5 ms·

I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay th

by jwr 14y ago

I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.

netcan 14y ago
I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." Most of the people I know do too... more or less. I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." The reality is that "ownership" of digital property is different from ownership of physical property emotionally, legally and practically.
- gizzlon 14y ago
  Even DRM-less? That makes no sense. I agree on the DRM content though.. The problem is that most people will probably not.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    You still don't necessarily own a DRM-free copy of something. DRM is simply a technical method of enforcing a legal license. Just because you can use a DRM free file in more ways (for example copy and share it) doesn't mean that the license grants you the rights to do so. One example I remember from the early 90s was "shareware" where you could send off for a free or low cost copy of a software program. These programs were sometimes just demo versions but often actually provided the entire program for free. However the license stated that you must either delete the program from your computer after some period (usually 30 days) or you must pay a "registration fee" to the developer. Of course without DRM they had no actual way of enforcing this so plenty of people kept shareware versions of programs long after the 30 days which lead to developers releasing only versions with limited functionality for free.
    - mertd 14y ago
      Sme shareware would stop working after the trial period, and if you played it by the book or didn't know the workarounds, you would have to make the purchase.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        That seemed to come later, a lot of DOS programs would let you keep using them with just a reminder screen on startup. mIRC is one program that was free to use for a long time.
  - netcan 14y ago
    I'm talking about the feeling more than anything else. Having a song or a book on my computer/device doesn't feel like ownership to me so I don't treat it like ownership. A book on my kobo feels no different to a podcast on my phone. I don't think about my relationship with it. Part of that is probably because I already treat physical copies of music/books as temporary things. I abandoned all my CDs & books during my last move. I don't really care about owning this stuff. I just want to listen to music read books and watch shows. Another part is probably because I think whatever the system is now for owning, distributing & acculating digital property will be moot anyway within the next 10-20 years. Basically, I don't expect my grandchildren to inherit my "cloud." They'll have access to all that stuff one way or another anyway.
masklinn 14y ago
> I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. I don't buy e-books. It would annoy me to be locked out of e.g. a steam account or a Google Play account or an AppStore account or whatever, but I'd manage. Not having access to my books, that is something which wouldn't fly, books have been close friends for all my life, so I will remain physical-only until and unless DRMs are dropped from ebooks, as I did with music. I just don't see the benefits as worth the risk. Seeing DRM'd ebooks as short-term rental is an interesting idea though. I would see myself "renting" an ebook for a buck. For the same price as the mass-market paperback it still makes no sense.
nodata 14y ago
> I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.
- raverbashing 14y ago
  What's funny is this: Fine let's say it's not a rental, and forget about the DRM issue for a second. But what's your cost in keeping the data "alive"? I could copy it from machine to machine, maybe backup it on S3 (or similars), but all that has a cost (time, money, new reading devices, etc). A physical book has a cost as well: space, weight, etc. At some point, abandoning the book may be more cost effective, and even if digital books have a 'expire date' it looks like they may be cheaper in the long term
- gioele 14y ago
  > > I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. >Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does. Lawyers and librarians also do. There are big discussions in those circles about the meaning of the verbs "to buy" and "to possess" as used by Amazon, Apple and other big DRM "retailers". It is not only about DRM. Libraries are realising that paying for access to a website of a publishing house is not exactly like paying to receive a copy of a published journal or magazine. Have a look at all the dark archives and to who is financing them. First it was an hacker problem, now it has spread to humanities, in five years the DRM will finally become a layperson problem. The first signs surfaced some years ago, when kids started complaining about the fact that their iPod could not be used to pass or share music while a cheaper Creative MP3 player could without a problem.
  - dhimes 14y ago
    I had never heard of "dark archives." Is this what you mean? (from: http://www.osti.gov/ostiblog/dark-archives http://www.osti.gov/ostiblog/dark-archives) So, what is a dark archive? It is, simply put, an archive of information that is not used for public access. Most often it serves as a failsafe copy of a light archive, i.e. a publicly available version of the information, for use in disaster recovery operations. Dark archives need not be a fully operational copy of an information system, rather just the content behind the information system.
hpguy 14y ago
Uhm, what? The button name is "Buy now with 1-click", not "Rent now with 1-click". If I buy something, I own it. Period.
shmerl 14y ago
May be you consider it a rental, but most consider it a purchase. That's why throwing out DRM and making a backup should be expected the moment you buy some ebook.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by jwr 14y ago

netcan 14y ago

I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." Most of the people I know do too... more or less. I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." The reality is that "ownership" of digital property is different from ownership of physical property emotionally, legally and practically.

