# DRM hurting publishers?



## Steerpike (Nov 30, 2011)

Charles Stross makes the argument on his blog that the use of DRM hurts traditional publishers because it locks readers into a platform (namely, Amazon's Kindle platform). It is an interesting read, and he makes points worth considering, though I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced. I suppose his argument hinges to some degree on the extent to which Amazon's products are viewable on other platforms even if there is no DRM. Are there other eReader devices that read .azw files, for example? If not, then the problem appears to be a combination of DRM and proprietary format that reduces the chances a reader will change platforms. You can convert between formats using something like Calibre, but the conversion isn't always perfect and I wonder if many more average eBook readers would go through that process than the process to remove the DRM.

Here is the blog post: Cutting their own throats - Charlie's Diary


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## Shadoe (Nov 30, 2011)

I don't think he's taking into consideration that the Kindle and the Nook aren't the only readers out there. I can read books from both Nook and Kindle on my iPod Touch and iPad. At Best Buy last weekend, I saw at least a dozen kinds of pads and I'm betting they all have reader apps. If you buy a book for Kindle or Nook, you can eventually read it on just about anything.

Certainly, the folks at Amazon and B&N want their customers locked in to using only their reader - that's just business sense. And of course they don't want the people who buy the books to turn around and distribute them to the rest of the world.

The idea that DRM hurts publishers seems silly to me. It doesn't help other readers to go with a bunch of different proprietary formats, so eventually, I think there will be a single standard.

The problem that's going to come from DRM is going to be when the format changes - which is sure to happen. Customers are the ones who'll pay that price as they have to repurchase the books they already have in one format to replace them with the new format. Kind of like the record-cassette-CD issue. With publishers getting to sell yet another copy of the same work, I think they'll do fine.

I do think the e-book format is going to change the traditional publishing business drastically, though.


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## Steerpike (Nov 30, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> I don't think he's taking into consideration that the Kindle and the Nook aren't the only readers out there. I can read books from both Nook and Kindle on my iPod Touch and iPad. At Best Buy last weekend, I saw at least a dozen kinds of pads and I'm betting they all have reader apps. If you buy a book for Kindle or Nook, you can eventually read it on just about anything.
> 
> Certainly, the folks at Amazon and B&N want their customers locked in to using only their reader - that's just business sense. And of course they don't want the people who buy the books to turn around and distribute them to the rest of the world.
> 
> ...



Yes, I think that all makes a lot of sense. I wasn't clear on the extent to which Amazon's Kindle format can be read on other readers, though. I don't think you can read it on the Nook, for example, without converting it. Same for the Sony eReader, Kobo, and most of the other e-ink display devices. But the Android-based devices, and maybe the iPad as well, do have Kindle software that will allow reading, so I think you are right in that Amazon's books can be read on a wide variety of devices and the industry seems to be moving more and more toward those devices.

Hopefully the format will in fact be standardized over time. If nothing else, that makes things easier for those of us who self-publish an eBook. I had to format mine for Kindle, then tweak it quite a bit to get it to work right on ePub, and I'm still not 100% certain how it looks on other readers that I didn't have handy. A standardized format would be nice.


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## Shadoe (Nov 30, 2011)

I haven't really explored teh other e-readers. I know when I was looking for mine, the selling point was that Kindle could read more formats than the others. I don't think you can read a Kindle book on a Nook, but I think I can read a Nook book on a Kindle. Though I forget which format those come in, so I'd have to check to be sure. I think any reader that has an exclusive format is asking to be left behind.


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## Steerpike (Nov 30, 2011)

I think the Nook is ePub. At least, for the e-ink versions. I'm not 100% certain about that, though. The conversion using Calibre is fairly easy, though. I have a Kindle as well. I'm giving someone a Kindle Fire for Christmas, but I prefer the e-ink display to the back-lit LCD.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Nov 30, 2011)

DRM hurts everyone, always, except for DRM manufacturers. It hurts creators, publishers, _and_ consumers.

