DRM

A piece of hardware or software that tries to stop you from copying something that you're not legally allowed to copy, basically. Most intellectual property these days isn't actually sold to you, it's licensed to you, and you're granted certain limited rights to use it in certain ways. The history DRM is the history of rights holders trying to use technology to enforce their licenses and failing expensively.

It's particularly sad or hilarious, depending on your perspective, when applied to ebooks, as it's impossible to prevent someone copying a book.

When it comes to most things electronic, DRM has proven to simply be an annoyance to law abiding people while being a non-issue for pirates. The computer game industry can be seen like a massive DRM experiment, to see how many hoops to jump through and annoyances people are willing to put up with.

Most DRM systems are used simply as a tool to prevent second hand sales which also has zero impact on pirates, but is annoying to those of us who are honest.

What copyright protection of books has going for it is the size of the market, the number of books that come out each year. If you want niche books with a limited audience.... then good luck finding it on a pirate site. This means that the only available option for many would-be pirates is to buy it... because only retailers will have it at all.

The experiment continues, and we'll see what happens. I suspect the music industry is the model to follow. My crystal ball tells me that when it comes to books, DRM will eventually consist simply of watermarking.

DrZoidberg said:

The experiment continues, and we'll see what happens. I suspect the music industry is the model to follow. My crystal ball tells me that when it comes to books, DRM will eventually consist simply of watermarking.

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It's an interesting idea but how would it prevent infringement?

Torgo said:

It's an interesting idea but how would it prevent infringement?

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It prevents infringement the way speed bumps prevent speeding - DRM makes it a little harder to steal copyrighted material, ideally screening out the casual thief. If a person really wants to steal, they will steal. Just like if a person really wants to speed, they'll just take the bump.

Kerry

KMTolan said:

It prevents infringement the way speed bumps prevent speeding - DRM makes it a little harder to steal copyrighted material, ideally screening out the casual thief. If a person really wants to steal, they will steal. Just like if a person really wants to speed, they'll just take the bump.

Kerry

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No, I get that, I'm just wondering by what mechanism 'watermarking' would work as DRM.

Watermarking is the wrong term; the concept behind the idea for an ebook is to include encrypted metadata, sort of digital DNA, that allows one to track the source of a file.

I think that's a better alternative, but the real problem is one of education, and personal ethics.

I also think that eventually DRM will die; it doesn't work. It just pisses off readers, and it's an additional production cost.

Torgo said:

It's an interesting idea but how would it prevent infringement?

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As I see it, the goal of producing and selling media (including books) isn't to prevent anybody pirating it, but to make money. So, as far as DRM goes, it's pretty weak. But I think its the severest type of DRM we (book producers) can get away with if we want to sell a product (rather than a service).

The music industry showed that customers aren't willing to put up with any intrusive DRM at all. If they paid for it they want to control it. The threshold to get anybody to buy any media is high enough already. Any added complications turn buyers off, which gives the media producer just as little money as if the potential buyer had pirated it. Services like iTunes proved that customers don't mind paying for media, but it has to be hassle free (the Amazon/Kindle model). At the very least paying for it must be less complicated than pirating it.

Another solution is services like Spotify, where you pay a subscription and get unlimited access to a wide range of titles, but own zero media once the subscription is up. And authors get paid for number of pages downloaded or something? But I think we're a far way off before the e-book platforms are mature enough to allow for this. As long as the makers of the e-book readers live in a fantasy land where they think customers will accept being locked into specific retailers, it won't happen. But I think it's just a matter of time before "the Kindle model" is left in the dirt by more open solutions.

It's a theory. And I think it's a while before the music industry has reached equilibrium. But they did get a head start so I think they'll be letting us know where the electronic media market is heading.

Medievalist said:

Watermarking is the wrong term; the concept behind the idea for an ebook is to include encrypted metadata, sort of digital DNA, that allows one to track the source of a file.

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Hmm, I think that would be easily defeasible; you'd just strip the metadata out by transcribing to plain text, or if it were a case of subtly corrupted individual texts you could compare two different copies... You're right, it'll die.

