Charlie Stross has posted to his blog a brief rant about the futility of e-book DRM. He points out that, not only is it ineffective against piracy, it allows Amazon—which has displayed a history of using its king-of-the-hill position in the book and e-book market to squeeze concessions from its suppliers—to keep its customers locked into its platform and gain even more power in the marketplace.
If the big six began selling ebooks without DRM, readers would at least be able to buy from other retailers and read their ebooks on whatever platform they wanted, thus eroding Amazon’s monopoly position. But it’s not clear that the folks in the boardrooms are agile enough to recognize the tar pit they’ve fallen into …
The publishers certainly have shown an awareness of Amazon’s disturbing tendency to poke its camel’s nose further and further into their tents—that’s why they implemented agency pricing, after all. But so far, they seem locked into the mindset of clinging to the fig leaf of DRM, while publishers like Baen forego it and can thus sell to anyone regardless of platform.
Will Amazon eventually drive publishers into ditching DRM in self-defense? We can only hope.
