Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Because if the only way for me to load text onto a text reader is to buy it an inflated price from the company's book store, then I'm just not going to purchase the device..
Isn't that exactly what the publishing companies want? Ebooks are a threat to the publishers' bottom lines. They're easy to share, they don't get old or fall apart, and authors can self-publish for basically nothing. Anything they can do that make ebooks unpopular keeps them relevant a little longer.
You might be looking at the wrong end of the dog.
Plain text eBooks (or ones using open unDRMed formats) represent a threat. However, book publishers have found a way to have their cake and eat it too with DRM.
Through DRM, they eliminate the used market and lending, make it a challenge to share, and through obsolescence of the hardware will "get old and fall apart." Also, authors can't self-publish as easily, because while there's nothing stopping anybody from making a .mobi file that will load on just about everybody's platform, it won't have any of the DRM protections and none of the distribution advantage.
With DRM, eBook readers are a publisher's wet dream. /Disclaimer: I actually own and read books on a Kindle. I'm part of the problem.