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Counterpunch: I’m an author, take my stuff for free

22 Feb 06:00am

Filed under: Books, Digital Media, Digital Rights Management, Downloading, Piracy

Digital Rights Management doesn’t work. DRM is a method of locking digital media so it can’t be shared. Except it fails. For every form of DRM employed, pirates instantly break it.

The author would prefer you bought this, but he knows that if you borrow it from a friend, you might just buy the next one yourself

DRM only inconveniences honest, paying customers. For example, in the case of eBooks, a person might justifiably want to have their book on their PC and their tablet, but DRM can prevent that.

I regularly get Google Alerts about my books being mentioned online and many times it’s when they appear illegally on filesharing sites. For every download like that, it’s a drop of cash not going to keeping food on my table, right? Actually, probably not.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: I’m an author, take my stuff for free" »

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Sarah says:

02:44pm | 11/07/12

Holy cow, $0.89 AND DRM-free? Buh-bye market share to iTunes! That’s an anziamg rate, and even iTunes lacks in selection, so I suppose it’s just a matter of time before Amazon hits critical mass with this . . . Read more »
Ahmad says:

10:21am | 09/07/12

Another great step in the right direction. The files are encoedd with the LAME encoder (which is great). The files are watermarked, but only to identify that they have been downloaded from Amazon, not with personal information. I was a bit disappointed with the selection, but I’ve never shopped I-tunes… Read more »

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