Old-Fashioned DRM Protects Harry Potter Book

RMX writes "The Telegraph has a nice article about the steps that Scholastic is taking to protect the content of the print version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. They're delivering 10.8 million copies and need to ensure that this content isn't accessable by anyone before midnight. Technology includes high-tech (GPS to monitor delivery trucks progress and check that they did not deviate or stop.), low-tech (steel boxes & locks), social engineering notes (crates stacked up in the warehouses of delivery companies across America are marked: Please Do Not Open Before Midnight), and legal threats (As a final layer of security, booksellers have been forced to sign legal forms acknowledging that if they break the embargo, they will never again be supplied with a book by Scholastic). Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if they just used an E-book s with DRM. I'm all for Harry Potter protecting his rights; but it seems we keep getting closer and closer to the world described in Stallman's visionary The Right To Read article."

Comments

Re:Red paper?

[gbulmash]

It's Harry Potter, not Satan's bible!

Tell that to the fundamentalists who burn Harry Potter books and try to get them banned from school and public libraries. Witchcraft and wizardry are prohibited by scripture, and the Harry Potter series paints such occult pursuits not only in a positive light, but places people who practice these evil arts in the role of hero and role model.

I'm not saying I agree with that point of view. But in some people's minds, Harry Potter is closer to Satan's Bible than you may realize.

- Greg

Point Missed

[z0ink]

Scholastic isn't trying to take away anybodies rights here. This is common practice in competitive markets for big title releases. For example: Barnes & Noble manages to release the new book 2 days earlier than anybody else. What happens? Since B&N only has a limitied quantity and demand is so high, they quickly sell all their stock and make a bundle. This would be good for B&N, but it would hurt every other bookstore in the market, thus being an unfair practice. This isn't new. Just look at how strict video game releases are.

Actually, it is

[Krankheit]

I think what they mean is that empty crates have been marked "Do Not Open before Midnight" so that a miscreant will be go for those crates first. It is a classic social engineering technique. Like putting out a junk laptop in the view of a theif that says "important data" so he will run off with that one and not go for where the data really is (the server.) I do agree that it is not really digital rights management, but nonetheless, GPS is digital. ;)