DrZoidberg said:

Another solution is services like Spotify, where you pay a subscription and get unlimited access to a wide range of titles, but own zero media once the subscription is up. And authors get paid for number of pages downloaded or something? But I think we're a far way off before the e-book platforms are mature enough to allow for this. As long as the makers of the e-book readers live in a fantasy land where they think customers will accept being locked into specific retailers, it won't happen. But I think it's just a matter of time before "the Kindle model" is left in the dirt by more open solutions.

It's a theory.

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A Zoidberg after my own heart! This is a model I have been talking about with people at work for a while now; all-you-can-eat on sub, or even advertiser supported (let's say you have to look at an ad every three chapters, or something.) It's worth a try at some point, anyway. I think a good deal of the difficulty will be in getting the rights/royalties situation sorted out (and indeed, I'm pretty sure Spotify doesn't make a profit yet...)

Torgo said:

A Zoidberg after my own heart! This is a model I have been talking about with people at work for a while now; all-you-can-eat on sub, or even advertiser supported (let's say you have to look at an ad every three chapters, or something.) It's worth a try at some point, anyway. I think a good deal of the difficulty will be in getting the rights/royalties situation sorted out (and indeed, I'm pretty sure Spotify doesn't make a profit yet...)

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The interesting thing is that they're making significant money at all. That means they're onto something and the question now is how to tweak it to find a balance. Spotify is still losing money hand over fist though. And the companies backing it could pull the plug at any moment.

This model is severely hyped at the moment, ie the Cloud. We'll see if it really is the future.

My only vested interest is finding something that works. I don't really care which model ends up winning. The important thing for me is that authors get paid.

Torgo said:

Hmm, I think that would be easily defeasible; you'd just strip the metadata out by transcribing to plain text, or if it were a case of subtly corrupted individual texts you could compare two different copies... You're right, it'll die.

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It's a little more difficult than that. What users don't know is that files on Windows and Macs are more like bento boxes than files. They contain much more than users know they contain, including binary data. Moreover, it's possible to create a file structure such that the metadata travels even with fragments of the file--much the way DNA works.

I was actually hired to test a scheme like this that Adobe was thinking of using in their second generation ebook reader.

Once I figured out the encryption method, it still took twenty minutes to get the text in usable form that could be read, not counting reformatting it. I'm not an expert--but I was a fairly good match for a typical savvy user.

I do think that DRM will go the way of the chained monastic library. I also think that one way to reduce pirated ebooks that are made by people from scanning or hijacking the text is to release legal and professionally produced ebooks in a variety of formats--good data does push out bad data.

Torgo said:

A Zoidberg after my own heart! This is a model I have been talking about with people at work for a while now; all-you-can-eat on sub, or even advertiser supported (let's say you have to look at an ad every three chapters, or something.) It's worth a try at some point, anyway. I think a good deal of the difficulty will be in getting the rights/royalties situation sorted out (and indeed, I'm pretty sure Spotify doesn't make a profit yet...)

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This is the way tech book publishers like O'Reilly and PeachPit work; you buy a subscription as an individual or as an institution.

This is also the way that ebooks are sub-licensed to libraries--it's very much based on the concept of a site license for networked software.

DrZoidberg said:

As long as the makers of the e-book readers live in a fantasy land where they think customers will accept being locked into specific retailers, it won't happen. But I think it's just a matter of time before "the Kindle model" is left in the dirt by more open solutions.

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The open solutions already exist: with a Sony or Kobo eReader, you can buy from any ebook retailer (except Amazon, and I think B&N).

Amadan said:

The open solutions already exist: with a Sony or Kobo eReader, you can buy from any ebook retailer (except Amazon, and I think B&N).

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You can't buy from Amazon, or B and N--the two largest ebook libraries (B and N is still, temporarily, the largest of all.

You also can't buy from Apple, which looks like it may become the gorilla.

The only truly open large provider is Baen.

