As we all know, most people would rather not pay for things if possible but normally won’t actually steal. But when it comes to digital versions that can be downloaded from the internet or copied from one device to another many people seem willing to make illegal copies. This has been a major problem for the music industry, the film industry and the software industry. Recently, with the rise of the e-book, it has become a major concern for the publishing industry.
The publishing industry claims that without some kind of protection against piracy, sales revenues will plummet, authors will consequently not receive royalties and the whole industry will be in jeopardy. Therefore, it has adopted the “digital rights management” system (DRM). DRM allows the publisher to restrict which devices can download and open an e-book, as well as imposing further restrictions on the number of downloads, loans, etc.
The big problem with this system is that it can penalise the honest customer who may want to read the e-book they have purchased on different devices. Why should they have to buy an e-book again just to read it on a different device?
We believe it’s seemingly unfair restrictions like these that may encourage some people to make illegal copies.
At The Endless Bookcase it is our policy, wherever practicable, to enable each customer to have alternative editions of our e-books in as many formats as they wish without having to pay an additional charges.
We are currently working on a system to enable us to implement this policy. Watch this space!