The DRM Ponzi event horizon
So in all the wrangling over digital rights management, there’s a distinction that is sometimes lost. Some DRM relies upon cooperation between specialized hardware and locked-up content. DVDs are the classic example, but when I was involved with a DRM standards-development process (yes, I too have walked the Dark Side), this was the planned setup.
The other way to manage DRM assumes a networked world, and works through authentication and shipping keys around. Two schemes predicated on this have just imploded, more or less noisily: one is Microsoft’s FairPlay PlaysForSure (thanks, Elaine!) music-distribution business, and the other is Fictionwise-over-OverDrive.
I wonder if such implosions aren’t inevitable. Keeping a key server up is a fixed and ongoing cost, but it’s paid for at point of sale, instead of in an ongoing fashion. If sales dip low enough, the key-server operator’s cut won’t cover the cost of running the key server. Exit one DRM scheme, stage left, and likewise exeunt all the bits of content locked up in that DRM scheme.
Ebooks may be particularly thorny creatures to manage via networked DRM, because in our culture we have such a fixation on owning books permanently, collecting them; if you’re going to shell out the money for a book, you’re making a commitment to keep it. I just don’t see the same commitment to CDs or DVDs. If this commitment holds in the digital realm, then a DRM implosion could further damage an already-rocky ebook market, perhaps fatally. Fictionwise-over-OverDrive isn’t a fair test, because the direct clients there were libraries, not readers.
Personally, despite my neverending love affair with the written word, I’m getting tired of owning print books. There, I’ve said it. They take up a whole lot of space, they clutter, and they’re obnoxious to pack (yes, I’ve moved twice in the last five years and that may not be the end of it, how about you?). For my purposes, with most books, ebooks would be far preferable both for one-time and many-time reads… if I could be assured of keeping my many-time reads.
I don’t know the answer here; I’ve never been good at the business-model side of ebooks. I wish somebody would work it out, though, because I’m ready to migrate off paper.