People mistakenly label pirated copies as 'lost sales' when, in reality, those who pirate aren't going to pay for the thing regardless. DRM and other methods of piracy prevention (I once met someone who wanted to only create physical copies of their work, downright refusing to allow eBooks, in order to prevent their work being pirated) tend to inconvenience legitimate buyers far more than they prevent piracy. If someone isn't going to pay for your book, they're irrelevant. That's a unique scenario with a scarcer product that has a much more inelastic demand.įormat according to who is going to buy the thing, not who isn't. I would, however, use DRM if my content was highly specialized and with a high price tag, such as a $300 specialized textbook. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. They might even go see my movie when my book gets adapted for film. They might consider buying my release in two years - now that they're a fan and want to support the writer of their new favorite series. They might like my Facebook page, subscribe to my newsletter, or even leave a *gasp* review. These people probably would never buy my book anyway (or any digital book), but now they may someday recommend it to someone who will. I know it's unconventional - and maybe I'm giving away trade secrets here - or maybe I'm crazy - but I would probably secretly release my own book in full on torrent sites to gain the additional exposure. For industry giants piracy actually does hurt their sales. A notable exception is for big, existing players in the industry - like Disney or Stephen King. If true, you want people to pirate your content. I've read studies - albeit studies related to visual media - that suggest that 1) pirated content is done by people who are very unlikely to have purchased your content anyway (so there is minimal loss of sales), and 2) that the distribution of pirated content via torrents actually increases exposure and lifetime sales. I believe that if someone is going to pirate your content, they are going to find an easy work around DRM, and it will indeed annoy someone who wants to use their purchased content on multiple devices. Personally, I wouldn't use DRM technology.

Drm on kindle