Techdirt. Stories filed under "drm-free" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "drm-free"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:57:15 PST Sony's New German Ebookstore Features Thousands Of DRM-Free Books Tim Cushing http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121212/14130321366/sonys-new-german-ebookstore-features-thousands-drm-free-books.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121212/14130321366/sonys-new-german-ebookstore-features-thousands-drm-free-books.shtml
The Digital Reader brings us the news that Sony, of all companies, is opening its own ebookstore in Germany, bringing with it a large selection of DRM-free books. 
The press release mentions that not all of the Epub ebooks sold by Sony come with the onerous Adobe DE DRM. Some of the ebooks, numbering in the “thousands”, use digital watermarks instead.

Apparently several German publishers have decided to go with this low-hassle security, including Bastei Luebbe Verlag, which publishes novels by Ken Follett, Andreas Eschbach, and Dan Brown (it is not clear that any of these authors’ novels are DRM free).
Rather than inject malignant coding that often fails to distinguish between paying customers and file sharers, these German publishers are opting for digital watermarking, which generally works as well as nastier forms of DRM but without the negative side effects. Booxtream is handling the watermarking for Sony, having proved its worth to publishers by providing this service to one of the biggest ebook storefronts of all time, Pottermore.

So, what convinced Sony to go DRM-free on thousands of titles? Perhaps it was observing Booxtream's success in deterring piracy without having to resort to draconian measures.
According to Huub van der Pol, the founder of Booxtream’s parent company iContact, the official release of the Harry Potter ebooks saw a decrease in piracy of the series.

Once the titles were available legally, and were easy to use, pirates saw little reason to post copies of the ebooks online.
As Hoffelder points out, you can't make that same claim about DRM-loaded ebooks. In nearly every case, the DRM is discarded easily by enterprising file sharers, or just as often by consumers, who strip their purchases of this handicap in order to move them to other devices -- or simply to make sure the publisher, bookstore or the DRM itself doesn't suddenly decide to render their purchases unavailable or useless. Some customers may download the pirated version even if they've purchased it, just to have an easily portable version unhampered by DRM. Why punish your paying customers in order to temporarily annoy/entertain infringers?

The other key to Booxtream and Pottermore's success is the simplest one to solve: make the book(s) available for sale at reasonable prices and with as few limitations as possible. Do this, and your "piracy problem" will very possibly solve itself. 

