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

It's not DRM, nor would I buy it if it was.

[Eric Smith]

None of the protection measures described are DRM, old-fashioned or otherwise.

social engineering notes (crates stacked up in the warehouses of delivery companies across America are marked: Please Do Not Open Before Midnight)

That isn't social engineering.

Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if they just used an E-book with DRM.

Cheaper and easier for the publisher. Not easier for the reader. Personally I don't care how expensive and difficult it is for the seller. I'll buy a plain old book, and I'd consider buying a non-DRM ebook, but I will not by a DRM'd ebook, because it is of little value to me. They expect to sell over ten million copies in the US. How many do you think they would be able to sell if they only offered an ebook? And how many if the ebook was DRM'd?

If the publisher wants to save money, they can simply distribute the book like any other book. No one is forcing them to have an embargo until an exact time; they have chosen to do that on their own initiative. So if it costs them lots of money to enforce it, that's their own problem. Why would you want to encourage the publisher to use DRM? How do you think it benefits you as a reader? Or do you have some other hidden agenda?

it seems we keep getting closer and closer to the world described in Stallman's visionary The Right To Read article.

I'm baffled. If you don't want that world, why are you suggesting that the publisher should use DRM? To prevent it, you should not ask publishers to use DRM, and avoid buying DRM'd products. If DRM'd products sell poorly compared to non-DRM'd products, the publisher's decision as to whether to use DRM will be easy.

Re:It's not DRM, nor would I buy it if it was.

[thephotoman]

There's a reason why they restrict it.

With large volume books by big name authors (JKR is currently the biggest name out there right now), strict release dates are set to make sure that the giant suppliers (who pay more to get quicker shipping and more copies) don't snatch up the customers from smaller bookstores by having the book two to three weeks earlier than the smaller stores.

Basically, it's there to make sure that every bookstore has an equal chance to make a sale on a high-demand book. Normal books aren't like this: they just get put on the shelf whenever they arrive. You've got to be somebody BIG (we're talking multiple titles on the bestseller lists at the same time here) to earn the right to a release date.

I have friends who used to manage bookstores. That's why this is done. It's simply a way of leveling the playing field so that small stores can compete.

Re:It's not DRM, nor would I buy it if it was.

[hey!]

The article reminded me of a discussion I took part in many years ago about a 24 hour student run coffee house.

...

Student 1: The dining service hates the coffee house because it's competition. They'd love to shut it down.

Student 2: Yeah, that's so fascist.

Student 1: Where are we supposed get coffee when we're studying late? They close the dining hall at 7:30.

Student 2: Yeah, those fascists want us to buy all our food from them, but they can't be bothered to stay open when we need it.

Me (to student 2): What exactly do you mean by "fascist"?

Student 2: Well, you know, like fascist.

Me: What I want to know is, can you actually define the word "fascist"?

Student 2: ** nonplussed **

Student 1 (indicating Student 2): "Fascist" is anything he doesn't like.

...

Now, I'm really against fascism. Or at least I was pretty sure I was against it until my brother in law, who is a college professor and thus a professional sower of doubt, managed to undermine my confidence in my definition of fascism. After all, what would people like Mussolini or me know about fascism? We can barely define "semiotics". But I'll go out on a limb and say that despite my highly unscholarly view of what fascism is, I'm inclined to hate and despise it.

It also happens to be true I'd really get pissed off if I couldn't get a cup of coffee at 1AM in the morning.

And, if I'm brutally honest with myself, I'll have to admit it's more probable that I'd do something about the coffee house getting shut down than the country going fascist. I don't like believing this, but the truth is, we feel the loss of our comforts and pleasures keenly. Maybe not more keenly than the loss of our rights, but certainly more keenly about the erosion of our rights. That's what makes authoritarianism so insidious: they promise you it won't affect anything you want to do, they won't curtail your pleasures and comforts. If anything they promise to make you more comfortable and prosperous. Any pain that you might feel is in the fuzzy and undefined future. When the consequences become clear, it's too late. Fuzziness is key. You might not believe they can make the trains run on time, but if you don't see any real cost to yourself, you aren't going to be inclined to to stop them from trying.