You might think that DRM would help publishers and creators, by stopping those nasty ol' pirates? Well, turns out, that just isn't the case. DRM is never more than the tiniest speedbump to pirates. All DRM does is inconvenience the people who actually buy the product legitimately; the pirated version has all the DRM stripped out, meaning that the pirated version is usually a better product than the legit version, for most of the use cases. (A pirated movie might not come with all the DVD extras, but if all you want is to watch the movie -- which is what 99% of the audience wants 99% of the time -- the pirated version is more useful to you.)

One thing DRM does _very_ well is prevent person A, who legally purchased the product, from sharing it with friend B, who (in the olden days) would go "Hey, this is great" and buy a copy for themselves, or start buying that creator's other works. Well, now they just have their friend's verbal recommendation, which definitely can help, but not as much as actually experiencing the product themselves.

I'm not trying to justify piracy on ethical or moral grounds at all; that's a different discussion. I'm simply talking about the pure practical perspective of the content creators and publishers. If you want to maximize your revenue, putting DRM on something is going to hurt you in virtually all cases.


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## Shadoe (Dec 1, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> One thing DRM does _very_ well is prevent person A, who legally purchased the product, from sharing it with friend B, who (in the olden days) would go "Hey, this is great" and buy a copy for themselves, or start buying that creator's other works. Well, now they just have their friend's verbal recommendation, which definitely can help, but not as much as actually experiencing the product themselves.


It's been my experience that when someone receives something for free, they generally do not then go out and purchase it.



> I'm not trying to justify piracy on ethical or moral grounds at all; that's a different discussion. I'm simply talking about the pure practical perspective of the content creators and publishers. If you want to maximize your revenue, putting DRM on something is going to hurt you in virtually all cases.


I think publishers - and artists - have the right to protect their work and their income. I don't mind a good author getting paid to write - it generally makes them write more. I'd think, if they were going to get paid considerably less, because their work was being distributed for free, they would stop doing it. I love to write, but if someone offered me a job doing it for $30 an hour, I'd turn it down. If that was the only game in town, I'd go find a different job.

I think as DRM fails, they'll find a new way to handle it. Or maybe we'll see a paradigm shift, which would be better for all, I think.


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## myrddin173 (Dec 1, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> It's been my experience that when someone receives something for free, they generally do not then go out and purchase it.



I think he meant letting the friend _borrow_ said item.  Not just giving it to them.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 1, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> I think publishers - and artists - have the right to protect their work and their income.



Agreed, they have that right. I was not discussing rights at all, though, just practicality. Putting DRM on your work is your right, and it will always hurt you to do it.


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## Shadoe (Dec 1, 2011)

myrddin173 said:


> I think he meant letting the friend _borrow_ said item.  Not just giving it to them.


But people aren't _borrowing_ the non-protected files. They're _distributing_. There is where the problem comes from.

And, the DRM files can be borrowed, which doesn't hurt the author and allows sharing without distributing.


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## Shadoe (Dec 1, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> Agreed, they have that right. I was not discussing rights at all, though, just practicality. Putting DRM on your work is your right, and it will always hurt you to do it.


Seeing how books are distributed, just like music files, I don't see the DRMs causing any harm. I don't think they're providing the protection that they were intended to, but I'm not seeing any sales go _down_ because of them. I really just can't see where that might come in.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 1, 2011)

Sorry, it would have been more accurate to say that DRM never _helps_ the publisher. At best, it accomplishes nothing at all positive for the publisher. Sometimes, it:

1) slows down normal usage of the material (DRM decryption/checksums/decoding/etc. takes up processing power and time), though this is usually minor at worst.

