Bill Clinton merrily signed the DMCA and similar joys. The idea was to stop piracy of e-books and the like by among other things banning the circumvention of technical protection. But tell that to the determined in this era of cheap scanners. The latest victim of piracy off p-books? None other than Bubba Himself. An AP story says:
Piracy of books, movies, music and software is rampant in China, despite vows by Beijing to crack down. An explosion in the variety and range of translated books can make it difficult to tell real from fake. But in the case of the many versions of ”My Life” circulating in China, it’s pretty obvious something is amiss.
Yes, I know. The defenders of the DMCA and the related DRM Hell say that best-selling books require DRM–despite the well-confirmed belief of smaller publishers that DRM hurts nonbestsellers because of the inconvenience it inflicts on customers (see a related item on recording artists). But consider this. If a book is a big success, then pirates will consider it worth the hassle to bypass the DRM–far more likely than if the book’s sales are so-so.
Bottom line? What’s the point of DRM other than using an extremely mild form to keep honest people honest? As noted, OpenReader will offer DRM Lite for publishers who insist on use of the technology, but even the big boys need to think this through and evaulate the issue in P&L terms rather than listening to status-quo-fixated copyright lawyers who’d lose business if copyright laws and related technology were saner.
Politicians, too, should stop swallowing the line from the usual copyright profiteers. Don’t they understand? Draconian copyright is a form of industry-strangling regulation, as shown this week by the death of 321 Software.