For that reason, people like my friend Student #2 above are highly useful to the authoritarian. Consciously or not, they actually accept and promote the questionable premises the authoritarian wants to foist on the public. Suppose the premise is fascism is about efficiency and practicality. Most people would agree that it would be nice if the dining hall were open 24 hours, but don't think of it as a moral evil if it doesn't. They understand that if the dining hall were open 7x24, that the meal plans would be more expensive. It's something you can live with and work around. That's exactly what the fascist wants you to think about uniting the powers of the state and business so they can serve each other's interests: it's efficient and you can work around the downside. It's a double bonus: the more people who think A is like B, the more credible the idea feels. The fact that people who don't like B are nutjobs makes people who don't like A seem like nutjobs too.

The cumulative result of years of this is that, while we can all agree we hate and despise facism, we can't agree on what it is. So you can promote any piece of the facist agenda you want, so long as you don't actually call it fascism. If somebody else calls it "fascist", then so much the better: the term is so useless now that only political wackos use it.

We're pretty close to this point with attacks on freedom of expression. Choosing when to publish a book is not digital rights management. It's something that virtually everybody can agree is within t

They shoulda used...

[cloudofstrife]

Magic! If Harry Potter is making so much money off of these books, he could spare a spell or two to protect the books from being read before the time they go on sale.

inanicus librarius!

Already Redundant but...

[saskboy]

This isn't Digital Rights Management

There is no "Digital" in PRINT books.

ARGGGGHHH! Please Mr. Submitter, know the terms you are using. Yes DRM is bad, but the first DRM I am aware of is floppy disks with copy protection. That's the oldest there is, everything else before that was just "rights management".

What's with the allusions and conspiracies?

[phorm]

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.

What exactly is wrong with protecting your product? In a world of rip-offs and general immorality it's not very uncommon for products to be ripped off before release, or stolen from trucks/docks/etc

I myself know of workers who admit to stealing the cargo they're supposed to be loading.

There's a lot planned around the time release of the product, and realistically while they are securing to get the biggest "bang" for their own bucks, the publisher is also making things more fair for the distributers by ensuring that everyone gets the same release date, and thus no one store can steal the business from others early

ahh.. no..

[danheskett]

This is a joke.

First, DRM of course means "DIGITAL", this is anything but digital.

Second, this has nothing to do with "rights". You have no right to a harry potter book. You have no right to a harry potter book before it's supposed to be released. You have no right to read a wrongly acquired book so you dont have to wait a few days.

Third, this type of crap dilutes the idea of a "right". You DO have the right to free speach, to freely assemble, to seek a redress of your grievances. You DO NOT have the right to steal someone elses physcial and yes intellectual property by getting a Harry Potter book (a) without paying for it and (b) against the express wishes of the author and publisher.

GROW UP.

Jumping on the bandwagon

[the_weasel]

Without a doubt the dumbest summary I have ever read on Slashdot. So many half baked connections and FUD, I can only think it boils down to this : Someone in Slashdot editorial wanted to put up a Harry Potter story to sync up with the building media hype around the release, and this was the best they could come up with.

Shameful.

Release Dates.

[Gannoc]

The reason you have release dates is so that ALL dealers have a chance to sell the book. Otherwise the stores with better distribution systems would get it in stock first, while the others would have to wait.

Then the publisher would have to worry about which store to ship to first, because the first store who receives it has a massive sales boost.

Eventually, every small bookstore goes out of business.

This whole submission makes no sense. It has nothing to do with DRM.

Re:Er?

[eclectro]

Christ, its a bloody childen's book not freaking gold bars

I think that the author JK Rowlings would beg to differ with you.

Non sequitur

[dr.badass]

This story has nothing to do with DRM or the "right to read". It concerns a publisher protecting it's assets before they go on sale. If you think a publisher shouldn't be able to decide when to start selling it's books, you're out of your fucking mind.

After you buy the book, your rights are the same as with any other book.

Your rights are not being infringed upon.
There is nothing to see here.
Have a nice day.