I’m not excusing DRM. I’ve already said it’s a completely irrational, customer hating response from paranoid publishers and studios who would rather rent you a licence than sell you a real copy. It’s an ugly, horrible mess that’s going to get worse before it gets better (if ever). In Europe the courts have decided that such things (and software licences) are sales, so you’re covered by the usual consumer protections (full, no quibble refunds) and have the right to sell your copy second hand. But you can’t actually do that with most DRM systems.
Also, despite Amazon having the stranglehold on ebooks with the largest number of locked-in customers, it’s Apple who has a court appointed monitor following that bizarre anti trust lawsuit. Apple are unlikely to try and use their muscle to do anything with him breathing down their neck.
Apple knows it’s in it’s best interest to make it hard to move your “purchased” media to any other device. If a publisher so much as vaguely hints they want crippling DRM on something, apple’s going to object about as strongly as a romance-novel heroine being ravished by a dashing pirate.
I have the same problem with APPS. I made a typo when I set up my account with Apple and now I reside in the seventh circle of Hell. No more APPS, no cloud, for me.
Yeah same here. I always buy physical media (although for me it’s more of a preference thing, I like having hard copy art/inserts/manuals whatever). I recently bought a Wii U Super Mario bundle, which had a photo of the Mario game disc on the box. Got it home and there was no disc or anything, the game was preinstalled on the console. This was my first experience with no hard copy games. So I can’t trade/sell the game if I’m not into it, have to let all 3-4 gigs of it squat on my 32 gigs of storage indefinitely if I do like it. I am really not looking forward to the days of no physical media. Everybody can go on and on about the benefits, but there are plenty of drawbacks too.
P.S. Wii U is ridiculous awesome though, don’t want to sound like I’m hating on it.
I feel the same about physical presence. Of course I’m a library hound, though I wish I had an entire room of books I’ve fallen in love with over my lifetime.
Try Amazon instead of Apple for ebooks. Check when buying a particular book if you can share it (if that matters to you; it depends on publisher agreement w/ Amazon). And Amazon lets the user delete old devices which may have held DRM content, you can direct which device the content goes to, etc.
Also, Music on Google Play has a higher bitrate and is not DRM.
if you cant open it you don’t own it. I think the proper statement would have been “the iBooks i licensed via apple.” Purchase implies ownership, you surely don’t own those books.
I don’t have issues with many non-tangible purchases - I download music and computer games a fair amount. But the sheer amount of user-unfriendly gatekeeping and DRM shackling that seems to accompany the whole eBook/eReader phenomenon has made me steer well clear of them.
If I want to own a book, I want to actually own it (and be able to mark it up, or sell it off, or lend it to a student/friend). If I want to read a book without actually owning it, I’ll go to the library so I don’t have to pay for the privilege, rather than pay Apple or Amazon for a book I’ll never actually own.
If the exact reason you still buy audio discs is to avoid DRM (which your comment seems to imply), the good news is that I don’t think there actually are any MP3-selling stores that DRM-shackle their music. The only services that pull that kind of flim-flammery are streaming ones. I’ve been buying MP3s for years, and always ended up with a set of files that were mine to to with as I pleased on as many devices as I pleased.
True, I pay to download music, apps, etc. and as you say downloaded music doesn’t serve the same purpose as a book which is kind of in our DNA to treat as a valuable for many reasons, not just its re-sale value (which can be sizable).
Never bought an Apple iBooks e-book, never will. I don’t like the idea of a format where there doesn’t seem to be any actual way to remove the DRM. (Not that I’m admitting that I do remove DRM, of course, since that would be illegal.)
Always amusing to see the Apple dissing on this sort of thread.
Apple cares only about a good customer experience. Seriously. Their hands are tied, especially with books and music, by baroque pre-existing industries with weird rules and contractural obligations that were not designed or terribly compatible with the digital age. When Apple uses DRM, they are choosing what they see as the lesser of two evils - they would rather have the media available with DRM than not available at all - available without DRM is still often not one of the options. When it comes to Apple’s App store, as pointed out, the silly restrictions are much looser, but they still require DRM, because without it you get the cesspit of the Google Play and Android stores. As much as it makes my anarchist heart sad, “anything goes” is a shit experience for most folks.
Yeah - I hate it too. And so I’ve bought one book and no music from Apple, ever. But I also won’t pretend I (or the people posting here) are remotely normal - most people couldn’t care less about DRM, but do care if they can’t get the latest pop star, and Apple is catering to most - not us. If you think this is bad, try being a third party Apple Developer or reseller. In any event, you all know the situation about DRM - if you don’t want to play that game, decline to participate, it’s not like this was a big surprise or you were forced to click the buy button. Apple won’t miss you. They don’t miss me, I’m sure.
FWIW - I see no ethical problem whatsoever removing DRM from purchased epubs (or other media), or just downloading replacement copies for media unusable due to DRM. Is it Illegal? I don’t actually care much; it would be very interesting to be in a court case where I “illegally” downloaded a copy of a book, song, or movie I paid for - I suspect there is a reason you have never seen that happen (and never will).
