I’d recently read Gear Diary’s article titled, DRM Rears It’s Ugly Head and It is Ugly which serves to remind us all that as consumers we are cut off at the knees when it comes to dealing with DRM. I’ve run into it myself and from my experience with it, DRM leaves readers feeling shafted. It sucks.
The only way to work around dealing with DRM is to buy non-secured ebooks or break the law and strip it off yourself. Google is your friend. But remember, most of your favorite authors rarely, if ever, release new ebooks in a non-secure format.
Secure ebooks are almost always wrapped up in the barb wire that is known as DRM which stands for “data rights management” or some derivative thereof. Most publishers require DRM on their ebooks so until things change, it’s something that ebook readers will have to deal with unfortunately.
While I have jumped hoops for a format I prefer and have shaken my head at some of the most bone-headed decisions made by publishers especially when talking about the pricing of ebooks, I must say, the benefits outweigh the risks or annoyances of using ebooks. I’d like to think that as readers we are resilient.
DRM does nothing but annoy consumers and at the same time, industry insiders or others have said that DRM does nothing to inhibit piracy. DRM is akin to the publisher giving the consumer the middle finger and reminding us that we own nothing. It is the ugly side of digital publishing that I hope gets eradicated someday soon.
One of the types of DRM that I loathe is the one used by eReader (how ironic) because it requires that you unlock your ebooks with your credit card. God forbid if you should lose that CC.
Just a Quick note: As an aside, I was truly shocked at the sudden death of Michael Jackson. Before you roll your eyes or make a comment about his character, please note that I didn’t care much for his personal life. And really, you don’t have to love the man to love his music.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
That would be sweet.
There are some commercially successful black authors out there that have made the NYT list, Terry McMillan comes to mind first as well as Eric Jerome Dickey and E. Lynn Harris.
DRM sucks. I don’t see how people can think it protects against piracy.
About Michael Jackson: whatever one thinks about his personal life, he was revolutionary. He was the first black pop icon. When I think of him, I think of a musician who happened to be black, rather than his being black defining the sort of music he made. I think that paved the way for a lot of young black musicians who came after him. For example, I saw Destiny’s Child as a girl band who happened to be black; The Supremes I’ll always associate with Motown.
Now all we need is for a black romance author to hit the top spot on the NYT list and make history!
Hope that makes some sort of sense. I’m operating on very little sleep.