No DRM Results In No Change In E-Book Piracy

[ritchards]

I thnk there are a few books I've grabbed, but mostly I end up preferring to read it as a dead tree edition and either buy it or grab it from the local library. (Pro-tip: libraries have plenty of books you can get without having to pay for!*)

(* Some places do charge, so this is not 100% true, but true enough.)

 

[RJ Dalton]

I don't imagine that there's be a huge market for pirated books. Books have never really been that expensive, and ebooks are even cheaper, so really, books are not worth the hassle of pirating, considering the risk of viruses, low-quality scans and other risks inherent in piracy.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

How do they know that the piracy rate has stayed the same? How do they track something like a piracy rate, which is an activity that people do in secret?

They're probably tracking torrents for their stuff

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

DRM is not and has never been about piracy. It is about large corporations attempting to use technology to eradicate the secondhand market after they have failed to do so legislatively.

The formula goes like this: DRM costs A to implement and maintain. B is the money lost from users who will not buy DRMd products. Support issues caused by the DRM will cost the company C dollars. And finally Z is the amount of money that would be spent by users who would buy but don't because they can get a pirate copy.

For DRM to "work" this equation has to be true A+B+C<Z

And for Z to be any number more than 0 the DRM has to be good enough that it will prevent the use of the device or content long enough for the money to be made. So far the only DRM "success" story I can think of is the PS3. I don't know of a single instance where DRM has stopped copying of software/content for any significant amount of time.

The problem is that at some point all digital content has to be "exposed" to the customers at which point it will be available for copying and sharing. I remember a story about a streaming video service that had a perfectly locked down player. So the enterprising pirates wrote a script that recorded the sound and took 24 screenshots a second. Then the data was integrated them back into a video to be uploaded.

In conclusion DRM doesn't prevent piracy, but it costs money.

Ubisoft lost sales of FarCry3 and Blood Dragon from me because of their DRM practices. Even though those two particular titles "just" include their stupid uplay phone home dumbness and not always on DRM.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I live for these "no shit Sherlock" moments. So here it goes. Are you ready?

No shit Sherlock!

I agree, but I tend to favor 'Ya don't say' said in the most condescending tone I can muster, cause I'm kind of an asshole like that

 

[halfeclipse]

It's not like ebook DRM is hard to beat: My ebook library program has a drm stripping plug-in,(because certain providers like to not tell you if a specific book has drm and goddamn I just paid 20 dollars for this thing, I'm using it on my e-reader of choice regardless of how hard you want to fellate the kindle/kobo.) It basically ignores DRM with contemptuous ease, I stick it in the library and the DRM gets removed as part of the uploading.


Anyways, this isn't new, Baen figured this shit out more than a decade ago, and then they went the extra step of making huge chunks of their catalogue free and it not only didn't cost them money, but they made more. Turns out a massive back catalogue has a shit profit margin, but paying $100-$200 to get into an authors stuff turns people off. Removing that impediment makes more people more likely to give you money in the future. Go figure.

Here don't take my word, go read Eric Flint's explination:
http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp

Hell they go beyond the stuff there. Buy a first edition hardback and you often get a disc with all/most of that authors releases through Baen, with not only the go ahead, but the explicit encouragement to share it around.

Seriously:

Within this electronic transfer medium you will discover a universe of adventure, delight and astonishment. All who venture herein shall be transported beyond these sad, tawdry, mortal realms and into a world of wonders. Rejoice! Rejoice! Thou art saved from the mundane.

So stick the %^&* CD in your computer! We don't do these things for our health!

And make many many copies and give them away to your friends. We don't mind. Really. We think of it as multi-level marketing with reader crack.

Repeat after me:

You willlll copy this CD and give it away... You willlll copy this CD and give it away... You willlll copy this CD and give it away...

Ohm... addict people to Ringo/Taylor books... Ohm... addict people to Ringo/Taylor books... Ohm... addict people to Ringo/Taylor books...

You may now have your mind back. But if you don't follow our instructions, the puppy gets it.

And we'll know. Oh, yes, we'll know...

Edit: Oh and they also sell e-arcs for a reasonable price and well ahead of release if you don't mind a slightly flawed copy. Reeeeally want to read that new book, but it's not due for a few more months? Well you can!

 

[Sean951]

I feel that a large reason that ebooks get pirated is because of price. Too many books are the same price for a Kindle version as a paperback.

 

[Entitled]

Since I got an e-book reader I've been mostly using it to replace my library visiting, with a much larger and more comfortable library.

If I actually want to own a book, I'm going to get it on my shelf.

Also, e-books don't make as nice gifts as dead tree ones. So they are probably outstandingly safe from the typical harms of piracy, all things considered.

