Comments on: To DRM or not to DRM…is there a question?

By: Elena

Elena — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:43:58 +0000

Dear all,
I’m a student of Management Engineering at Politecnico di Torino. One of the objectives of my master thesis, applied to a real case study, is the protection of confidential or valuable content using Digital Rights Management (DRM) techniques. I would like to start my research by doing a survey among expert and professionals in the IT sector.
As part of this work, I have developed a questionnaire whose purpose is collecting feedback in order to come up with an objective assessment of the market where such software for protecting digital assets could be deployed.
If you would be so kind to help me in doing my thesis, I will be happy to share with you the results of the survey by sending you the final report (which will be anonymous and respectful of your privacy). You can find the questionnaire online at the following link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Hqd7dR8baumIgsg_2fpmjLQA_3d_3d
Thank you very much in advance for your kind help and your time.
Best regards,
Elena

By: Coral

Coral — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:34:49 +0000

The DRM software sales team have earned their money convincing publishers it works – I am sure the odd lunch and game of golf didn’t go astray either. So now the publisher has to up the price to cover this overhead as well… And it doesn’t work, cracking DRM is quick and easy to do so therefore a waste of everyone’s time, except the sales team of course.

By: areader

areader — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:07:01 +0000

You can find programs which will strip out the drm from adobe, .lit and .epub etc. Fictionwise has the same drm as Harlequin. They get paid something when you buy from fictionwise but it could be as little as 40% of the cover price with FW pocketing the difference.

By: Lisa Freeman

Lisa Freeman — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:26:36 +0000

I used to be a loyal subscriber of several category lines from Harlequin. Unfortunately when they stopped selling in plain PDF and went to Digital I couldn’t get them to play on my computer. Harlequin’s customer support was very nice and helpful, however, they eventually came to the conclusion that I was out of luck. Now I have to wait and buy from Fictionwise, which probably doesn’t matter to Harlequin since I would assume they get paid something when FW sells the books.

As a reader I hope a reasonable solution to DRM will soon be found and all readers can enjoy the great books available. After all, I would think romance readers, authors and publishers all ultimately want the same thing: loyal readers and prolific authors!

By: Angela James

Angela James — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:47:37 +0000

I agree that making it more difficult for your every day digital buyer is self-defeating of Carina Press.

Carina is offering DRM free books, Liz, can you clarify what you said for me?

By: Liz Kreger

Liz Kreger — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:43:56 +0000

Interesting debate. Not having an ebook reader (yet), I rarely purchase ebooks. A Kindle is on my wish list for the near future. If a DRM doesn’t do a hellava lot of good in combating piracy, what’s the sense of it? I agree that making it more difficult for your every day digital buyer is self-defeating of Carina Press.

By: Kimber Chin

Kimber Chin — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:38:59 +0000

Yeah, but stores remove security tags from products when customers pay for them.

DRM APPLIES a security tag to the product a paying customer purchases.

By: Kimber Chin

Kimber Chin — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:33:37 +0000

There’s a conversion program from PDF to almost ALL eBook readers. PDF is the preferred format for business and business folks are usually quick to fill product gaps.

That’s why I only give away PDF’s. If one of my winners have an issue with conversion, I do hope I’m approachable enough that they’ll tell me so I can help them figure it out.

If I’m not approachable enough… well… then I DO have a problem. A big problem.

By: catie james

catie james — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:58:22 +0000

Since DRM currently seems to cause more headaches for those who are legitimately purchasing their ebooks, rather than stamping out piracy as intended, I’m against it’s use. Unfortunately I don’t believe thievery in general will ever completely vanish – there are just too many people who want something for nothing and someone will always find a way to circumvent the so-called safeguards.

By: Angie

Angie — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:43:19 +0000

My thoughts on DRM pretty much match yours. DRM does absolutely nothing to combat piracy, it doesn’t even inconvenience the real pirates. It does, however make things harder and more frustrating for the honest customers who are the only ones who have to deal with this crap.

Taken to its crazed extremes — which the computer game industry has done and which I can see book publishers doing if they don’t rent a clue really soon — DRM turns what should be a sale into a rental. You can use our product, but only so many times, or only until we decide it’s no longer cost-effective to keep maintaining the activation server. After that, tough luck, you can’t use the product you paid for anymore.

Couple that with the insane notion that $9.99 is a reasonable price for an electronic-format novel, and I for one am completely avoiding e-books put out by New York publishers.

All of the Observing With Concern the media’s been doing about Carina’s lack of DRM just underscores the ignorance of the people writing about the subject. Anyone who thinks that DRM is any kind of “protection” against piracy clearly hasn’t studied the situation. Reading press releases put out by the publishers doesn’t count. :/

Angie