Medievalist said:

I do think that DRM will go the way of the chained monastic library. I also think that one way to reduce pirated ebooks that are made by people from scanning or hijacking the text is to release legal and professionally produced ebooks in a variety of formats--good data does push out bad data.

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Definitely. It's the scanning / screen grab & OCR piracy that I can't see a way to defeat technically - you can't help but lose any cunning rhizome of metadata, and you have a good chance of keeping all the punctuation, at least..

Amadan said:

The open solutions already exist: with a Sony or Kobo eReader, you can buy from any ebook retailer (except Amazon, and I think B&N).

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I have an Sony e-book reader. I think its the best reader, but I can't say it's been painless buying books to it. I'm happy it's open... but it's pretty far from standard.

There have been a lot of techniques suggested including printing the buyers credit card number on each page of the ebook to discourage them from sharing it with strangers. But DRM, as it currently exists, is something I would avoid because it alienates and annoys readers.

Torgo said:

Definitely. It's the scanning / screen grab & OCR piracy that I can't see a way to defeat technically - you can't help but lose any cunning rhizome of metadata, and you have a good chance of keeping all the punctuation, at least..

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Good data pushes out bad; publish a legit professional version, wihtout DRM, and publicize it in the pirate channels.

Specifically note that it's been proofed/etc.

I've had luck with this approach in UseNet binary groups, and in Bit Torrents, where a sample free version with a note explaining that the other editions are poorly proofed, often with newly introduced errors and formatting problems, and do not give the author a dime, can if carefully named and distributed push the bad version so far down in the queue that it effectively disappears.

Weasel bastards will still be weasel bastards, but a fair number of people simply want an ebook in a particular file format--or a way to get to that file format -- for their own reading. They're not in the business of distributing files.

DrZoidberg said:

I have an Sony e-book reader. I think its the best reader, but I can't say it's been painless buying books to it. I'm happy it's open... but it's pretty far from standard.

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True -- when epub (or something else) is embraced by everyone from Amazon to the small independents, hopefully without DRM, then ebooks will have really come of age. Right now we're still in format wars.

Still, between Kobo, Fictionwise, Baen, Dieselbooks, the Sony Reader store, and a few others, I haven't found that many ebooks that I could only get at Amazon or B&N.

There's DMCA which is a law in United States to prevent people from distributing copyrighted works without having the approval of the author. It's up to the author/publisher to chase the people down though.

littlebear91 said:

There's DMCA which is a law in United States to prevent people from distributing copyrighted works without having the approval of the author. It's up to the author/publisher to chase the people down though.

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But that doesn't require DRM, right? Your copyright is still protected under DMCA regardless of DRM. Or am I mistaken?

In my high and mighty opinion, DRM is as bad as piracy.

Piracy is taking a product from its creator without buying it. DRM is a way of taking money from a consumer without giving the product.

In example, if you buy a PC game, you're under the impression that you're buying a game. You pay them money, get a CD with the information on it, and a book and all that other fancy stuff they pack in there.

Then when you get home, you then have to deal with DRM and an EULA that allows the creator to take the game away any time he feels like it. And for just about whatever reason.

Try this in any other industry and you'll probably face some legal issues.

imagine if you bought say, a bike at walmart. Its got a lock on it and the only way to ride it is to take a key out of the book. Well the book says that taking said key out is agreeing to some contract between you and walmart 50 pages long that states when walmart can come and take away your bike for whatever reason. But wally world won't let you return the bike if you don't like the contract or the lock. So if you sign the contract Walmart can take your bike away whenever the hell they feel like it, or you're stuck with a bike you can't ride.

I payed money for a piece of software to use, a story to read, a movie to watch etc, and now I have to sign my ownership of the media back to its creator, or deal with a hidden DRM that can shut down my media whenever.

I'm gonna get off the soap box and go to bed before I say something stupid. Night AW.

Not to state the obvious, Nivaron, but you don't have to buy those computer programs that offend your sensibilities. I hope you agree that gaining access to someone else's creation isn't a right? As long as they're upfront with what DRM they've got I can't see how anybody can compare it with piracy. What crime are they committing? Letting is legal.