Why O'Reilly Media doesn't use DRM

Little-known fact that shows just how enlightened ORA is: you can go to <a href="https://members.oreilly.com/account/benefits" rel="nofollow">https://members.oreilly.com/account/benefits</a>, and buy any ebook upgrade from a physical book for $4.99.<p>They don't even check--they just take your word for it.<p>I just hope people don't abuse it, but, as Tim says, they'd rather have 100K books floating around and 10K books sold, than just 10K books sold. Can't help but improve their visibility and overall sales.<p>Good folks.

I'm really gratified that the guy who once wrote, "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy" has built his business successfully on this same principle.

Of course, they put your name &#38; other info on every page of the PDF generated for you. That probably works as a general "shaming" mechanism, such that most folks won't share indiscriminately.

No DRM? What are they talking about. As a "Safari Books Online by O'Reilly" subscriber I'm constantly confounded by annoying "features" that seem to have almost no purpose but to prevent you from copying anything from the online versions (like code sections). While it's not technically blocked or prohibited, these features sure don't seem to be there to enhance online reading.

I bought 98% of my ebooks from B&#38;N because they allow to download them in ePub. I've also removed the DRM from all of them, not to share them, I haven't shared one single ebook yet, but to have them open and readable from every other reader. Tim O'Reilly perfectly got the point.<p>This is my first message here (sent from my CR-48 with Verizon :)), Hacker News is a great community, I also read you guys on my iPhone, keep working hard!

To be fair, the vast majority of people who live in a First World country and who have an interest in getting an O’Reilly ebook also have the means to easily pay for one—or to put it on their employer’s expense account.

Tim gets it. Those who can pay, will.<p>Those who can't pay, this time: 1) benefit from the information and 2) may pay for a book in the future when they can afford it. 10k in circulation is free advertising, to some extent.

Forbes article is abridged. Full interview here: <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/jonbruner/2011/03/25/tim-oreilly-on-piracy-tinkering-and-the-future-of-the-book/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.forbes.com/jonbruner/2011/03/25/tim-oreilly-on-...</a>

None of the DRM-related revelations in the article should be overly shocking to the HN crowd. For me, the most interesting nugget of info was that e-books now account for a quarter of O'Reilly's revenue. (top of the second page)

I recently took advantage of the Borders bankruptcy to snag several o'reilly hard copies at 40% off. I've always loved having the hardcopies. Even with 2 big monitors there's always enough shit vying for screen real-estate.

Purchased and downloaded a book from Wrox this weekend, looks like they're taking the same route. Loved the experience.

Another factor that makes O'Reilly different: Lots of their customers are open source / Linux users, who are usually opposed to drm, have the technical knowledge to break drm, and are used to standing up for what they believe to be digital rights.<p>This means if they used DRM, it would likely be broken, openly, by their target users

I always wonder, when people say they don't mind about piracy, what part of it is genuine, and what part of it is pandering.<p>Do they really mean what they say? Or do they secretly hope there would be no way to pirate their products?

"People who don't pay you generally wouldn't have paid you anyway."<p>That and other quotes. Man, I'm so glad were finally said by someone who won't be written off as a hippy, communist, hacker, etc.

Follow the link to the unabridged version, that official version cut a lot of interesting stuff.

Wow, this guy is such a level-headed guy...or at least it seems that way, his outlook is great.

Seems like whenever there is a no-drm success and they are interviewed it is EXACTLY the same argument/story:<p>1) If 10,000 people will buy my X I will have sold 10,000. I will not have sold more since nobody else was willing to pay.<p>2) If 100,000 people also pirated my X then potentially a few of them would like it and either buy it, or buy a future product from me, which translates into more sales.<p>3) Once my X is hacked it is hacked for good (or something to that extent) and people pirating have no problems with DRM while people who legitimately bought X have to deal with DRM.<p>4) DRM can cost me sales just as piracy could.