As a technology and a philosophy, DRM only serves to hamper the ability of publishers to provide a quality product, prevents the consumer from getting the best experience possible, and reduces the ability for authors to get the best return for their work. While many arguments have been made about the effectiveness of DRM, some key points must be made clear.
First of all, there is no such thing as Unbreakable DRM. For every programmer or company you pay to develop the technology to prevent your product from being used, there are a dozen programmers who will break your DRM for fun or any number of motivations all their own. Just because DRM hasn’t been broken, doesn’t mean it can’t be. Usually, it either means that your content isn’t of interest to the piracy community, or there was an easier way to circumvent the DRM.
Which of course, brings us to the second point: you can’t DRM a print book. Harry Potter is probably the most infamous case of this, but in essence, even going so far as not making a book available as an ebook (the ultimate form of DRM) won’t stop it from being pirated. As long as there are fans who want a product and as long as publishers fail to provide that product, someone else will. Piracy isn’t about theft, it’s about the failure of companies to fulfill a consumer need and the consumer stepping forward to fulfill it themselves.
To consumers, DRM stands for “Digital Restrictions Management” or, more simply put, “Don’t Read Me”. It makes your product inferior, and why would anyone pay for an inferior product? Get rid of the notion of Digital Rights/Restrictions Management and into the mindset of providing a higher end user experience by utilizing the benefits of the digital realm. Managing your Digital Rights shouldn’t be about stopping people from reading your works, it should be about making sure that your assets are represented in the best way possible and ultimately ensuring that you are getting the biggest return for your investment.
