EBookJungle.com |
eBook Directory |
What is Digital Rights Management? |
eBook Jungle > Articles > What is Digital Rights Management? What is Digital Rights Management? Copyright law gives the owner of a copyrighted work a number of exclusive rights, including, generally speaking, the right to control copying and distribution of their work. This is why copying an audio file, a movie, software, or an eBook without permission is usually a copyright infringement, and can result in civil and/or criminal charges being brought throught the courts. As the music industry has found, the fact that something is illegal, does not necessarily stop people from doing it. In the case of the music industry, copyrighted works of music have been widely shared on the internet, against the wishes of the copyright owners. One method that has been put forward as an attempt to stop this kind of thing happened is "Digital Rights Management", or "DRM" for short. Digital Rights Management is basically use of technical measures to prevent unauthorized copying or sharing of copyrighted works. Many eBooks are today protected by Digital Rights Management (as well as by copyright law). Advantages of DRM are that it allows the author/copyright-holder to control distribution of their work. It has been claimed that it also allows them to sell more copies, by reducing the proliferation of unauthorized copies. Consider the case of an author who perhaps 1,000 hours writing his eBook (equivalent to $10,000 if he wants to earn the equivalent of $10 per hour), and a further $5,000 on artwork, website, promotion, etc., giving a total expense of $15,000. To break even, he would need to sell at least 1,000 copies at $15 each. Clearly doing so would be a lot harder, if a large percentage of potential buyers are downloading free "pirate" copies from the internet. The main disadvantage of DRM is that the reader does not full control of the eBook after he has legitimately purchased and downloaded it - for example, it might be difficult to transfer copies of the eBook between different devices he owns. Additionally, some DRM systems may impose much greater restriction than those required to protect copyright, and in some cases DRM systems have been known to cause technical problems (for example, a DRM system used to protect some music CDs apparently introduced security vulnerabilities on a number of people's PCs). Your Comments Please share your comments:
|
Home | Authors: Submit Your eBook |
Contact Us Terms of Use Privacy Advertising/Endorsements Disclosures Copyright © 2001-2018, Answers 2000 Limited. Some graphics Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Hemera Technologies Inc. & used under license. |
Our sites use cookies, some of which may already be set on your computer. Use of our site
constitutes consent for this. For details, please see Privacy.
Click privacy for information about our company's privacy, data collection and data retention policies, and your rights. Disclosure: Our company's websites' content (including this website's content) includes advertisements for our own company's websites, products, and services, and for other organization's websites, products, and services. In the case of links to other organization's websites, our company may receive a payment, (1) if you purchase products or services, or (2) if you sign-up for third party offers, after following links from this website. Unless specifically otherwise stated, information about other organization's products and services, is based on information provided by that organization, the product/service vendor, and/or publicly available information - and should not be taken to mean that we have used the product/service in question. Additionally, our company's websites contain some adverts which we are paid to display, but whose content is not selected by us, such as Google AdSense ads. For more detailed information, please see Advertising/Endorsements Disclosures In Association With Amazon.com Answers 2000 Limited is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. In Association With Amazon.co.uk Answers 2000 Limited is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk. As an Amazon Associate, our company earns from qualifying purchases. Amazon, the Amazon logo, Endless, and the Endless logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE,COMES FROM AMAZON EU S.à r.l. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. |