 

[Kargathia]

How do they know that the piracy rate has stayed the same? How do they track something like a piracy rate, which is an activity that people do in secret?

Just do a few rainchecks on people seeding/leeching your stuff on the more popular torrent trackers, and you have a relatively easy check on significant volume changes.

 

[Atmos Duality]

How do they know that the piracy rate has stayed the same? How do they track something like a piracy rate, which is an activity that people do in secret?

Just do a few rainchecks on people seeding/leeching your stuff on the more popular torrent trackers, and you have a relatively easy check on significant volume changes.

And add in sales rates, which is the real thing any producer or creator should be concerned about.
If the legitimate sale rate went relatively unchanged after removing DRM, that says FAR FAR FAR MORE about the DRM than some nebulous number on a torrent tracker site.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

It's really nice to see a company start to trust their customers.

Pirates gonna pirate, there is no conventional way to stop piracy en masse. Slow them down? Sure, but you can't stop it.

 

[redknightalex]

I'll admit to pirating a few e-books but only because I didn't want to login to work to gain access to our rather extensive, and annoying, online e-book interface. Convenience factor but it exists.

Which brings me to my main point: there is a bigger picture here. Publisher's getting rid of DRM on their books not only helps buyers of a particular book but also libraries who would like to allow e-books to be added to their collection for their patrons to use. DRM and copyright are two of the biggest problems facing all libraries, both public and academic, and this is a step in the right direction.

I work at a library and e-books are starting to make some noise. We have two Kindles for patron use, much to my protest due to its lack of epub functionality, and recently run into the issue of Amazon's prohibitive DRM policy. We could strip the DRM and convert mobi to e-book (or rather the other way around) but that violates copyright/licensing and cannot legally be done. We also can only buy a book for one patron only, not the entire patron-base. This doesn't mean others can't strip DRM by themselves yet, as a large, public institution we cannot do this. Our pool of e-books we can make available to our patrons is much smaller than you would think.

Still, books may be books and games may be games but DRM will always be DRM.

 

[Thaluikhain]

So...just a stutter in the title?

 

[1337mokro]

"Read all about it! Extra! Extra!
"DRM does Nothing! Year long experiment exposes DRM companies as conmen!"
Read all about it!"

Seriously I FFFFFUCKING hate the DRM on E-books. It is SO horrible. Especially when they force you to use that shitty Adobe reader thing. It can't even display images properly it, overlaps them with the text and just in general makes for horrible reading because it isn't a continous document but has weird cuttoffs mid page rather than actual pages.

FUCK I get angry just explaining how much it SUCKS! That's why I crack everything I buy and convert it to a PDF so I can finally read it without losing track of where I was or having to fumble around with the settings.

 

[Petromir]

I'll admit to pirating a few e-books but only because I didn't want to login to work to gain access to our rather extensive, and annoying, online e-book interface. Convenience factor but it exists.

Which brings me to my main point: there is a bigger picture here. Publisher's getting rid of DRM on their books not only helps buyers of a particular book but also libraries who would like to allow e-books to be added to their collection for their patrons to use. DRM and copyright are two of the biggest problems facing all libraries, both public and academic, and this is a step in the right direction.

I work at a library and e-books are starting to make some noise. We have two Kindles for patron use, much to my protest due to its lack of epub functionality, and recently run into the issue of Amazon's prohibitive DRM policy. We could strip the DRM and convert mobi to e-book (or rather the other way around) but that violates copyright/licensing and cannot legally be done. We also can only buy a book for one patron only, not the entire patron-base. This doesn't mean others can't strip DRM by themselves yet, as a large, public institution we cannot do this. Our pool of e-books we can make available to our patrons is much smaller than you would think.

Still, books may be books and games may be games but DRM will always be DRM.

Ummm there are whole DRM systems specifically designed around facilitating time limited loans for libraries ( an actually reasonable use). I know a number of people who have used them and none have had any issues with it.

I am curious about how without a system to render a loaned e-book unreadable after the loan period expired you would propose a sensible system would work?

 

[Jamieson 90]

Seems DRM doesn't stop piracy which isn't a big surprise, but then again it is interesting to see that the piracy level hasn't gone down without DRM, you know especially with all those so called 'good' pirates who swear they'd pirate less and buy more if DRM was removed which hasn't been the case.

 

[Brad Shepard]

I spy with my little eye a typo.

 

[Nurb]

With no change, removing it should save them money.

But people who pirate ebooks buy a TON of physical books. Kinda like music fans.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Gotta love TOR.

Makes me want to go buy an e-book from them, just to support this.

Except I don't really want to rebuy a book I already own physically. Hmm. Will have to see what they have.