Sunday, October 9, 2011

"Piracy is Progressive Taxation"

Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution, article by Tim O'Reilly.

One of the big factors which is holding back ebooks and other electronic media, is the widespread fear that "piracy" will instantly destroy a publisher's business unless he uses draconian and complex DRM (Digital Rights Management: copy protection). But interestingly, quite many of the most successful small publishing ventures, and at least one big one, O'Reilly, don't use any copy protection, and find that sharing is at worst a small irritation, and often will work as free promotion.

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