Ditching DRM could reduce piracy, prices, inconvenience

[wraggster]

This may run counter to what your common sense tells you but, a new paper out of Duke and Rice University says thatditching (http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/25/amazon-launches-drm-free-amazon-mp3-music-downloads/) DRM (http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/21/universal-and-rhapsody-launch-drm-free-partnership-test/) could actually reduce (http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/06/a-letter-from-steve-jobs-on-drm-lets-get-rid-of-it/) piracy (http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/itunes-going-primarily-drm-free/). The study, which relied on analytical modeling, showed that while copy protection made illegally sharing content more difficult it had a significantly negative impact on legal users. In fact, the researchers say, "only the legal users pay the price and suffer from the restrictions [of DRM]." Many consumers simply choose to pirate music and movies because doing simple things, like backing up a media collection, is difficult with DRMed content. Even the most (http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/29/slysoft-takes-down-bd-drm-once-more/) effective (http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/23/amazon-kindle-gets-its-drm-stripped-for-the-time-being/) DRM (http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/12/windows-marketplaces-newest-anti-piracy-measures-already-thwart/) is eventually (http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/10/analyst-claims-bd-is-impenetrable-for-ten-years-hackers-chuckl/)broken (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/29/windows-vista-protected-media-path-drm-already-broken/), and fails to deter those already determined to steal. Meanwhile, abandoning these restrictions could increase competition and drive down prices (as well as remove a serious inconvenience), encouraging more people to legitimately purchase content. You can check out the November-December issue of Marketing Science for more details.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/09/ditching-drm-could-reduce-piracy-prices-inconvenience/