"DRM-Free" Scares the shit out of me

http://everythingsysadmin.com/2013/05/dwd2013.html

by YesThatTom2 • 13 years ago

7 9 13 years ago

tompko3• 13 years ago

> "DRM-free scares the shit out of me"

Why? DRM certainly doesn't prevent piracy, and from at least anecdotal evidence removing DRM reduces piracy and increases sales. There are a few studies that I found that bear out the last point, but I haven't read them fully and am unsure how correct they are.

msandford• 13 years ago

Because "EMOTIONS!" People aren't necessarily rational when it comes to their emotions because emotions aren't necessarily rational.

It's also pretty hard to get over your fear about your life's work being wasted especially when it's a big sacrifice for you. Read the article, writing a book makes this guy die on the inside a huge amount. If he doesn't get paid halfway decent, the sacrifice definitely isn't worth it. And since we're in emotional thought realm, no DRM = priacy = people not paying for my book = these fuckers are mooching off of my hard work = why am I doing this to myself? = can't go there, ergo can't have piracy.

cobrausn3• 13 years ago

Anecdotal evidence aside, here is some actual evidence of a company getting screwed by having a DRM free offering.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/04/demigod-hit-by-massive...

IMHO, DRM causes there to be a delay (provided the game is not leaked) between game launch and game available for free on the internet. When your target audience is known to be... impatient... that might make a lot of difference. Unfortunately it comes down to not being able to trust your own audience, as the author said. I would prefer DRM free everything as well, but if the economics support it, it would be pretty silly to ignore that.

tompko3• 13 years ago

That's anecdotal evidence too. There's nothing to show that it being DRM free caused it to be pirated more. I've seen figures that suggest that 90% of installs of a game come from pirates, so at 85% (18,000 legitimate installs from 120,000) anecdotally they seem to have reduced the level of piracy. The effect on their servers sounds like poor infrastructure design more than anything else, especially given they were able to deploy an infrastructure fix fairly rapidly.

My point was it's unclear that the economics does support it, and the evidence that's slowly accumulating suggests that in fact the economics supports the opposite.

floor• 13 years ago

Guy is shilling a non-related book. Don't bother clicking.

handrake• 13 years ago

What does he want?

"DRM-Free" Scares the shit out of me

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