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I suspect if they tried such a gambit, AMZN could -- justifiably -- call for a DoJ investigation into unfair restraint of trade. (Or just ignore it altogether,

by cstross 15y ago

I suspect if they tried such a gambit, AMZN could -- justifiably -- call for a DoJ investigation into unfair restraint of trade. (Or just ignore it altogether, insofar as AMZN has still got over 60% of the US ebook market.) Besides, the whole point of DRM is to impede portability. What's got the publishers into this mess is being more concerned about piracy (and therefore opposing portability) than about empowering a hostile monopsony. The quickest way out of the quagmire is to open up. We saw this before, with music in the iTunes Store: 2003, everything is DRM'd up the wazoo. 2010: suddenly Warner Music are happy for Apple to sell you un-encrypted downloads. Luckily for the music cos, Apple are primarily interested in selling hardware. Amazon's priorities are different, and much more dangerous ...

danmaz74 15y ago
I think the main point of DRM, for publishers, is to impede copy, not portability (of the same copy among different devices). As for the DoJ, I don't see how creating an open standard for DRM ebooks would restraint trade; quite the contrary, I guess!
ralfd 15y ago
In one important aspect music differed from movies and books: Music was never in a copy protected format. The point of digital songs with DRM was absurd, because you could just rip & burn an original CD. But movies were copy protected even on VHS cassettes. DVD and BluRay are easy to rip/burn, but pro forma they have a DRM. And ORC scanning of books is inconvenient. It makes sense to at least try to establish a DRM for digital books. But it is true: "All this has happened before. All this will happen again." (So say we all) iTunes DRM helped not the big labels, but turned out to be a (small?) competitive advantage of Apple. Steve Jobs just didn't care, because Apple is in the business to sell the razor (iPod). This is a compelling analogy what happens now in the eBook disruption. With the difference that Amazon is in the business to subsidize the Kindle plattform to sell more blades (books).

by cstross 15y ago

danmaz74 15y ago

I think the main point of DRM, for publishers, is to impede copy, not portability (of the same copy among different devices). As for the DoJ, I don't see how creating an open standard for DRM ebooks would restraint trade; quite the contrary, I guess!

ralfd 15y ago

In one important aspect music differed from movies and books: Music was never in a copy protected format. The point of digital songs with DRM was absurd, because you could just rip & burn an original CD. But movies were copy protected even on VHS cassettes. DVD and BluRay are easy to rip/burn, but pro forma they have a DRM. And ORC scanning of books is inconvenient. It makes sense to at least try to establish a DRM for digital books. But it is true: "All this has happened before. All this will happen again." (So say we all) iTunes DRM helped not the big labels, but turned out to be a (small?) competitive advantage of Apple. Steve Jobs just didn't care, because Apple is in the business to sell the razor (iPod). This is a compelling analogy what happens now in the eBook disruption. With the difference that Amazon is in the business to subsidize the Kindle plattform to sell more blades (books).