Re: What Consumers Want in Digital Rights Management

[Craig Morehouse <craigm@gdi.net>]

On Thu, 2003-05-01 at 15:38, Hamaker, Chuck wrote:
> http://www.publishers.org/press/releases.cfm?PressReleaseArticleID=140
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
> March 21, 2003
> 
> Contact: Ed McCoyd 
> Ph: 212-255-0200 ext264 
> Email: emccoyd@publishers.org 
> 
> AAP and ALA Release White Paper to Promote User-friendly DRM Products 
> 
> New York, NY, March 21, 2003: The Association of American Publishers (AAP)
> and the American Library Association (ALA) have released a joint White
> Paper promoting the usage capabilities in Digital Rights Management (DRM)
> products for e-books that publishers, librarians, and researchers say are
> most needed in order to satisfy consumer preferences.
> 
> E-book DRM technology consists of encryption and other systems that
> publishers and authors use to protect their works against unauthorized
> copying, and to define the ways in which an e-book can be accessed and
> used. DRM systems for e-books are currently offered by a number of
> different software providers, and this White Paper is intended to provide
> guidance to technology vendors as they build and improve DRM products for
> the industry.
> 
> Title: What Consumers Want in Digital Rights Management (DRM): Making
> Content as Widely Available as Possible In Ways that Satisfy Consumer
> Preferences

Forgive me for being simple-minded, but I believe that the Number One
Preference is not to have DRM at all.

It is DRM and proprietary formats that cause the dissatisfactions listed
in the paper. For example, none of the objections below apply to ebooks
from sites like Project Gutenberg. They come from publishers who cripple
their products to restrict the abilities of the readers to use the books
the way they want. Eliminate DRM, put the files in non-proprietary
format and the following problems go away:

�  Compatibility with Macs (especially important for the K-12 market) 
�  The ability to move e-books from one device to another 
�  Transferability to other users (e.g., lending and donating),
   consistent, of course, with publishers' needs to protect the security 
   of their works and intellectual property rights 

[I have to jump in here for a second. There is no 'need to protect the
security...' there are only self-serving, short-sighted, greedy and
customer-hostile desires to do so. People like Baen and many Open
Source/Open Content publishers have shown that publishing without DRM
protection is highly profitable and effective. The 'Intellectual Property'
aspect is easily taken care of by using the proper License.]

�  Consistency of successful downloading of e-books 
�  Format interoperability  
�  Support for publishers who want to make portions (but not all) of an 
   e-book copyable and/or printable 
�  Ease of conversion of documents from the OEB file format into a 
   format usable under the applicable DRM system; also the ability of 
   DRM systems to accept and protect OEB files directly 
�  Accessibility for blind and print-disabled persons 
�  Ability of consumers to set up user-friendly personal libraries of 
   digital content 
�  Consistency of basic usage features among different e-book products. 
 
Get rid of DRM and there are no such problems.

cam

> Sponsor: AAP and ALA
> Author: F. Hill Slowinski
> DOI: 10.1003/whitepaper1
> 
> White paper available at:
> http://www.publishers.org/press/pdf/DRMWhitePaper.pdf
> 
> OR: http://doi.contentdirections.com/mr/aap.jsp?doi=10.1003/whitepaper1