"Social DRM" is Anti-Social

In February 2007, right after Steve Jobs claiming to the world that he was Anti-DRM and that the fault of him having DRM in iTunes was that of the majors (which is nothing but a bunch of crap, but I digress), Adobe's Bill McCoy wrote in his blog about his vision of DRM, acting as agreeing with Steve Jobs. His ridiculous arguments leaded to a new concept: "Social DRM". I ditched the whole absurd idea and almost forgot about it. Until now.

It seems that there are lots of people thinking that "Social DRM" is a bright idea. Actually, I've seeing the term in my readings more, so I decided not to ignore the issue anymore, and write a quick post about why "Social DRM" is a really bad idea.

First, getting this straight: I really think that "Social DRM" is less bad than "traditional DRM", mostly because it isn't DRM at all. Yet, being less bad doesn't mean it is good, to the point of making me state that, like I don't buy DRM'd stuff, I wouldn't buy nothing with "Social DRM".

What is "Social DRM"? Well, nothing more than watermarking. Basicly, McCoy is trying to think of DRM on e-books, and his "idea" is to have a "Social DRM" that is in fact a mark in every page on the ebook, make it header or footer, stating something like "this book is for the exclusive use of [insert purchaser's name here]". Why is it bad?

Well, McCoy certainly choose the name "Social DRM" because he understands the "social" need consumers need to have in their "content". A book (or an album, or a movie) is social, because if you read and like it you want to share it, to recommend it to your friends, you're going to cite it on your blog, you'll make references to it in your day-by-day... you'll use it as a social tool. So, he [tries to] argue, when watermarking the book instead of making it have DRM, you're not taking the social part of having the book out of it. It is social because it isn't anti-social. But he's wrong.

Let me make a small and quick list of social things I can do with my books:

• I can borrow it;


• I can leave it on my desk and next time I know Paula is reading it;


• I can give it;


• I can sell it;


• I can trade it (bookcrossing-style);


• I can leave it on the bus bench after reading it;


• I can let it be used by everyone in the office;


• ...

Now, how many of this social things I can do with your "social DRM"? I can't borrow it, 'cause you're not "Marcos Marado", I can't let Paula wander around with it on her laptop, she's not "Marcos Marado" either; I can't give, sell or trade it, which means that if I abandon it (or loose it!) in my flash disk on the bus, I might get in trouble, 'cause you aren't me. Does this sound social to you? To me, like "tradicional DRM", this sounds exactly like "I'm having my freedoms removed".

Thanks but no, thanks, I'm too social to buy anti-social "Social DRM" stuff.

Idling

A coffee shop, two floors, empty. It's raining outside, but despite the rain, all the tables there are used. Inside... just me. A couple of calls, a coffee that doesn't taste as well as it usually does - and someone enters. Oh, she's just going to the cigarrettes machine, buy a pack and leaving - sitting in the rain. I still can't believe that this coffee shop is empty.

I need to buy a book, so I wait for the rain to stop and there I go. The book store next to me is closed (vacations, I guess), so I walk towards the next one. In the path I notice that the music store that used to be there is nowadays closed - turned an online-only business. It doesn't really surprise me, after all that's one of those stores that lost me as a client since they just don't figure out that to make business you must not treat your customers as they did. Well, anyway, this walk was for nothing since the book store I was walking towards to has closed. Walking towards the next one - closed. Once again a music store in the path, this one a relatively new one to the town, and one that has changed its store location twice - always to a bigger place. I guess that this one knows how to do his business. Nope, this book store also closed its doors. Well, there's another one, even if small, up there... No, also closed. What the hell is happening to book stores? Are all of them closing because there's a FNAC in the city?

A long walk downtown, and finaly a bookstore. I need to buy a book, but come out of there with two. Curiously I think the unexpected one will turn out to be a better reading than the first. I guess I'll postpone the reading of "Cobweb" yet again... And that kind of worries me, since I'm really enjoying the book.

Finaly, I find in the long walk a coffee shop with more people inside than outside. I guess people will get used to the fact that now you can't smoke (almost) anywhere. A small visit and some tea, waiting for the rain to stop. Walking slowly, back again, to the location of departure, I do a little stop to that Academic place that - now with nothing but some empty sofa's - gives you access to an University Wireless Access Point. As I should expect, there's no free IP address for me. I feel less and less from this city. Pity.

mobile literature

e-books? Audiobooks? Yes, I understand their importance in a world in evolution, but it's not my kind of things, at least yet. Some years ago I was quite fond of printing stuff to read: I couldn't even think of reading a book in the screen. I read Underground [1] entirely by printing it in an old plotter that printed pages way more slower than I would read them. Oh, and I wasn't able to do multitasking, so I was reading another book while printing that one. Years later I read quite some magazines and short stories in the screen (computer or more recently on mobile phone), but never a novel. I was quite surprised to see such an huge adoption of audiobooks in Germany when I was there a couple of months ago.

A couple of days ago I read an article and lot's of controversial arguments around it: basicly the story is around the fact that half of Japan's top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed the same way - on the tiny handset of a mobile phone [2]. Now, after a couple of days my mind is still thinking of this, and I have not very strong but mixed feelings about this. Some say that this is the evolution of the language. Others say that this is going to kill culture. Above that, I think more about if is this an Asian trend or if it will move onto Europe and America, also if isn't this what's going to be the next pop movements. The business model and the success of it doesn't surprise me, tho: after all you can make all kind of parallels between this and MegaTokyo [3], for instance. But I don't know... Is this good? Is this bad? Will be a new method to release good new books? Are the books made this way already released any good? (Most critics say no, but I'm curious to read one or two to make my own mind...)

Yes, I still have to think a lot about this issue. But, in the meanwhile... What are your thoughts on the issue?

[1] - http://www.underground-book.com/
[2] - http://smallr.net/japan-mobile-books
[3] - http://smallr.net/megatokyo