Why Don't Consumers Seem to Care About DRM in eBooks? →
Mathew Ingram, GigaOM:
It’s one thing when an independent bookstore owner decides not to carry a book for personal reasons, and even when a national chain decides not to stock books because of their subject matter (although those decisions also often get criticized by free-speech advocates, with good reason). But what makes the recent moves by Apple and Amazon and Barnes & Noble different is that they also own the major e-reading platforms, of which Amazon is the largest in terms of market share. So it’s not just the stores they control, but one of the fundamental methods of reading those books.
What’s interesting to me about all of this is that there doesn’t seem to be much pushback against DRM in books as there was against DRM in music. The moves by Apple with regards to the Seth Godin issue are seen as completely understandable from a competitive standpoint, but that doesn’t make it any less consumer-friendly.
One theory I’ve been kicking around about this is that Kindle’s ubiquity on platforms lessens fears consumers may have about DRM and may in fact be why Kindle is the leader in the eBook market. If you’re buying an eBook, it’s better to buy it from Amazon because it can be read on many more devices than an eBook from the iBookstore. You can read it on the Kindle, of course, but also an iPhone, iPad and most Android devices. If you’re buying from the iBookstore, the mobility of the book is much more limited than it is compared to Amazon.
The difference between DRM in eBooks and DRM in music is now DRM’s main purpose isn’t to combat piracy but to ensure competitive lock-in. This was written five years ago, when DRM in music was still an issue:
Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players.
That was Steve Jobs. A lot has changed since then.
