macrotor, I love your example of why you prefer eReader DRM; eReader DRM allows you to share or "lend" (as you normally would do with paperbacks, perfectly legal btw.) your e-books with friends.
BUT.
What if you want to sell your purchased e-books again? I can do this with my paperbooks. I can put them on eBay and with 99% probability someone will buy them.
Or suppose you want to trade your used e-books for other used books? There are various places on the Net where people legally do that (German
buchticket.de is one example).
How would either be be possible with DRM-protected e-books? I know that of all DRM protections, eReader is the least obstrusive. Yet, it would require me to give out my Credit Card number to the person who acquires my e-book (unless, like in your example, I could physically install it on their PDA, which is very unlikely when you just want to sell your e-book).
To me, an item's monetary value is the value I would get at any time for selling this item again. So obviously,
DRM protection lessens the value of e-books, because it makes it harder - if not impossible - to resell them.
So instead of arguing about whether it is right or not to DRM-protect e-books, I would rather argue that
prices for e-books are way too high and should be considerably lower for standard paper books. Not only are their cheaper to produce, but they are also worth less in montary value.
In my eyes, e-book publishers should stop crying about piracy and
rethink their pricing model.