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Survey on DRM
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Completed it. Not sure about the wording or the actual use of the survey tool, but still, hope it helps.
Completed it. Your researcher friend appears to have missed a few major issues with DRM and piracy.
T. K. Elliott wrote: "Completed it. Your researcher friend appears to have missed a few major issues with DRM and piracy."Hello T.K.Elliott,
Luke here. I'd be very grateful for any suggestions you may have that might improve my survey so I can perhaps revise it if needed.
Just as an outline, the survey is mainly aimed at e-book users who may not be familiar with copyright, DRM, or e-book piracy issues, but who may have encountered issues with sharing or using e-books as a result of DRM technology. It assumes limited knowledge of copyright issues and mainly aims to gauge how the technology impacts the user experience depending on which device they may be using.
But, it is definitely possible I missed one or two things out in constructing this. Any feedback on any particular questions would be gratefully received.
Many thanks,
Luke
T. K. Elliott wrote: "Completed it. Your researcher friend appears to have missed a few major issues with DRM and piracy."Hello T.K.Elliott,
Luke here. I'd be very grateful for any suggestions you may have that might improve my survey so I can perhaps revise it if needed.
Just as an outline, the survey is mainly aimed at e-book users who may not be familiar with copyright, DRM, or e-book piracy issues, but who may have encountered issues with sharing or using e-books as a result of DRM technology. It assumes limited knowledge of copyright issues and mainly aims to gauge how the technology impacts the user experience depending on which device they may be using.
But, it is definitely possible I missed one or two things out in constructing this. Any feedback on any particular questions would be gratefully received.
Many thanks,
Luke
Well I had to put that I used a kindle because when I typed in 'other', there was no box to tick for that so it was not an accepted answer (I use my android phone with the kindle app). Also I use google play but it wouldnt let me select both options even though the question suggested it wanted you to mark all places you get ebooks from.
Hi Luke - I'm sorry I didn't get back to you before; it's been one of those weeks...But, here we go:
Your Question 15 requires an answer, but in context, should not be answered if Question 14 is answered “never”.
Question 16 and 17: You haven’t made a distinction between ebook models which allow lending between private individuals and ebook gift-giving (such as Amazon US) and those which do not (such as Amazon UK). As your survey does not ask where people are located (and presumably you are not collecting location data without informing your survey subjects), this will render your results unreliable because you will not be able to tell whether people are:
a) Lending/gifting because they are Amazon US customers and they can do this.
b) Not lending/gifting because they are Amazon UK customers and there is no facility to do it (even though they would like to do it).
c) Lending/gifting even though they are not buying from a retailer that allows this, by stripping DRM.
d) Not lending/gifting, even though they could do it if they wanted, because they don’t want to do it.
Although the survey was posted in the UK Book Club, membership isn't restricted only to people who live in the UK - so your survey subjects may not all be UK residents.
You also don’t take into account facilities like Kindle Household (which is available via Amazon UK, even though lending/gifting are not), which allows sharing of books (which could be described as ‘lending’ or ‘gifting’ between members of the same household).
A better way of phrasing the question would be to break it down into parts:
a) Does your ebook retailer have a facility to lend/gift ebooks – yes/no/don’t know
b) If your retailer allows lending/gifting, do you do it?
c) If your retailer does not allow lending/gifting (or you don’t know), would you do it if the facility were available?
Question 18: Assumes that any format of book is secure against piracy. It also assumes that as interdevice use increases, protection against piracy decreases. This gives a person a choice between “I want to use my book on multiple devices and I don’t care about piracy” and “I care about piracy, no matter how much it damages my reading experience.”
It’s quite hard to answer honestly, because it’s not a real-world choice. A person may care about piracy and still feel it's important to be able to use books on multiple devices, or may not believe that there is a connection between multiple device use and piracy: this is the classic “false cause” fallacy - https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/fals...
Or they might believe that since number of devices on an account is not connected to piracy, it’s an impossible question, a bit like “When did you stop beating your wife?”
“I don’t know” isn’t a legitimate third option, because it implies lack of knowledge or thought, rather than “you haven’t given me an option I agree with”.
Question 20: Software is available. Also, stylistically, “illegal pirate copies” is a tautology – there’s no such thing as a legal pirate copy! Plus “Do you think…should… even though… illegal pirate copies” is a very loaded way of describing the situation. It implies that anyone who answers “yes” is condoning piracy. You also do not differentiate between commercially available DRM-stripping software (e.g. available via app store or other retailer) and free “underground” software available on the internet if you go looking. A person might think it was right to use software available, say, from Amazon (for de-DRMing Kindle books), but not to use software obtained via “grey” sources.
Question 21: For me, this was the worst one as it assumes that any of these are likely to be effective piracy-combating options, and it does not mention many other options – such as making sure people can obtain legal copies in a format they want, and at a fair price, thus reducing the impetus to obtain pirate books.
There are also the interesting implications of blockchain technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockch...
https://hbr.org/2016/05/the-impact-of...
