StarForce, a games-DRM company that make products that damage their customers' computers and then threatens to sue blogs that report it, and blames customers for its faults, has announced that it will ship a DRM system for ebooks. This is dumb in so many ways I can't even begin to count them.
First of all, unlike a video game, ebooks are very, very easy to copy. You can retype them. Scan them and OCR them. Dictate them. Or, of course, you can circumvent the DRM on them too.
Second of all, no one wants DRM ebooks. The DRM ebook market is a failure. DRM ebooks sell in quantities that can hardly be charted.
Third of all, no one wants DRM ebooks from a company that attacks its users and their computers, like StarForce.
Integrating StarForce system code and libraries allowed selling PDF documents in a special PPDF (protected PDF format). Now publishers that use PDF format for e-publishing have an easy and effective way to sell files in protected format. The system is very convenient for the customer as well. The client transfers the payment via WebMoney and instantly receives a serial number and files for downloading. The new technology significantly simplifies the publication process for the sellers. The whole procedure of publication is designed in the form of an automatic upload master – you specify the theme, the price, the synopsis and the file path. The file then is automatically transferred into protected format and placed at www.publicant.ru. The integrated technology allows to sell books, articles or magazines and newspapers issues. Especially for this project StarForce developers created a file viewer and a content protection system that functions in a most usual way.
(Thanks, Alexander!)
