Comment by INTPenis
7 years ago
DRM is a ludicrous solution to preventing ebook piracy.
One of the first things I learned as a teenager online was that anything that can be read, seen or heard can also be copied.
It's only with interactive things like games and programs that pirates have a real challenge.
There is a big difference between copying physical objects and digital ones.
Books can be copied for sure, but the cost of copying a digital book is negligible compared to the cost of copying a real book. Zero cost of copying makes it possible to give it away for free (e.g. to drive traffic) and monetize otherwise (most digital piracy is business, not charity).
In the physical world, copied books are not given away for free typically because the cost of copying a book is relatively high.
Copyrighting digital items is a fundamental problem which has no good solution so far.
A physical book can readily be hand-scanned in an hour. There are numerous guides to processing the scans from that point. Two of the besst I've found:
https://natecraun.net/articles/linux-guide-to-book-scanning....
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Creating_a_DjVu_file
It's not about scanning. It's about printing (replicating) a book - it is significantly more expensive to replicate a real book than a digital book.
2 replies →
Does it matter what the cost is if it's cheaper and the money doesn't go to the owner? Seems like reasoning in search of a real world difference rather than a real world difference in search of reasoning.