I read something recently about how authors like DRM and wanted to froth at the mouth but that’s unattractive so I just backed away from the internet. I can’t speak for all authors, but I can speak for myself. I myself loathe DRM. I loathe it to the height and depth and breadth my soul can reach. Because DRM does not stop hackers or thieves, but it does frustrate and irritate and even punish the honest purchaser.
I pretty much only download something with DRM if there is no other way to get it. I bought Lawrence Block’s Write For Your Life because it’s long out of print and you can’t get it any other way. But at this point I wish I’d paid the $100 for the hard to find original print volume because at least I could read that. I had to create an account with Microsoft and go through a whole evening’s worth of contortions to get it activated on my laptop and desktop and Palm. 2 of the three are now dead, which means I’m down to one, and when that dies, am I going to spend another hour of my life trying to activate a new account? Oh, hell no. I’d have printed it out to read in hardcopy, but the DRM only allows me to print a few pages a day.
I bought another must-have with DRM, and it took a little less than an hour to install the software I had to have to read it (only available in Mobi) and figure out why I could not read it, despite it having been “activated”; it downloads as read only, and unless the read only attribute is removed, the activation doesn’t register and you can’t open and read the book you just bought, downloaded, installed the right software for, and properly verified to have activated. (My husband solved the read-only issue; I was ready to just put the laptop away before I had an aneurism at that point.)
Bottom line: I am an author. I am even an ebook author. And I’m telling you, DRM punishes the legal end user. I’m against it and it is such an enormous hassle that after putting myself through this twice, I would rather go without whatever book I desperately want to read if DRM is the only way I can get it. Because it’s not worth the time-sink and the frustration.
Publishers: Make it easy for readers to read the books they went to the trouble of buying, please.
I agree! I won’t buy DRM anymore. I can’t take the stress. I WON’T take the stress.
Put my name on the petition!
Now that I have completely converted to eBooks only (have to justify having two ereaders) I find myself buying less and less NY published books because of the DAMN DRM.
I will get an advertisement for a sale at eharlequin and want to purchase a bunch of titles and then I have to remind myself that no, anything I buy from them wont work on either one of my readers and I will have to sit and read them on my laptop. I have to buy my harlequin titles from a different vendor that doesn’t have them on sale. Oh never mind Harlequin my dollars are going elsewhere.
Just another example of how DRM drives me nuts besides the jumping through hoops just to read them in the first place.
Thank you!!! I also hate DRM and rarely buy anything with the DRM attached to it. It’s too much of a pain and quite frankly, in the time it takes for me to get the software downloaded, etc., etc, I can be enjoying something else to read.
I subscribe to the monthly Harlequin HP’s and hate it bacause I’m limited to reading it on the computer I originally download it on. Eliza, where else can I buy them where there is not DRM attached? I love not having to find another spot to store a paperback but it is really aggravating.
LOL, I don’t have a petition, but I would love to see changes because we don’t need to create obstacles to buying and reading books.
Eliza, I should probably thank Harlequin for their DRM or I’d spend a fortune every month to get all the Presents early. *g* But the bigger issue to me is that publishers want to capitalize on the opportunity ebooks offer, direct to customer, saving on printing, warehousing, shipping, but the opportunity isn’t being realized by following the broken model of the music industry. We’ve seen how well that worked out.
Dev, sadly I could’ve read half a book in the time it took to work through the issues, and that makes me unwilling to buy in future. I have limited time to read; I want to spend it reading. This is why, despite all the benefits of ebooks, probably 90% of my purchases are still print.
Lisa, I’ve purchased many ebooks through ereader.com, and those were NOT a problem to load onto my Palm and just read. They do carry Presents, too! You probably can’t get the early releases like you can on eHarlequin, but it is a low hassle way to read.
I should clarify, low hassle compared to what I had to go through for Adobe or Mobi DRM ebooks. I think the ereader books require you to enter a code the first time you open it on the reader, and that’s it.