The digital world has increased worries of copyright infringement for both individuals and companies. Attempting to give control back to the seller, Digital Rights Management emerged.
What is Digital Rights Management (or the more commonly used term DRM) besides a very controversial topic today?
By definition, DRM is the control of digital content (and some devices) after the point of sale. This technology prevents the buyer from unauthorized use of content.
How is DRM controversial? Some say Digital Rights Management is necessary, while others insist DRM is too restrictive. This controversy affects authors, musicians, producers, as well as other industries.
For example, self-published writers usually use DRM to protect the future sharing of the e-book:
- Adobe DRM technology protects ePubs and PDF documents
- Apple DRM technology protects the i-books
- Marlin Trust Management Organization protects Android products
There is also the E-DRM (Enterprise Digital Rights Management) to protect Word and PDF documents, as well as emails and web pages.
But many are opposed to DRM, or feel the technology isn’t as advanced as it could be. These same people feel that such advancements might actually decrease the numbers of individuals and organizations that argue DRM violates buyer’s rights.
Because so many people oppose the current DRM technologies, many artists and companies advertise their digital content and products as DRM-free.
Recently, we read Charlie’s Diary (blog hosted by Charles Stross) and his post titled, “Cutting Their Own Throats.” In this post, Mr. Stross discusses the Big Six in publishing and how they do not publish e-books without DRM. This makes sense; they don’t want the books they publish pirated. But Mr. Stross also claims that the biggest threat to the traditionally published e-books by the Big Six is the online giant we know today as Amazon. He continues by stating that by Amazon locking their e-books down with DRM, the company is in essence locking buyers into their Kindle format.
We can see obvious pros and cons emerge with this one example:
Pro: DRM protects the writer, the publishing company, and the e-books from unlawful sharing
Con: Buyers may be limited to reading particular e-books using only certain devices
For a very interesting conversation piece, check out Charlie’s Diary and read the hundreds of comments. We also found this Slashdot post continuing the discussion. DRM is obviously a very heated debate.
Let’s look at digital content in the form of video for a moment.
Comedian Louis C.K. doesn’t use DRM to sell his direct downloads. Simply put, he used his own money to convert his own comedy show digitally to make available to his audience for the low price of $5 via a personal website. This allows the buyer to stream the video and download a minimal number of times.
By doing this, Louis C.K. has made it less expensive and more about the material with the hopes he can continue to do this risk free.
Comments left on a TorrentFreak.com article criticized Louis C.K. for doing this, calling him dumb to not expect people to watch his video for free. But others still applauded him.
While it’s safe to say that some people will inevitably rip or steal a video or music online regardless of the securities in place, Louis C.K.’s experiment was a success. According to this Geek.com article, he made his money back in a matter of days. He proved that selling digital content without DRM can work, but at what consequence?
Maybe none.
Many of the large online music industries are now DRM free, including: Amazon MP3, iTunes, and Napster. This wasn’t always the case.
Is it because some have called DRM nonsensical? An invitation to pirate? A convenient strategy for reducing the e-book? Self-defecating? These are pretty harsh statements.
What do you think? We’d like to open up the comment section to hear your thoughts. Please, keep it clean.