I think I may have already established that I’m no fan of digital rights management. The technology has already broken the corporate spirit of the music industry (not necessarily a bad thing) and—despite its cheerleaders—has little impact on the film and television industries. But, despite all evidence, much of the discussion surrounding the iPad and iBooks assumes that the publishers will take up Apple’s option of applying DRM to iBooks.
I’m yet to see any publisher publicly embrace DRM as the salve for their piracy paranoia, although for some reason it does seem probable that past mistakes will soon be repeated for yet another industry attempting to ‘go digital’. At the moment, we seem peripherally privy to these industry giants stalking each other like rival predators around a rotting carcass. Actually that’s unfair. The carcass is still alive and kicking. To call it rotting sounds more dramatic, though. So as a fiction writer, I’ll stick with drama.
And so, to the point.
I am somewhat bemused by the shrieking response from some quarters over Apple’s DRM announcement. Apple,via their CEO, have already gone on record (three years ago) to state a case against DRM, painting themselves as reluctant enablers of a twitchy industry and DRM itself as a stepping stone towards a more open digital marketplace. Whether genuine or not, that was their take on music and I see no reason to assume their approach would be any different to publishing.
Although I quite like their products, I’m no Apple apologist. But in the case of DRM, it seems the company practices what it preaches. All of which makes the foaming rhetoric around the DRM option a little disingenuous.
Let’s hope I’m right.
The Books