2) prevents legitimate, legal uses of a work by an end-user who purchased it legally (what if I don't _like_ the Kindle reading platforms Amazon provides? who is hurt by me taking the book I paid for and putting it on some other device to read it? as it stands, it is a federal crime (DMCA) to break the DRM on a Kindle ebook and read it in some other way, and there is no good reason for that to be the case).

3) breaks and gets in the way, making it actually difficult to simply use the thing you paid for.

For ebooks, so far, I don't think it's been a huge disaster (the way it was with many early music and video DRM schemes), partly because the rate of book piracy is far lower than music/video piracy, partly because they've had more experience watching music and video DRM schemes fail and have learned how not to make those mistakes.

The fact remains that putting DRM on a work does nothing at all for the publisher or creator. Yes, it might not hurt anyone directly or noticeably, but "does nothing" is not really a good reason for putting DRM on works.

I will never put DRM on any of my works and will, if I can afford to do so, refuse to let any publisher I work with do so for my works.


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## Shadoe (Dec 2, 2011)

Well, I agree that it's not the ultimate protection it was designed to be. Most books are available out there in Webdom for free. So the books aren't all that protected. I'm sure it does discourage some folks from redistributing the books or downloading them from illegitimate sources, if only because they're not tech-savvy enough to know how.

Does it discourage users from reading the books on non-Kindle devices? On the one hand, not really. I own a lot of devices, and I can read my Kindle books on all of them, even swapping back and forth. On the other hand, I don't own every device that's ever been devised, so I'm sure there are devices that aren't Kindle-ready.

As far as it slowing down normal usage - I don't see that. I have many files that are from Amazon with their protection, and many that are not. They all load about the same. Actually, I can think of a few non-Amazon files that have given me trouble.

I guess I'm neutral on DRM.


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## Devor (Dec 4, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> The fact remains that putting DRM on a work does nothing at all for the publisher or creator. Yes, it might not hurt anyone directly or noticeably, but "does nothing" is not really a good reason for putting DRM on works.



Oh I don't know.  I think DRM has helped Amazon to lock in its customer base, which brings down the price of the Kindle and helps Amazon sell the hardware below cost.  And I genuinely believe that the Kindle helps people to read more.

When you consider that the new Kindle will let you "lend" books to someone, and that the Kindle books are usable on pretty much everything but the Nook, I don't really think I see much of a downside to it.


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## MichaelSullivan (Dec 4, 2011)

I've always been very opposed to DRM.  When I self-publish I always turn DRM off.  My Riyria Revelations that are now published through Orbit I of course have no control over. For a long time I got "mad" when I saw my ebooks on torrent sites being downloaded for free.  I used to play the "wack-a-mole" game of requesting them to be taken down...but then I'd fine it somwhere else and just determined it was an exercise in futility. I now look at pirated copies as potential word-of-mouth advertising. In many respects, obscurity is worse than theft. The mere fact that people are taking the time to steal your work and give it to others indicates that there are people who want to read it.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Dec 6, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> I think as DRM fails, they'll find a new way to handle it. Or maybe we'll see a paradigm shift, which would be better for all, I think..



I agree with this bit. I think we've already seen that shift in music, and it's coming for books as well.

When anyone can download a free plugin for a free software program and break any existing DRM, the DRM is seriously not doing that much but annoying honest users.

The DMCA was even altered, in summer 2009, to make breaking DRM *legal* in certain cases (such as every book where the DRM disables the "read aloud" feature - which is almost every Big Publisher ebook sold on Amazon). The Library of Congress makes regulatory changes to the DMCA every three years, and made these changes because it was deemed unfair to people with disabilities to prevent them from accessing the content in a reasonable manner (so they can break the DRM, and then read-aloud works). The LOC is expected to make more regulatory changes in summer 2012 which further reduce restrictions on users' ability to legally break DRM for *legal* purposes. In the long run, I think DRM will become totally legal to hack - and we'll see people selling software to convert your entire digital library from any format to any format with the click of one button.

