Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
If I were to buy a DRM-locked ebook, I couldn't read it on whichever reading device I wanted. I couldn't let my mother-in-law read it. I couldn't sell it to a used bookstore when I didn't want it anymore. I couldn't give it to the church sale or the charity book table or the library.
Yes, if I broke the DRM, I could do some of those things, though still far from all. But we're talking the legal and cabal-intended uses of the book, not what one could do otherwise. The only thing you listed that might be an advantage is sending it to some random location ... but I have more books than I have time to read loaded on my ebook reader already, so I feel no need to buy any additional ones at random times. If I buy a pbook that sucks, at the very least I can give it to some relative who might like it, and earn a few brownie points that might some day turn into them giving me a better book. With an ebook, I can't even do that.
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That's my main issue. All companies - not just book companies - are moving to this model. Thanks, in my mind, to the DMCA law which prevents DRM circumvention (even for fair-use or backwards-engineering reasons...stuff that was legit before the DMCA). Without that we'd have a ton of legal, easy-to-use devices and programs that would circumvent the DRM.
All of the companies are trying to move to this "you only own a license to the product" scenario, and away from ownership. Video games with their DRM'd, one-owner digital downloads - movies and TV via iTunes and the like - etc.
With these kinds of restrictions on the product, it's not ownership. It's a lease. Which is why I find myself buying used hardcovers instead. At least you still OWN a hardcover. It's yours to use (or sell) as you would like.
It's about controlling the secondary market, and preventing real ownership, more than anything.
And the Agency 5 pricing scheme? It smacks of price-fixing to me. Companies are not supposed to make non-competition or price-setting agreements. Anti-monopoly and anti-price-fixing laws are supposed to prevent this kind of cross-company solidarity of pricing.