

O'Reilly drops ebook DRM, sees 104% increase in sales - alrex021
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/22/oreilly-drops-ebook.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing/iBag+(Boing+Boing)

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michael_nielsen
Note that the post is from boingboing, not O'Reilly, whose post says nothing
about DRM. I've no doubt that the main reason for the sales increase is that
more people are buying ebooks, not the dropping of DRM.

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jws
I think any reader of boingboing should first consider if they are reading a
specious argument designed to further the author's agenda. One should not use
the comments at boingboing for reference material in this effort, unfavorable
facts are sometimes removed from those.

Edit: I don't mean to rag on boingboing. They are what they choose to be and
it works for them, but sometimes people mistake {headline,paragraphs} for
journalism.

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scorpioxy
Offtopic for the linked article, but the original O'Reilly article says that
digital sales will take over physical book sales sooner than people thought.

I think that's true, judging by my own purchase behavior. I haven't bought any
O'Reilly digital books yet, but I have bought a few from Pragmatic.

I now prefer buying technical books in a digital format to overcome the high
shipping charges(international customer). And although I can pirate most
books, I don't. As long as they provide me with an easy way to give them my
money and very few restrictions on how or where I can read the content that I
bought, I'll be happy to fork over my hard earned dollars. Music downloads on
the other hand, don't provide that and so....

What remains is the feeling you get when you grab a physical book and a cup of
tea to enjoy on your couch. You get used to reading on your ebook reader and
your phone, but it won't be the same. Things are getting better with different
reader designs and I think newer generations will find this less of a problem.

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mschy
_Music downloads on the other hand, don't provide that and so...._

Amazon MP3s have no DRM, and pretty much everything in the iTunes Music Store
is also DRM free these days.

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scorpioxy
Amazon doesn't allow me to purchase mp3s from the store since its US only. I
don't know if iTunes does that, but I am not a fan.

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mschy
I believe iTunes sells DRM-free 256kb AAC files, except in Japan.

They sound great, and play on pretty much everything.

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timvanloan
I'm not quite sure why they still have county lockouts (except for the
potential marketing release dates, but still).

Its fascinating though to see such consistently strong numbers for increase in
downloads due to the removal of DRM. We'll see if dollars incent publishers to
ease their usage of DRM in the future.

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maukdaddy
What would the percentage gain have been during that timeframe anyway? Print
-> online sales are making huge gains each month, not necessarily because of
DRM or not.

That being said, removing DRM is fantastic, and everyone should buy or contact
publishers and let them know how much you appreciate the lack of DRM.

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dustingetz
correlation/causation

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felixc
You're absolutely right. Your two word snark has really added value to this
discussion by clarifying that there is really no reason we should believe that
these two things might have anything to do with each other whatsoever. I mean,
variables routinely fly up and down by over 100% for no reason.

As xkcd had it: "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its
eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

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GHFigs
O'Reilly's original post does not say anything about DRM.

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jamesbritt
Apparently DRM was dropped 18 months ago, and mentioned in a previous O'Reilly
announcement. This current post linking to the announcement of sales going up
is simply inferring that one lead to the other.

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abdelazer
O'Reilly has never used any DRM on their own (oreilly.com) downloadable stuff
ever. The first 12 titles they put into the Amazon Kindle Store had (were
forced to have) DRM for a while, then they got Amazon to drop the DRM.

