Re: Why I am opposed to DRM

On May 20, 2009, at 1:06 PM, David Bowman wrote:
>
> How many books have I loaned out over the years? Is this piracy, too?

Obviously not. The essential difference is: in one case, the number of  
copies remains the same. In the other, it increases.

Our society COULD have decided upon a model where authors charge for  
the right to see their work. But we didn't do that. We set it up that  
creators charge for the right to COPY their work.

As a practical matter, that's all that people could charge for until  
very recently. Copying was difficult (more or less) and easy to track.

Now, of course, it's easy to do, and as hard to track as the number of  
viewers is. It may be that the foundations of our entire creative  
culture are no longer viable. In which case, we're in a world of  
trouble, or we will be soon. Some individuals may produce without  
earning money for it, but the amount and probably the overall quality  
will drop drastically if we can't continue to find ways to compensate  
creative work (and I'm not just talking about books).

The idea that more copies sell if there's more exposure is, obviously,  
valid. The idea that ebooks can act as free ARCs for fiction, with a  
net improvement for revenue streams, and that will probably work  
whether it's against the will of the rightsholders or not.

It will also, obviously, continue to be useful ONLY AS LONG as  
physical books continue to be the primary income stream. When printed  
books become ANCILLARY, then we'll be up a creek, if the culture  
continues to support the idea that ebook "sharing" is harmless and not  
really wrong.

Beyond that, you can't over-generalize. It's true that different  
market segments behave very differently in this industry. The most  
cursory knowledge many kinds of industry stats makes that brutally  
clear.

And last, but not least, let's all remember some caveats:  ebooks are  
tiny (0.0075 of the total) now. But they're growing. And, fiction is a  
very small fraction of the book industry, even if it's what outsiders  
think of most and first.

These discussions are also happening inside book companies, you know.  
It's not as if all these smart, worried people are mentally  
challenged, lazy, or luddites. This is an industry where such people  
do enter -- but their companies die REALLY fast. You might survive a  
mistake. You're unlikely to survive two, because margins in publishing  
make razors look fat.

So, when you think you're seeing something obvious and easy that the  
industry is missing -- the chances are pretty good that you're the one  
missing a vital piece of information.

Then again, the newbies that act on such assumptions provide me with a  
steady source of income, if they survive long enough to find me, and  
ask for advice.  . . . . . . Go for it, y'all! <grin>



Marion Gropen
Gropen Associates, Inc.
By-The-Question Consulting,  Tools for Publishers, & Classes
www.GropenAssoc.com
Her blog: www.GropenAssoc.com/blog





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