

Indie bookstores sue Amazon, publishers for using DRM to create a monopoly - mtgx
http://paidcontent.org/2013/02/20/indie-bookstores-sue-amazon-big-6-publishers-for-using-drm-to-create-monopoly-on-ebooks/

======
talmand
This seems a lawsuit hoping for a payoff without having much merit. If you can
purchase the item in several different ways, either on other devices or print,
then how is it a monopoly? Just because a company enjoys a large market share
doesn't necessarily make it a monopoly.

Also, publishers have the ability to specify no DRM on their ebooks for the
Kindle. So the fact the DRM exists at all is for the benefit of the publisher,
not Amazon. They might as well sue the publishers for exercising their ability
to use DRM on the Kindle that creates a monopoly for Amazon.

The open source DRM thing is just for PR and is rather silly. They brought it
up in an attempt to make themselves appear reasonable. If such a thing existed
then you might as well not use it. If it's open source then it would be
trivial to crack it, so what would be the point?

This lawsuit should be tossed, but alas, how much money shall be wasted
fighting it that benefits no one but the lawyers for both sides?

Another thing, if the claim is that Amazon has a monopoly on publishing
ebooks, does that mean the bookstores are saying that Amazon's monopoly is
preventing them from publishing ebooks on the Kindle?

~~~
EliRivers
"If it's open source then it would be trivial to crack it, so what would be
the point?"

You are subscribing to the security-through-obscurity myth and I claim my five
dollars.

~~~
ncallaway
Unfortunately, I don't think you'll get your payout in this case.

DRM is inherently insecure. All DRM is actually employing obscuring tricks to
make it as difficult as possible to access the plaintext content. At _some
point_ though, you have the plaintext sitting somewhere in memory or in
registers on the attacker's machine.

Since DRM _is_ security-through-obscurity, an open source module would make it
significantly easier to break.

~~~
johnrgrace
With ebooks it's crazy easy because you can READ the plaintext unlike with
video etc. where it take a tad more work to read the plaintext.

------
jmillikin

      > the filing takes issue with Amazon’s proprietary DRM,
      > AZW: “Ebooks with the AZW DRM can only be read on a
      > Kindle device or on another device enabled with a Kindle
      > application…the Kindle app works solely with ebooks sold
      > by Amazon.”
    

Being able to read books from Amazon only on a Kindle or via the Kindle app
isn't a big deal in practice, because there are Kindle apps available for
every major platform and on the web.

The claim that the Kindle app only works with Amazon books is flat-out false.
I know for a fact that it supports DRM-free Mobipocket files, and I assume
that the Amazon document conversion service works for the app just as it does
for Kindle devices.

~~~
johnrgrace
It's a HUGE deal if you want to sell books. Yes the Kindle reads DRM free
books, but 80% of the books being sold in terms of dollar volume MUST be sold
with DRM. Thus anyone with a Kindle can't buy and read the majority of books
being sold if they buy those books from a 3rd party.

I know you can buy good books without DRM, but if you want to read Stephen
King, Nora Roberts, John Grisham they are ONLY sold with DRM. Selling those
ebooks when they can't work on the eBook reader system that has sold more
units than every other system becomes a problem.

Note, I happen to have a solution for getting ebooks with DRM onto a kindle in
a readable form that I'm working on.

~~~
jmillikin
If the ebook reader market is dominated by one manufacturer that supports both
DRM'd and open formats, and some author refuses to sell books in an open
format while complaining about DRM, then that's not the manufacturer's fault.
It's not reasonable to expect Amazon to support every hair-brained DRM scheme
that a publisher can come up with.

------
lucian1900
"Open source DRM"? No, they should push for removing DRM entirely.

~~~
TillE
There are many good reasons we all know that DRM is evil, but here's another:

I wanted to buy a book recently, but for various reasons I don't want to have
that purchase permanently associated with me. The only ebook options were
DRM'd, so that was impossible. They all necessarily bind the book to your
account.

My only option for maintaining some semblance of privacy is to buy a hard copy
from an independent retailer.

------
nevir
I can understand why they're frustrated by the big 6, but why Amazon?

Amazon _does not_ mandate DRM on ebooks. All O'Reilly ebooks are DRM-free on
Amazon, for example...

------
fgrt2
Fuck DRM, get DRM free ebooks at ebookoid.com

~~~
talmand
You can buy DRM free books on Amazon as well, it's the publisher's choice. I
don't know the percentages, there doesn't seem to be a huge number of them but
they are there.