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> in-other-news,-Sony-sells-e-readers http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20121212/14130321366 Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:41:00 PDT Viacom-Owned TV Station Using P2P To Offer Up DRM-Free Downloads Of New Show Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080613/0215211399.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080613/0215211399.shtml distributing a commercial-free, DRM-free download of the show through a variety of sources including P2P system Limewire. The company admits that it's just trying to entice viewers to watch the series on TV when it debuts later this summer, but it makes you wonder how the company can stand up in court complaining about YouTube, when its out there telling people to do whatever they want to help promote this other show. In fact, the folks behind this offering admit that DRM would have defeated the purpose, which is to get the show seen by as many people as possible: "We're trying for a bit of a ubiquity here, to go where the people are." Wonder if this story will make its way into the Viacom-YouTube lawsuit.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> so,-wait...-do-you-like-or-dislike-file-sharing? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080613/0215211399 Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:52:46 PDT CBC Plans To BitTorrent Its Own TV Program Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080321/145717615.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080321/145717615.shtml online TiVo type solution. Rather than having to wait for your TV to broadcast a show, broadcasters could put the shows online, via BitTorrent, and you could subscribe with RSS, getting every TV show you wanted. Of course, since that time, online hosted video has become more popular, with the likes of YouTube getting much of the attention. However, it looks like the idea of using BitTorrent to distribute TV programs in an authorized manner hasn't disappeared. Joe writes in to alert us that CBC Television up in Canada is planning to distribute copies of their program Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister via BitTorrent right after it airs. And, yes, they'll be doing it DRM-free. As the folks behind the show have said: "The show will [be] completely free (and legal) for you to download, share & burn to your heart's desire." Nice to see some are starting to get it. Rather than locking stuff down, you want to share it as widely as possible.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> about-time... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080321/145717615 Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:11:00 PST News Flash: Consumers Prefer DRM-Free Music Timothy Lee http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071112/123347.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071112/123347.shtml consumers like DRM-free music just keeps pouring in. The latest is a story from 7 Digital, a small online music store in the UK, which is reporting that DRM-free formats are outselling DRM-encumbered formats by a 4-to-1 margin. This isn't too surprising, given that DRM-encumbered music sold by anyone other than Apple won't play on the iPod, the world's most popular portable music player. Obviously, when given a side-by-side choice, the vast majority of consumers are going to choose the format that works everywhere. I suspect that name recognition is also a factor in MP3's favor: almost everyone has heard of MP3s, so someone who doesn't know anything else about digital formats or DRM is going to go with MP3 as a trusted "brand." One other interesting point in the article is that 7 Digital now has 60 percent of its music available in DRM-free formats, and expects to get that figure close to 100 percent by next summer. They appear to carry a wide variety of music from both major and independent labels. Until this year, iTunes was the only legal way to get your major-label music on your iPod. That was great for Apple, but not so good for the major labels. Now that the labels have come to their senses and started allowing DRM-free music sales, we're going to see, for the first time, a genuinely competitive market for online music with a lot of different music stores, all carrying both major-label and independent fare, and all selling music that will work with any device. Apple's music store will finally have to compete on its merits, rather than being propped up by its DRM monopoly. It's an exciting time to be a music fan.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> no-brainer http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071112/123347 Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:59:16 PDT Amazon Finally Launches MP3 Download Store; Pricing Still Wrong Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070925/114059.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070925/114059.shtml finally launched its MP3 download store, hyping up the fact that it's DRM-free. Amazon had gone back and forth on this idea for a while, at one point apparently considering teaming up with Apple on iTunes, only to later plan to go it alone. At one point, the rumor making the rounds was that Amazon felt it would be too difficult to compete with iTunes and had temporarily scratched plans for an offering. That was until folks at the company realized that the achilles heel for iTunes might be its DRM.

And that brings us today, with Amazon launching a DRM-free mp3 download store. It's definitely a step in the right direction, but it's still got some problems. First, the selection is definitely lacking. While the company has brought together an awful lot of content, there are still many record labels (and bands) that fear DRM free music (ignoring, of course, that most CDs are DRM-free). The second problem is that it missed the chance to shoot at the real achilles heel of iTunes: the pricing model. The songs all cost either $0.99 or $0.89, which is way too expensive in an age where people can carry around iPods with 160 gigs of content. Now that labels are finally coming to terms with the fact that DRM is a dead-end concept, the next big revolution will be in the price of music. So while Amazon got the first part right, the second part is still open for those who now want to attack the achilles heel of both Amazon and Apple.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> about-time http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070925/114059 Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:36:18 PDT Next Time You Announce An Agreement To Sell DRM-Free Downloads, Perhaps You Should Actually Have That Agreement Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070924/134727.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070924/134727.shtml a lawsuit. Then just assume that the resulting lawsuit will drive the publicity of the startup. Of course, sometimes such a strategy can backfire. Earlier this year, Robertson launched AnywhereCD with the claim that he would be selling DRM-free downloads from Warner Music -- perhaps the most stringent holdout in ditching DRM. Except... apparently Warner Music thought it had agreed to something entirely different and quickly sued AnywhereCD. It was actually somewhat difficult to understand Warner Music's claim. AnywhereCD was selling the physical CD, it was just that they would then also offer the digital tracks from the same exact CD. Basically, all the company was doing was saving people the step of having to rip the CDs they had legally purchased. Either way, eventually Warner and Robertson settled, allowing Robertson to continue to sell the DRM free tracks... but only through the end of September. If you look at your calendar, you'll realize that this is the end of September and Warner Music certainly had no interest in renewing any kind of deal with Robertson -- so it should come as no surprise that AnywhereCD is shutting down. It certainly looks like the controversial marketing strategy failed in this case. Previously, the lawsuits tended to be from competitors. When the lawsuits are from your suppliers, it gets really difficult to build an actual business.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> just-a-suggestion http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070924/134727