Or possibly, before that time publishers will wake up and realize that the music industry already waged this battle, and realized that DRM did nothing to protect their work (it only takes one person hacking something before it becomes available to everyone), irritated customers, and cost them a ton of money. DRM was removed from music downloads quite a while ago, not because of regulation, but because it's a dumb idea. Book publishers are a little slow on the adaptation thing, but they're going to realize this eventually. I think.


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## myrddin173 (Dec 10, 2011)

Devor said:


> When you consider that the new Kindle will let you "lend" books to someone, and that the Kindle books are usable on pretty much everything but the Nook, I don't really think I see much of a downside to it.



Lending books is a feature that the NOOK had from the very beginning.  Also I think you have that backwards, Kindle editions can only be read on Kindle devices (or Kindle reading apps).  NOOKbooks however use the epub format which anything can read.

I hope that didn't read like I was trying to attack you, its just I'm on Team NOOK...


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## Steerpike (Dec 10, 2011)

myrddin173 said:


> Lending books is a feature that the NOOK had from the very beginning.  Also I think you have that backwards, Kindle editions can only be read on Kindle devices (or Kindle reading apps).  NOOKbooks however use the epub format which anything can read.
> 
> I hope that didn't read like I was trying to attack you, its just I'm on Team NOOK...



It only take a moment to convert the Kindle format to epub, however. And, alternately, to convert epub to .mobi or other formats you can read on Kindle. So I don't think the format is terribly limiting. I went with Kindle simply because I already shop a lot at Amazon and I'm a prime member, so it made sense.

I don't view it so much as a Team thing, but I guess many people do, like like iOS v. Android or Mac v. PC. That kind of stuff doesn't matter so much to me - I just go with what I like best and I'm happy to see others do the same.


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## MichaelSullivan (Dec 11, 2011)

I'm all for lending of books...but it should mirror "real books" - in other words I shouldn't be able to "lend" the book to 500 of my closest friends by emailing it to them. The book should be "unavailable" to me while my friend has it and once they return it then I should be able to lend to someone else. If they never return it....then it should be gone - just as a real book can be lost in the same fashion.  

ebooks allow for the potential of "mass lending" which I think would greatly impact author's income and we deserve to be compensated for our work just as other professionals are.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 11, 2011)

MichaelSullivan said:


> ebooks allow for the potential of "mass lending" which I think would greatly impact author's income and we deserve to be compensated for our work just as other professionals are.



We do deserve to be compensated, but DRM will never stop piracy; it's barely even a speed bump. All it does is make it harder for legit users (who already paid you) from sharing with their friends, an act which is more likely to result in additional sales than it is to result in lost sales.

Louis CK just released a film of a performance he did, with the following message:



> To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.
> Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I’m just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can’t stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.



He gets it.


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## Telcontar (Dec 11, 2011)

I agree with many of the above that DRM only really hurts users. No digital pirate worth his salt is stopped for more than a handful of hours by any existing DRM method, and that is likely to remain true. I'm a computer programmer, and I currently have the knowledge and skills I would need to crack the DRM on most software available today. I've never studied it, and I'm not interested in furthering piracy of any kind - it's just that the knowledge is neither specialized nor particularly arcane.

We also need to narrow our definition of piracy a tad, I think. People copying an ebook to give to their friends may be illegal, and is technically piracy, but it's not the kind we need to be worried about. We need to worry about the true digital pirates, the ones who are _in it for profit._ These people not only pirate works of all kinds, they make them available for sale to others at a cost that usually undercuts the market price. This sort of thing is rampant in south Asian countries especially.

These 'true' pirates are not stopped by DRM. It's a matter of a few hours for an experienced cracker to confound even the most advanced rights system. DRM even agruably helps them, as it makes property harder to use for the honest consumer, and pirates offer versions free from those troublesome systems.

On a tangent from my point here, Micheal brought up a good point about digital book lending in that it should mimic physical book lending - any purchased instance of a book is only available to one person at a time.


