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Comment by unkown-unknowns | Hacker News Reader

Would love to read this book. Any chance of a DRM-free ePub edition being made and put up for sale?

Why not buy the paperback edition?

He put years into making this book, you want to read it ("love"), but you won't buy it because he wants to protect his labor of love? (Not interested in arguments why DRM is ineffectual as it has no bearing on this).

Buy the paperback. I just did. If you would really and truly "love" to read it, then buy it.

But really, is the DRM just an excuse? A reason not to part with $32 dollars? A way to virtue signal that you are appreciative of his work without actually showing that appreciation in the only way that matters?

(I didn't mean for this argument to become a larger criticism of how people act to new products and services in general; but I guess that's what it has become).

Not him but that's my plan, and the paperback is currently unavailable on the non-.com amazon storefronts.

I'm guessing it will be up within a few days.

I don't think the parent is opposed to buying it, he does say "put up for sale".

DRM can be a big enough reason to not buy something. I once bought a game, only to realize I need a Games For Windows Live account to play it, then promptly pirated a "DRM free" version and played it without GFWL because I don't want another gaming service.

I can fit every book I own in my jacket pocket, read them whenever I want, wherever I want, annotate them, search them, lookup words in the middle of them, whatever I need to do.

Or I can buy a single book that takes up more room than my entire library combined. No thanks.

As far as DRM goes, people are going to pirate it, and I'm not. But I also don't want to pay money to get a worse, more limited experience than those who pirate it. If the DRM prevents me from doing things that would be trivial for a pirate, something has gone horribly wrong. Yet that's our standard now.

> If the DRM prevents me from doing things that would be trivial for a pirate, something has gone horribly wrong.

The "solution" is to pay for the legitimate version and then get the pirate anyway. I often do that with stuff that can't contain malware/viruses (such as movies and tv shows).

It's sort of a solution but still it's breaking the letter of the law no matter how we feel morally about "pirating" something we've already paid for. I'd rather see more authors/publishers make DRM-free editions of the product in the first place so that I don't have to break any laws in order to make use of what I've paid to have access to. I am willing to pay a premium rate for this.

I'm not going to pay money to justify getting the free version though.

How about we as a society realize how backwards this whole system is and just drop DRM?

As we all know, a DRM free version is available (or will be soon) from ahem other sources. I personally don't have any ethical problems with buying a paper copy then downloading the DRM free version.

It would be nice though to be able to buy it in an unrestricted format in the first place.

I sometimes wonder if DRM is more successful at turning potential thieves into customers or turning away potential customers.

He gets nearly no money from the dead tree version (4%) and about 35% from the eBook.

I hate drm but I want to put money into things I want more of. So I held my nose and paid for the eBook. I hope drm free emerges later though.

Source https://twitter.com/fabynou/status/905856105003155457 and https://twitter.com/fabynou/status/905857276174413824

> I hate drm but I want to put money into things I want more of.

So you seriously want more of DRM? Buying something despite DRM gives the market a clear signal that DRM is not so bad after all.

It's not clear cut. You have to decide if you want to support the author or avoid DRM. In this case, it's hard to do both.

I dislike DRM as well, but as long as I could easily remove it I was okay with it.

I've bought a lot of ebooks from Amazon for my Kindle. Now that their most recent DRM scheme (KFX) has been uncracked for a long time, I'm having second thoughts about ebooks.

> It's not clear cut. You have to decide if you want to support the author or avoid DRM. In this case, it's hard to do both.

Tell the author that you despise DRM. And as soon as a DRM-free version appears, buy. This sends a clear signal to the market.

On the other hand: As long as the author only sells a DRM-tainted electronic version, he gives a clear signal to the world that he abhors customers who are against DRM. Why should I give him my money then (or more money than necessary)?

It turns away more potential customers. The DRM has helped absolutely nothing to protect against copying. The book is already out there on the net as a now "DRM-free" PDF. It's a shame that illegally downloading it is currently the only way to get the format that many customers would be happy to pay for. If I were the author I'd hurry up and quickly put a DRM-free version on a service like Leanpub.

Absolutely. There are even studies [1, plus another recent one I can't find atm] suggesting that piracy can increase overall revenue due to larger exposure.

[1] https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=5550640311191070...

> He put years into making this book, you want to read it ("love"), but you won't buy it because he wants to protect his labor of love?

I have ethical principles. And one of them is to avoid buying DRMed stuff - even if I loved to read it.

> Buy the paperback. I just did. If you would really and truly "love" to read it, then buy it.

In former days when I simply had no money, I pirated movies. Now I have sufficient money to buy a Bluray disc. But I won't (but won't pirate either). Since I will strongly avoid buying DRMed stuff and don't want to finance companies who DRM their products. If they put out DRMed stuff, they don't want me as a customer and don't want my money - a clear message to me that I respect as a potential customer.

I am pretty sure to not be able to read a DRM PDF file. I don't know if my e-reader supports that (never had the Adobe DRM account needed for that). I definitely think my Linux workstation won't like it. So, it's more about being able to read it now and in the future. DRM is a pretty strong guarantee that I won't be able to read it.

but I guess that's what it has become

You don't have to guess, you helped make it a bit of a flame-fest. Asking for a DRM-free version is not unreasonable (they're quite common among self-published technical books), you started accusing the poster of being a stingy liar.

A way to virtue signal

Just 'signal' or 'suggest' or simply 'say' would do here. 'Virtue-signal' is a way to vice-signal 'I am a pompous butthead who is a accusing you of being a fraud. Good day, Sir!'.

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