4 ms·

Reading this sort of thing makes me want to go and buy this guys books. I own perhaps a dozen books I've bought from amazon, and it vexes me continuously that

Reading this sort of thing makes me want to go and buy this guys books. I own perhaps a dozen books I've bought from amazon, and it vexes me continuously that they come drm locked and I can't do simple things like, swap them to a different device. I've regretted it every single time. These days I get the free sample off of amazon, and if I like the book I go out of my way to find a way to get it DRM free, or buy a physical copy.

Tsagadai 14y ago
I suggest you do, his books are awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham
- tallanvor 14y ago
  Funny thing... I didn't recognize his name, but the first book of his Axis of Time series was available for free when I got my first Kindle. This can be a great way to introduce people to an author or series, and I've bought books by an author based on the free one I got. Unfortunately for Birmingham, Weapons of Choice just didn't convince me he was a great author, or at least not one that I want to spend more money on right now. Of course, I haven't pirated his books either, but the only reason I've ever done that is if the book isn't legally available electronically.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Done. Got the first book in the Axis of Time trilogy, if it passes muster I'll get the other 2.
tytso 14y ago
So break the DRM. Amazon actually has one of the easier systems to break; actually at this point they are all easy with the exception of Apple's. One of the things which hasn't been talked about as much is that the vendors who providing DRM (i.e., Apple, Adobe, B&N, etc.) have at best a mixed incentive towards improving their DRM to protect against its being breakage. On the one hand, they know it's technologically impossible to provide a truly secure DRM, and "fixing" DRM to protect against the latest hole costs time in development, QA and deployment costs. They also know that there are people (perhaps only a small minority, but growing) that will only buy digital content if they can break the DRM. So when upgrade their DRM, they lose customers. So from Amazon's perspective, whose main goal it is to increase market share and minimize costs, there is minimal reason to fix their DRM, even though they must know it's been broken. (Perhaps not in a legal sense, since there are probably contractual obligations, but the technological surfs employed by Amazon weren't chosen for their stupidity; quite the reverse, actually.) The flip side of the picture is that if you want to keep the digital content publishers on your side, and if you want them to agree to new forms of content and distribution, and especially if you want all of the members of the oligopoly which is, say, Hollywood, to sign a contract all at the roughly the same time, you need to keep your DRM secure. Unlike Amazon, B&N, and Adobe, who pretty much have a stable situation with respect to the markets they want to service, and/or who aren't willing to play the long game, I hypothesize that Apple is trying to do new things with TV shows and Movies --- and while the Book Publishers may be at best ambivalent to DRM, Hollywood hasn't had their lunch eaten by Amazon or Apple (yet). So Apple needs to stay on the good side of the MPAA. This explains why the ebook-only DRM schemes haven't changed in a while, even though they've all been broken, while Apple is still religiously patching iTunes and IOS with modified versions of Fairplay, trying to stay a step ahead of Requiem. It's also why I rarely buy digital content from Apple; it's too much of a hassle to determine whether or not Fairplay's DRM is broken this week. The bottom line is that with the possible exception of the most book publishers, who are acting like deer stuck in headlights, most of the rest of the economic vendors (i.e., the DRM vendors, Apple, et. al.) are acting completely rationally, even though on the surface the way the DRM game has been played seems to be quite the opposite.

Tsagadai 14y ago

I suggest you do, his books are awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham

tallanvor 14y ago
Funny thing... I didn't recognize his name, but the first book of his Axis of Time series was available for free when I got my first Kindle. This can be a great way to introduce people to an author or series, and I've bought books by an author based on the free one I got. Unfortunately for Birmingham, Weapons of Choice just didn't convince me he was a great author, or at least not one that I want to spend more money on right now. Of course, I haven't pirated his books either, but the only reason I've ever done that is if the book isn't legally available electronically.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Done. Got the first book in the Axis of Time trilogy, if it passes muster I'll get the other 2.

tytso 14y ago

So break the DRM. Amazon actually has one of the easier systems to break; actually at this point they are all easy with the exception of Apple's. One of the things which hasn't been talked about as much is that the vendors who providing DRM (i.e., Apple, Adobe, B&N, etc.) have at best a mixed incentive towards improving their DRM to protect against its being breakage. On the one hand, they know it's technologically impossible to provide a truly secure DRM, and "fixing" DRM to protect against the latest hole costs time in development, QA and deployment costs. They also know that there are people (perhaps only a small minority, but growing) that will only buy digital content if they can break the DRM. So when upgrade their DRM, they lose customers. So from Amazon's perspective, whose main goal it is to increase market share and minimize costs, there is minimal reason to fix their DRM, even though they must know it's been broken. (Perhaps not in a legal sense, since there are probably contractual obligations, but the technological surfs employed by Amazon weren't chosen for their stupidity; quite the reverse, actually.) The flip side of the picture is that if you want to keep the digital content publishers on your side, and if you want them to agree to new forms of content and distribution, and especially if you want all of the members of the oligopoly which is, say, Hollywood, to sign a contract all at the roughly the same time, you need to keep your DRM secure. Unlike Amazon, B&N, and Adobe, who pretty much have a stable situation with respect to the markets they want to service, and/or who aren't willing to play the long game, I hypothesize that Apple is trying to do new things with TV shows and Movies --- and while the Book Publishers may be at best ambivalent to DRM, Hollywood hasn't had their lunch eaten by Amazon or Apple (yet). So Apple needs to stay on the good side of the MPAA. This explains why the ebook-only DRM schemes haven't changed in a while, even though they've all been broken, while Apple is still religiously patching iTunes and IOS with modified versions of Fairplay, trying to stay a step ahead of Requiem. It's also why I rarely buy digital content from Apple; it's too much of a hassle to determine whether or not Fairplay's DRM is broken this week. The bottom line is that with the possible exception of the most book publishers, who are acting like deer stuck in headlights, most of the rest of the economic vendors (i.e., the DRM vendors, Apple, et. al.) are acting completely rationally, even though on the surface the way the DRM game has been played seems to be quite the opposite.