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Book Piracy — Less DRM, More Data
macslocum writes "Ambiguity surrounds the real impact of digital book piracy, notes Brian O'Leary in an interview with O'Reilly Radar, but all would be better served if more data was shared and less effort was exerted on futile DRM. 'The publishing industry should be working as hard as we can to develop new and innovative business models that meet the needs of readers. And what those look like could be community-driven. I think of Baen Books, for example, which doesn't put any DRM restrictions on its content but is one of the least pirated book publishers. As to sales, Paulo Coelho is a good example. He mines the piracy data to see if there's a burgeoning interest for his books in a particular country or market. If so, he either works to get his book out in print or translate it in that market.'"
Book "piracy" (e.g. rampant copying) has been going on for ages now. At the same time, I can't object to much of what happens with it.
I'm a collector of roleplaying system books. A large number of them are out of print. A sizable majority, not only are they out of print, the publisher itself is long gone. My options are to scour secondhand markets and convention auctions like nobody's business, but that can't find everything. Eventually, just to archive them and keep them around in case they get requested for reference, "piracy" is the last-and-only resort.
It's not half as good as having the physical book in my hand, but it's better than being unable to find the material. And when traveling to a distant convention, sometimes it's a "necessary evil" in order to transport the material in a 6-lb laptop rather than shipping an 80-lb suitcase back and forth.
Now, I'd be willing to pay $1-2 more to get a PDF copy of the book along with the print copy, but the same can't be said for Kindle/Nook/etc formats. Why? Because I have NO guarantee that there'll be a good reader for them 10 years from now. I'm hauling around (in some cases) 20 year old material here, I know I'll still be able to read a PDF a decade from now because it's non-DRM'ed, but the same can't be said for the DRM-laden formats.