gizzlon 14y ago
Even DRM-less? That makes no sense. I agree on the DRM content though.. The problem is that most people will probably not.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  You still don't necessarily own a DRM-free copy of something. DRM is simply a technical method of enforcing a legal license. Just because you can use a DRM free file in more ways (for example copy and share it) doesn't mean that the license grants you the rights to do so. One example I remember from the early 90s was "shareware" where you could send off for a free or low cost copy of a software program. These programs were sometimes just demo versions but often actually provided the entire program for free. However the license stated that you must either delete the program from your computer after some period (usually 30 days) or you must pay a "registration fee" to the developer. Of course without DRM they had no actual way of enforcing this so plenty of people kept shareware versions of programs long after the 30 days which lead to developers releasing only versions with limited functionality for free.
  - mertd 14y ago
    Sme shareware would stop working after the trial period, and if you played it by the book or didn't know the workarounds, you would have to make the purchase.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      That seemed to come later, a lot of DOS programs would let you keep using them with just a reminder screen on startup. mIRC is one program that was free to use for a long time.
- netcan 14y ago
  I'm talking about the feeling more than anything else. Having a song or a book on my computer/device doesn't feel like ownership to me so I don't treat it like ownership. A book on my kobo feels no different to a podcast on my phone. I don't think about my relationship with it. Part of that is probably because I already treat physical copies of music/books as temporary things. I abandoned all my CDs & books during my last move. I don't really care about owning this stuff. I just want to listen to music read books and watch shows. Another part is probably because I think whatever the system is now for owning, distributing & acculating digital property will be moot anyway within the next 10-20 years. Basically, I don't expect my grandchildren to inherit my "cloud." They'll have access to all that stuff one way or another anyway.

masklinn 14y ago

> I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. I don't buy e-books. It would annoy me to be locked out of e.g. a steam account or a Google Play account or an AppStore account or whatever, but I'd manage. Not having access to my books, that is something which wouldn't fly, books have been close friends for all my life, so I will remain physical-only until and unless DRMs are dropped from ebooks, as I did with music. I just don't see the benefits as worth the risk. Seeing DRM'd ebooks as short-term rental is an interesting idea though. I would see myself "renting" an ebook for a buck. For the same price as the mass-market paperback it still makes no sense.

nodata 14y ago

> I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.

raverbashing 14y ago
What's funny is this: Fine let's say it's not a rental, and forget about the DRM issue for a second. But what's your cost in keeping the data "alive"? I could copy it from machine to machine, maybe backup it on S3 (or similars), but all that has a cost (time, money, new reading devices, etc). A physical book has a cost as well: space, weight, etc. At some point, abandoning the book may be more cost effective, and even if digital books have a 'expire date' it looks like they may be cheaper in the long term
gioele 14y ago
> > I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. >Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does. Lawyers and librarians also do. There are big discussions in those circles about the meaning of the verbs "to buy" and "to possess" as used by Amazon, Apple and other big DRM "retailers". It is not only about DRM. Libraries are realising that paying for access to a website of a publishing house is not exactly like paying to receive a copy of a published journal or magazine. Have a look at all the dark archives and to who is financing them. First it was an hacker problem, now it has spread to humanities, in five years the DRM will finally become a layperson problem. The first signs surfaced some years ago, when kids started complaining about the fact that their iPod could not be used to pass or share music while a cheaper Creative MP3 player could without a problem.
- dhimes 14y ago
  I had never heard of "dark archives." Is this what you mean? (from: http://www.osti.gov/ostiblog/dark-archives http://www.osti.gov/ostiblog/dark-archives) So, what is a dark archive? It is, simply put, an archive of information that is not used for public access. Most often it serves as a failsafe copy of a light archive, i.e. a publicly available version of the information, for use in disaster recovery operations. Dark archives need not be a fully operational copy of an information system, rather just the content behind the information system.

hpguy 14y ago

Uhm, what? The button name is "Buy now with 1-click", not "Rent now with 1-click". If I buy something, I own it. Period.

shmerl 14y ago

May be you consider it a rental, but most consider it a purchase. That's why throwing out DRM and making a backup should be expected the moment you buy some ebook.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]