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## Leif GS Notae (Dec 11, 2011)

Don't be surprised if the ebook DRM starts mimicking the video game DRM. The demand of being online or having a signal to connect to as a requirement to use the goods is starting to grow. The other one that may not be adaptable except for when tablets and readers expand is the redemption code. Sure, you can have this simple book, but with the $5 code from the publishers, you can have access to interactive maps, special chapters, author's notes, etc.

Is DRM hurting the industry? The way it is handled now, yes. Exclusivity is a hindrance itself because you must have one reader or another. The comics industry is throwing their hats in with this by choosing the Kindle vs. the Nook.

Building in limits to ereaders/tablets is dumb too (looking at you, B&N), but they must do what they can do protect their products. Everyone will pine for those non-updated ereaders soon heh


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## Telcontar (Dec 11, 2011)

Leif GS Notae said:


> The demand of being online or having a signal to connect to as a requirement to use the goods is starting to grow.



Possible I suppose. However, given that there are many places where signal is weak (and the mobility of the readers themselves is part of their entire reason for existing) I don't find it entirely likely. I would expect an uproar from the consumers if any of the eReaders ceased to function when you went out of signal range. 



Leif GS Notae said:


> Building in limits to ereaders/tablets is dumb too (looking at you, B&N), but they must do what they can do protect their products. Everyone will pine for those non-updated ereaders soon heh



What limits are you talking about? Still an eReader newbie myself and I've only skimmed the first page of this thread, so I apologize if it's been mentioned already.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Dec 12, 2011)

I doubt we'll see an internet connection required for ebook readers anytime soon. As someone noted above, much of the benefit comes from being able to download a book which you then read on a plane, or at the beach, or in the car, or whatever. And most ereaders sold today still just have wifi, not 3G internet.

So no, not anytime soon, anyway.

On the contrary, I suspect within the next few years we'll see DRM go away in book publishing the same way it's been removed from most music sales.


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## MichaelSullivan (Dec 12, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> We do deserve to be compensated, but DRM will never stop piracy; it's barely even a speed bump. All it does is make it harder for legit users (who already paid you) from sharing with their friends, an act which is more likely to result in additional sales than it is to result in lost sales.
> He gets it.



I already said that I'm against DRM. I "get it". I was just speaking on a different subject which is multiple lending.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 12, 2011)

Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> I doubt we'll see an internet connection required for ebook readers anytime soon. As someone noted above, much of the benefit comes from being able to download a book which you then read on a plane, or at the beach, or in the car, or whatever. And most ereaders sold today still just have wifi, not 3G internet.



One of the big selling points of the e-ink Kindles (not the Fire) was that the battery life is absurdly long (which it is; I routinely would go a week without charging my Kindle, even when I was reading it for hours every day). Having to have constant or frequent wireless contact would kill that; radio is a huge power drain.

I mean, they could always change their minds in the future when every device is expected to be connected to everything all the time...

...but still, they'll figure out (like the music industry did) that DRM is pointless and costs them more money to implement than they'll ever hope to save by using it.


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## Leif GS Notae (Dec 12, 2011)

Telcontar said:


> Possible I suppose. However, given that there are many places where signal is weak (and the mobility of the readers themselves is part of their entire reason for existing) I don't find it entirely likely. I would expect an uproar from the consumers if any of the eReaders ceased to function when you went out of signal range.



This is why everything is shifting over to tablet and away from ereaders. It is easier to "require" a connection if you have a connection already established. The video game industry is testing it out and it seems to be doing well, going through third party distributors who require your constant access (Steam and EA's Origin) to access their material. While it might seem absurd, do not forget that...



> What limits are you talking about? Still an eReader newbie myself and I've only skimmed the first page of this thread, so I apologize if it's been mentioned already.



