Quote:
Originally Posted by SensualPoet
So, what happens in ten years when I want to re-read my purchased DRM copy of Buddenbrooks? And my Kindle or Kobo has long since died? I simply do not believe the underlying formats will be orphaned and the investment lost: there will be a solution and it could easily be the Kindle 6 or the iPad 3 or the Kobo 4. Or, perhaps, DRM for e-books will have evolved so all devices gracefully handle DRM in any case -- like DVD and Blu-ray players do today (the content is locked but no one notices).
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I would disagree with you on this, and that is because of fundamental differences between DVD and ebooks. Specifically, the authenticator of the content in the case of DVD rests in the DVD CSS (Content Scrambling System). With ebooks, a device is given a key to open the encrypted content via a server. If the server goes away, then your ability to access the content protected by it goes away too.
I worry about DRM and losing out on future purchases, particularly when the content is available from other marketplaces (think: B&N folds but Amazon goes on). Major League Baseball
shut down their DRM server, leaving customers unable to access the content they'd licensed. Yahoo, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart have all pulled a similar move in no longer supporting the license server for their music stores, which renders the music unusable.
In the case of proprietary content an organization owns, like MLB and their baseball games, it's conceivable that a master key could be released. For music that's still being sold elsewhere, or where the content is being sub-licensed, this is a more dicey proposition.