Friday, September 09, 2005

Zero piracy economically sub optimal

Chris Anderson at the Long Tail has some interesting thoughts on DRM. He concludes:
So the moral for video content holders and others considering DRM: be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it. "Uncrackable" DRM could make the P2P problem worse, by driving more users underground and depressing prices. Don't imagine that if you release content in a relatively weak DRM wrapper (like today's DVDs) and copies get out that the whole market will collapse. Instead, you may find that piracy stays constant at relatively low levels, leaving the rest of the market happier and more profitable.

The lesson is to find a good-enough approach to content protection that is easy, convenient and non-annoying to most people, and then accept that there will be some leakage. Most consumers see the value in paying for something of guaranteed quality and legality, as long as you don't treat them like potential criminals. And the minority of others, who are willing to take the risks and go to the trouble of finding the pirated versions? Well, they probably weren't your best market anyway.

IMHO, the "good-enough approach to content protection that is easy, convenient and non-annoying to most people" is no drm. Plug and play is the standard for "easy, convenient and non-annoying" in my book (e version or otherwise) and drm comes nowhere near.

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