...The new Nook allows for only 1GB of non-Nook material. You can only have 1 GB of PDF's, documents or anything else (though I am sure there will be work arounds for it soon) and the rest HAS to be Nook material. This is where it starts getting slippery. To prevent piracy, they are limiting their hardware. That is their right, but I for one wouldn't take it. I have the Nook Color ereader and use it to house my extensive roleplaying book library via PDF.

Everyone is waiting to see an industry get it "right" so the rest can follow it. Right now, it seems as though the video game industry is forging that path. Look for some sort of implementation of their DRM on electronic goods like ebooks, especially after the large growth they have experienced this year.


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## Shadoe (Dec 12, 2011)

Leif GS Notae said:


> .The new Nook allows for only 1GB of non-Nook material. You can only have 1 GB of PDF's, documents or anything else (though I am sure there will be work arounds for it soon) and the rest HAS to be Nook material. This is where it starts getting slippery. To prevent piracy, they are limiting their hardware. That is their right, but I for one wouldn't take it. I have the Nook Color ereader and use it to house my extensive roleplaying book library via PDF.



That's crazy. They tell their customers what they're allowed to read? Another reason I'm glad I went with the kindle.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Dec 12, 2011)

Of course, the BIGGEST advantage of the Nook Color and Nook Tablet is how darned easy the little things are to root.    Then you have the cheapest fully functional high-quality Android tablet on the market, completely capable of bluetooth (at least for the color, not sure about the tablet) and able to read from whichever ebook retailer you prefer.  

Amazon has been fighting back via updates to rooted Fires to attempt to de-root them, so it looks like the Fire might not be such a great target for this sort of activity.


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## Leif GS Notae (Dec 13, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> That's crazy. They tell their customers what they're allowed to read? Another reason I'm glad I went with the kindle.



Welcome to the world of tomorrow... heh.

Honestly, it shouldn't deter you from an ereader, but they will be going away soon. Everything will be "cloud" driven, tablets and whatever else they come up with. All I know is, I will wait to see how it plays out. One will falter, but which one will it be? DRM or ebooks?


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Dec 13, 2011)

Leif GS Notae said:


> Welcome to the world of tomorrow... heh.
> 
> Honestly, it shouldn't deter you from an ereader, but they will be going away soon. Everything will be "cloud" driven, tablets and whatever else they come up with. All I know is, I will wait to see how it plays out. One will falter, but which one will it be? DRM or ebooks?


Ebooks on a cloud are still ebooks, just like MP3 music is still digital music regardless whether it's downloaded or stored in a cloud.

People will (already do!) store ebooks on "cloud" servers, just like music. But they'll still download the material to readers/players to carry with them. Until we have free 3G available everywhere, even on airplanes and remote areas, people are still going to want to carry their materials with them, even if they load them from a cloud server first, and store them in the cloud when not in use.


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## Leif GS Notae (Dec 13, 2011)

Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> Ebooks on a cloud are still ebooks, just like MP3 music is still digital music regardless whether it's downloaded or stored in a cloud.
> 
> People will (already do!) store ebooks on "cloud" servers, just like music. But they'll still download the material to readers/players to carry with them. Until we have free 3G available everywhere, even on airplanes and remote areas, people are still going to want to carry their materials with them, even if they load them from a cloud server first, and store them in the cloud when not in use.



Not all people have it set up, nor do they have access to it. The "cloud" might be here for some, but not all. Yes, if you have an ereader you can access it, but some don't even go that far. People will always be resistant to tech, just like they are resistant to change.

But this doesn't apply to the discussion about DRM, that should be for another day on another thread


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## sashamerideth (Dec 13, 2011)

Personally, I dislike DRM, I think when it comes to ePublishing it is just a minor speed bump.  Heck, if a kind of DRM can be circumvented or broken, that process can be automated.  Might take a little more time to write, but computers are good at doing the same thing over and over again, very quickly.  Exploit that, and DRM is broken, until a new method is adopted.


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