Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM • Hacker News Board

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#21

Post by cpr » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:10 PM UTC

zosi wrote: post #12

cpr wrote: post #3

Of course, they put your name & other info on every page of the PDF generated for you. That probably works as a general "shaming" mechanism, such that most folks won't share indiscriminately.

O'Reilly doesn't seem to do that, unless it's embedded in the PDF in a way which doesn't show up in simple viewers. Pragmatic Bookshelf, Manning and Packt (out of the e-books I have handy for quick checking) do put your name/address on the bottom of every page to discourage piracy. Edit: Specifics for each publisher, for anyone who's curious: Manning - Name and email address on each page Pragmatic Bookshelf - Name on…

My pre-release copy of Javascript: The Definitive Reference (perhaps because it's pre-release) does have personalization on every page.

The other (regular, relased) books from ORA don't.

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#22

Post by cpr » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:12 PM UTC

Little-known fact that shows just how enlightened ORA is: you can go to https://members.oreilly.com/account/benefits, and buy any ebook upgrade from a physical book for $4.99.

They don't even check--they just take your word for it.

I just hope people don't abuse it, but, as Tim says, they'd rather have 100K books floating around and 10K books sold, than just 10K books sold. Can't help but improve their visibility and overall sales.

Good folks.

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#23

Post by cpr » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:15 PM UTC

yannickmahe wrote: post #14

I always wonder, when people say they don't mind about piracy, what part of it is genuine, and what part of it is pandering. Do they really mean what they say? Or do they secretly hope there would be no way to pirate their products?

Tim is an absolute straight-shooter. He's not pandering and he's not playing games. That's the way they think. (An old co-worker of mine is his right-hand man, running the book publishing business.)

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#24

Post by sethg » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:18 PM UTC

To be fair, the vast majority of people who live in a First World country and who have an interest in getting an O’Reilly ebook also have the means to easily pay for one—or to put it on their employer’s expense account.

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#25

Post by GrandMasterBirt » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:19 PM UTC

Seems like whenever there is a no-drm success and they are interviewed it is EXACTLY the same argument/story:

1) If 10,000 people will buy my X I will have sold 10,000. I will not have sold more since nobody else was willing to pay.

2) If 100,000 people also pirated my X then potentially a few of them would like it and either buy it, or buy a future product from me, which translates into more sales.

3) Once my X is hacked it is hacked for good (or something to that extent) and people pirating have no problems with DRM while people who legitimately bought X have to deal with DRM.

4) DRM can cost me sales just as piracy could.

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#26

Post by GrandMasterBirt » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:24 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #9

I'm really gratified that the guy who once wrote, "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy" has built his business successfully on this same principle.

There was an article on HN a few weeks ago about a guy who was selling something I don't remember. But he used to sell books. And when talking about piracy he asked the audience who did not agree with him "how many of you are fanboys/fangirls of an author and will buy everything that person makes" which was followed by "how many of you bought the anything made by that author as your very first introduction to him/her as opposed to borrowing it from someone, reading it in a library, pirating it and reading it, etc...?"

People understand the value of things. If you give people something they value and want more of, they will gladly pay for it (the value that they see it's worth) because they want you to keep producing. They know if they stop there will be nothing new. So the end-goal is to make people see the value you produce (even if its giving them that thing for free) because instead of instant-value you will get long-term customers.

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#27

Post by kragen » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

pmjordan wrote: post #10

generalk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the right way to discourage large-scale piracy. If I put my copy of an O'Reilly ebook online for anyone to grab, it's obvious the copy floating around is mine and I'm a jerk. But I can still give a copy of the PDF to a few friends and encourage them to buy a copy if they like it. And, there's absolutely no way this is going to somehow bone me in the future. The authentication server isn't going to go down, i…

I wonder if there's any legal precedent for a friend being the jerk in a scenario like this. "Friend" uploads ebook/music track/magazine I bought and "lent" him/her to file sharing site or whatever. It's my name in there, so I'm going to be the one who's going to be sued.

Yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine_Caridi#Piracy_incident

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#28

Post by khafra » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:37 PM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #19

generalk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the right way to discourage large-scale piracy. If I put my copy of an O'Reilly ebook online for anyone to grab, it's obvious the copy floating around is mine and I'm a jerk. But I can still give a copy of the PDF to a few friends and encourage them to buy a copy if they like it. And, there's absolutely no way this is going to somehow bone me in the future. The authentication server isn't going to go down, i…

Sure there's a way this could somehow bone you in the future-- if one of those "friends" you loan the copy to decides to put it online for everyone to grab, everyone thinks you seeded it, and suddenly, you're a jerk.

The jerkiness of your friends is transitive in many other contexts as well, so I don't think this is a problem with this technique in particular.

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#29

Post by RyanMcGreal » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:43 PM UTC

GrandMasterBirt wrote: post #26

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #9

I'm really gratified that the guy who once wrote, "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy" has built his business successfully on this same principle.

There was an article on HN a few weeks ago about a guy who was selling something I don't remember. But he used to sell books. And when talking about piracy he asked the audience who did not agree with him "how many of you are fanboys/fangirls of an author and will buy everything that person makes" which was followed by "how many of you bought the anything made by that author as your very first introduction to him/her…

That sounds like Neil Gaiman's take on piracy:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2351978

Re: Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

#30

Post by loire280 » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

xbryanx wrote: post #17

No DRM? What are they talking about. As a "Safari Books Online by O'Reilly" subscriber I'm constantly confounded by annoying "features" that seem to have almost no purpose but to prevent you from copying anything from the online versions (like code sections). While it's not technically blocked or prohibited, these features sure don't seem to be there to enhance online reading.

No DRM on ebooks, that is.

I agree that Safari's usefulness is severely hampered by the copy-protection methods (I used to use it as a free service through my university library). Unfortunately, as a subscription service O'Reilly has stronger incentives to use DRM because if it was easy to copy content from books, you could sign up for one month, copy everything you wanted, and then cancel your subscription.