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It's pretty hard to argue that DRM doesn't reduce piracy. The overwhelming evidence from the last several decades (everything from the piracy rate on Commodore
by ig1 14y ago
It's pretty hard to argue that DRM doesn't reduce piracy. The overwhelming evidence from the last several decades (everything from the piracy rate on Commodore Amigas vs DRM'd consoles to modern ebook DRM) is that DRM has a significant impact on reducing the amount of piracy that occurs.
Most of the arguments against DRM aren't about it's ineffectiveness in reducing piracy, but rather its implication for privacy and ownership rights.
- bo1024 14y agoAlso the question of whether reducing piracy increases sales.
- mtgx 14y agoPDF's convert to epub pretty well these days. You can even use good Text-To-Speech engines to read the converted epub aloud to you afterwards, so you get the benefit of having the equivalent of an audiobook, too.
- mikeash 14y agoThe trouble is that piracy reduction is the wrong end of the stick. What content creators benefit from is increased purchases, which does not necessarily follow from reduced piracy. I would agree that it's fairly clear that DRM reduces piracy, but it's not at all clear that this then results in increased sales.