It’s easy enough to explain blockchain technology as a method for transferring ownership of a digital asset (e.g. a book or a computer game) from one person to another, so that A cannot access it after having given it to B (like with a physical copy) and B becomes the legitimate owner of the asset, but without the transaction being under the control of a single controlling retailer, like Amazon. Thus, blockchain technology opens up the possibility for a legitimate second-hand market in ebooks, without piracy, just as there is with physical books. Data on who owns what is held securely (so Amazon or publishers don’t get a nice list of everybody’s details).
Question 23: Assumes that publishers holding customer details – and the more, the better – would help to combat piracy. This is a major assumption to make, and does not offer an option for survey-takers to say “I do not think that publishers/retailers holding my details will help prevent piracy at all, therefore I would not consent to it.”
You also use the word “volunteer”, when this is not a likely situation to be in. A volunteer is a person who has a choice whether or not to participate: in the context of DRM, a customer would be given the choice between submitting their personal data to the retailer/publisher, or not having the book. This is not “volunteering”, any more than a person living in a country with military conscription is a “volunteer” because s/he has the choice between military service and prison.
Again, you have made a cause-effect connection between publishers/retailers holding customer details and reduction in piracy – this is at least unproven, and at most wrong (false cause fallacy again).
Your third option “I do not wish to volunteer my details. Copyright protection is the responsibility of…” once again puts the question in a very loaded way, implying that anyone who does not wish to submit their personal (and possibly financial) information to a publisher/retailer does not care about copyright infringement.
See above regarding blockchain technology.
This seems to be a survey that is designed – whether consciously or not - to produce a particular answer, by forcing answers down a particular path. This is always a difficulty with multiple choice surveys (due to the necessity for keeping them simple so people will fill them in), but it means that when writing one, it is particularly important to be open-minded about what people might think. Inclusion of an “other” tick box with a space for expansion is often a good way out, because if people fill it in, one knows what they think – and if they just pick “other” without expanding, at least one knows people have an opinion that isn’t covered by the first options, so one needs to do more research to figure out what that is.
I admit that I haven't done any serious research on DRM technology, or why people pirate books, but there is some research out there. I have a few references/sources that might be interesting.
Mod
'This gives a person a choice between “I want to use my book on multiple devices and I don’t care about piracy” and “I care about piracy, no matter how much it damages my reading experience.” A person may care about piracy and still feel it's important to be able to use books on multiple devices, or may not believe that there is a connection between multiple device use and piracy.'
Absolutely, I found that an impossible question to answer for that very reason. Also I agree with you on Question 23:
'Assumes that publishers holding customer details – and the more, the better – would help to combat piracy. This is a major assumption to make, and does not offer an option for survey-takers to say “I do not think that publishers/retailers holding my details will help prevent piracy at all, therefore I would not consent to it.”' I would have liked that option too.
I hope this is useful additional info for you Luke?
Hello T.K. Elliott (and Liz),Many thanks for your in depth response to my question, and apologies I did not respond to you earlier (I should add here that I work full-time besides my MA which is distance-learning, so time is not always easy to come by!).
The feedback for this was very useful, and I have indeed come to more sophisticated conclusions as my own research has progressed. I think the somewhat basic handling of DRM in my survey was just the unfortunate nature of having to create questions early on whilst I was still gathering research on the topic (I would undoubtedly reword quite a few questions differently now). I found a big stumbling block was the opaque - and sometimes hard to find - T&Cs of each vendor to understand how each DRM system operates (and within each country), and then creating "catch-all" questions that cover all possibilities (and in a way that respondents can easily answer). There is also quite a lot of rhetoric to chew through in arguments on DRM (the often misunderstood distinction between End-User Licenses vs Copyright being one).
It certainly has been a learning curve, especially in how crucial foundation research is to creating surveys that can gather meaningful data.
I may proceed with the existing template (in the main) purely as time is now an issue for creating a revised survey (and collecting brand new responses), but there is a chance I will revise the survey if I feel I can get some new responses back in time. Either way, your extensive analysis will most definitely be useful in how I'm able to review the final results in light of what they might not account for.
Many thanks again for your (and Liz's) generosity in taking time to provide me with your feedback. It will be valuable to me.
(It also goes without saying that once I am finally free of my studies and can read for pleasure again, I definitely aim to be a more active member in general around here!.)
Seems OK to me. Survey is short and sweet, if you want to complete it.
His mail to me is below.....hopefully the link to the survey will still work.
Luke - if the link doesn't work, can you post it again.
Ian
"Dear Ian,
My name is Luke Capitani and I am currently undertaking research for a Masters dissertation in Publishing at Oxford Brookes University. I thought I would message you to find out whether I may post a brief survey to the Goodreads UK Bookclub forum so that members may be able to complete this. I would be very grateful if this might be within forum guidelines as this would help prove valuable to my current area of research.
As a small outline, I am currently researching DRM technology for e-books in the context of user-friendliness alongside current anti-piracy initiatives in the UK. I'm researching this in terms of the convenience - and inconvenience - of DRM to investigate how customers usability needs and publisher copyright protection might both be met successfully.
The survey is a brief multiple choice questionnaire I have created, which is accessible via an online link, located here if you wish to check this first:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/J9CTKK9
I am hoping to collect responses quite soon (within the next month if possible) and would be very grateful if you are able to respond to let me know if I can proceed to create a post for this purpose.
Many thanks,
Luke Capitani"