that you come back to after 20 years.."

I know that I'm being naive but every time I buy a book I hope that it is that rare book that I'll want to re-read 10 - 20 years from now. Just last year I re-read copies of books I bought when I was in HS of I Robot, and just yesterday I started re-reading the Harper of Pern trilogy that I bought in my first year of college way back in the 70's. These are all books that I not only bought but took the trouble to keep with me through moves and other living arrangement issues. I'm really glad I have these books, LOTR, Clarke's Tales of the White Hart for example which I still frequently re-read. My only point is that drm may, just may make that impossible until a fair system is established,like a free drm eBook with a purchase of paper copy or drm free book that I can read on the device of my choosing like the epub reader on my Nintendo DS, I'll stick with used books the pricing is better and the books last a lifetime. Plus right now I can get plenty of drm free books to read both classic and new.

[John (john)]

Stross's tweet about the post included #AmazonAreEvil tag - I think his argument is pretty compelling that Amazon's practices have been short-sighted.

[Vladimir]

Mike wrote: "Thirdly, I don't believe the claim that DRM doesn't reduce piracy. If people could just as easily download a book for free as from Amazon, do you really believe book publishers wouldn't lose profits? Sure, not every pirated copy means a lost sale, but many of them do. "

DRM doesn't stop piracy. There is no DRM scheme that hasn't been cracked. Every single book/song/game/movie is cracked pretty much immediately after it becomes available. Selling DRM-free books would not make it easier to download pirated copies.

As it is now with DRM to read the book on my Kindle I either have to buy the book from Amazon or pirate it to get a DRM-free version. There is no way to buy the book from any other bookseller since the DRM is incompatible. Also, now I'm much less likely to switch e-readers since I got a bunch of books from Amazon now with their DRM which would be incompatible with the other e-readers.

[Matthew]

I am a prime example of the person that had to crack the DRM of Amazon as well as B&N in order to get the books on to my E-reader in the early days. Before my Sony reader had much of a store of it's own, I would buy books from other places, then run one program or another to strip the DRM and then convert it to DRM free EPUB. I am not saying what I did was in the TOS, but if I wanted any of the books legally, there was nothing else that I could do.

[aldenoneil]

"Big Six's insistence on DRM has proven to be a hideous mistake."

It's amazing how often we've seen the truth of this revelation over the last decade, and yet it's still necessary to say it because some industries can't see past their doorstep.

[Poly]

BoingBoing has an interesting article about leading copyright scholar William Patry who calls for "first, stop making new copyright laws until we know whether the current ones are working (we'll have to define what they're supposed to be doing first!); and second, make no new laws without a strong, impartial evidentiary basis."

Seems reasonable.

http://boingboing.net/2011/12/09/patr...

[Dan]

xenphi wrote: "BoingBoing has an interesting article about leading copyright scholar William Patry who calls for 'first, stop making new copyright laws until we know whether the current ones are working'..."

But following Patry's suggestion would interfere with applying the Politicians' Syllogism: "Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must be do it." Obviously, we can't have that.

[Sffgeek]

Mike wrote: ...even if Amazon ceases to exist there will in all probability be a successor that takes over and produces devices or software capable of reading Amazon's ebooks..."

There's no successor that will you to play all those 9-track audio tapes and Betamax videos.

[Geoff]

Mike wrote: "Thirdly, I don't believe the claim that DRM doesn't reduce piracy. If people could just as easily download a book for free as from Amazon, do you really believe book publishers wouldn't lose profits?"

Baen books have been releasing e-books DRM free for years and are still in business. Speaking for myself, Baen's policy means that I buy far more e-books from them than any other publisher.

[Kevin]

"Swiss gov't study: downloading leads to sales, so we're keeping it legal

By Cory Doctorow at 9:39 am Saturday, Dec 3

The Swiss government commissioned a study on the impact of copyright-infringing downloading. The independent study concluded that downloaders use the money they spend to buy more legitimate entertainment products. So they've concluded to maintain Switzerland's extant copyright law, which makes downloading for personal use legal. It's a rare victory for evidence-based policy in a world dominated by shrill assertions of lost jobs and revenue, backed by funny-number "statistics" from industry-commissioned researchers. "
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/03/swis...

Another BB article on copyright.

Downloading actually increases sales.

[Michael]

I've heard about that idea before, meaning that people who download things are, coincidentally, also hugely invested in those industries and spend a lot of money in them. Nice to see a study actually play this out.

[Poly]

Mike wrote: "Nice to see a study actually play this out. "

Not to mention a government enacting policy based on its own evidence. Imagine that!

[Michael]

In other news, pigs fly!

[Andrew]

I just wish the US would stop trying to export all their crappy laws to the rest of the world. Things like DMCA is so unbalanced, and ACTA, SOPA etc.. are all equally bad.