Please (sort of) Steal This Book

Every time I run across commentary on DRM and ebooks I'm reminded of the xkcd comic on DRM and music. This time it was Smart Bitches column DRM-free publishers that triggered my quick search of the xkcd archives. The idea that readers would want to read something on whatever device the own? Absurd!

Everyone knows those computer thingies will never catch on!

The quote from Elizabeth of Dreamspinner press as it gets to heart of books and readers:

Ultimately happy customers buy more books and the type of reader that seeks out free pirated titles isn’t going to buy them in the first place.

So true. Although the key words here are "free pirated titles." As the SB column goes on to drive home (in both the column and the comments) it's that a lot of people stripping DRM from ebooks are doing so because they've already bought the content but want/have to--for whatever reason--switch it to another device. It's not because they want to send it to everyone in their family or give it to the population of China, they just want to put it on their Sony reader from their Kindle.

Or download it onto their new laptop.

God forbid we would want to reread the book.