[zaptheimpaler]

Pretty sure everyone agrees with that, even the DRM makers. It's just that in practice there is no way to allow a user to fully own a file, allow sharing that file with a few friends but disallow uploading it to a torrent site and sharing with the whole world. I get HN hates DRM and for good reason but im sympathetic to the problem the ebook distributors are trying to solve. It only takes 1 person uploading a file to the internet to cost the author thousands of sales. Some people say there is no evidence that piracy costs the content creators money which just sounds unbelievable for most content outside of a few mega hits.

[kstrauser]

> Pretty sure everyone agrees with that, even the DRM makers.

You’d think so, but that’s not the case. Here’s an example of a Canadian artists group that wanted “format shifting” to be explicitly illegal: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/10/copyright-collec...

In their opinion, if you buy a book on Nook, then switch to a Kindle, you should be legally required to buy another copy if you want to read it again.

[matwood]

DRM is security theater at this point. It's easy to find any book in any format on the internet. Amazon perpetuates this myth to authors and publishers that without DRM their book will be everywhere for free (which it already is), but all it does it keep them locked to Amazon out of fear.

The problem for the vast majority of authors isn't theft, it's that no one ever discovers their book at all.

[happymellon]

Considering that the DRM is so simple to strip, even from Kindle books, it's not a high bar for anyone even remotely interested in uploading it to a filesharing site.

The DRM is not saving any of these authors sales. I buy books because I want to not because DRM stopped me.

[ssklash]

I disagree that there is a problem to be solved here. If you do not like the reality of digital media and the ability for media to be copied indefinitely, find a different business model, instead of trying to get your preferred restrictions placed on everyone.

The MPAA/RIAA spend millions of lobbying dollars on trying to preserve their business model, to the point where non-US countries are required to follow their self-interested, business-model-preserving rules or be excluded from international trade deals.

If physical booksellers did the same thing, they would be ridiculed into silence by the sheer absurdity. But because it's opaque technical measures, backed by mega-corps, it gets a pass.