Coming to campus: E-books with expiration dates

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Just 33%?

The 33% discount is very roughly the printing cost on a (relatively) low volume book. A publisher still incurs the costs of preparing the e-book, and to do that right is actually more time consuming than a typical ZD-Net reader might appreciate. On the other hand transportation, warehousing, stocking, and retail space costs for the e-book are nowhere near those of the hard copy book so the publishers are being pretty stingy with their discount and the 150 day expiration is indefensible at this price.

As a creator of intellectual property (IP), I want people to take full advantage of the work that I contribute to the public domain, but would prefer that they didn't just steal my for-profit books or programs.

It's said that the Hell's Angels used to wear a patch that said "3%" in recognition of a study that indicated about 3% of any large population is willingly and definitely anti-social. There are about 6.5 billion people in the world so if the study is right we're looking at 195 million anti-social types right off the bat. Add in the people who just object to private property at one level or another and it becomes clear that there is a non-trivial pool of people who would willingly take property without giving anything in return.

A lot is made in these forums about the "greed and fear" of we who put obstacles in the path of IP thieves. The posters usually gloat in the notion that any new DRM scheme will be broken shortly after it is released. IP creators know that there is no perfect DRM, but it is like locking your bicycle. There is no bike lock that can't be defeated. I know of one incident where thieves took a whole bike-rack full of bicycles and loaded it onto a large van while the riders were engaged elsewhere, but it is irritating to have your bike stolen so riders use locks to increase the odds they'll be able to enjoy their bike for a while longer.

Every house can be broken into, but most people still lock their doors at night to keep strangers from wandering in and having the opportunity to invade the sanctity of their home. If a miscreant is intent on entering your house, a window can be broken or a wall cut through, but if you lock the door you've at least made an attempt to keep them honest.

There is no perfect security. Not even the United States Secret Service has been 100% successful in preventing the assassination of American presidents, but at least they try and the vast majority of the time they are successful.

In the end the only hope against the determined attacker is to make the goal sufficiently difficult to achieve that it isn't worth their effort.

Perhaps we bike owners, or home-dwellers, or IP creators who try to keep people from taking what isn't theirs are overwhelmed by "fear and greed" but I would suggest that we are simply taking logical and prudent steps to preserve our right to enjoy our bicycles, our homes, or our intellectual property.

Posted by: Centered   Posted on: 08/13/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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