No one likes to talk about piracy. But, it happens.
And as an author, you want to protect your book from being illegally downloaded
and spread around the internet. So,
naturally when uploading to a sales channel and you see that little checkbox or
button labeled DRM, you might insta-click it with the belief that it will
protect you. In theory, it will, sort of. Let’s take a look at what DRM is.
Digital Rights Management is a technology intent to
control the use of digital content and devices based on the vendor they are
purchased from. Simply put. If you buy a book from Kindle, it cannot be used or
transferred to a Nook. The idea there is to make sure that you have a legitimate
copy and it will work for only the device you bought it for. No pirating.
But, what if you purchased a book on your kindle, but
wanted to read it on another device that cannot run a kindle application? You
still purchased it. You still hold the rights to read it… but if you wanted it
on another device, DRM protection prevents you from doing that. You have to
purchase another copy for another device.
In this case the DRM protection is a double-edged sword for the genuine
consumer.
There are ways around this however. Programs exist
out there to help strip away the DRM protection and allow consumers to make
their ebooks available to other devices.
And that is where the placebo effect comes into play.
You click that little box with the general good natured hope to keep your work
safe. However, the ease in which that protection can be undermined makes the
idea of using it pointless. Add to that the aggravation it causes readers who
might wish to have flexibility in the devices they can read legitimately
purchased books on, and you have more reasons not to use it.
If you ask me, it’s just not worth using. Forget
clicking the checkbox. DRM will not provide the protection you want.
What do you think? Do you use DRM on your books?