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Try a bit torrent search for any of their products.
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NB: I can let my friend borrow a p-book and I do not hear any screams form authors or the publishing industry, yet an Ebook causes riots.
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To me these two quotes from anti-DRM...advocates (that doesn't sound right...anti-advocate? It's a word now!!) pinpoint the exact problem that publishers and the true owners of the IP are facing. Sure, now you can lend a copy of the book that you own to a friend to read, but you do not have the ability to place the book on your front steps, and let tens of thousands of people copy it overnight for no charge in order to read it whenever they want. That's what these bittorrent and other programs for peer to peer file sharing effectively do. They do not let you loan, or share a book with one or two friends who will eventually probably pay to read the second installment, they are not designed to allow you to share a book with only the members of your family. They are designed PURELY for the purpose of giving whole and complete copies of said content to TONS of people.
With a Pbook, even if you shared the book with your whole family...of ten, and then said book was sold to a used book store, and then re-purchased and shared with a whole other family of ten, and so on 5 times (we all know that is very unlikely) then you have only allowed 49 other brains to digest that content without rewarding the person who created it. Forget the "who gets how much of each book sale" argument for the moment, because obviously they get enough (or
just enough) to live and continue creating. Say in total that creator has a base audience of 1 million people who would like to read their book at the time that it is released. That means in pbook terms they will still be making 20,000 sales of that book, if every situation followed that un-likely model.
Now for that same situation lets assume that on bittorent the one legally paid for book is able to reach 100 people, a very meager estimate, and the same 1 million people want to read the book. Just in terms of accessability that means the difference of HALF the sales!! HALF!! imagine if your income was cut in half tommorow. Would you still be able to thirve? I wouldn't!! I'd have to change my line of work, and in the world of books, that means one less author. Now imagine that that author is the author that you most enjoy. The one you'd consider the diamond in the rough, not a ny times best seller, but someone you enjoy nonetheless. By getting rid of DRM you would allow the craptastic people of the world to deprive you of many more creations by your favorite author!!
And OK OK, I hear your argument about not wanting to be treated like a thief, but the very existence and proliferation of sites like the pirate bay and bittorent prove that while you may be the citizen to return the wallet full of hundreds when you happen upon it, most would not. Those people would be the ones to drive one of your favorite authors out of business, all because you could not stomach a bit of DRM...? isn't that like letting the poopers of society win? Be the example, and hopefully others will follow, and your shining example of law abidingness will lead all the rest of the masses to the light also.
Right. I'll hold my breath.
On another note, no one has really mentioned that the very pbooks that sit on your shelves also contain DRM. Granted it is much more easily "cracked" with the widespread availability of scanners and copiers this day and age, but you are limited by the format. There is no "right click copy" function or "copy and paste" function on that book.
computer almost out of battery, would like to proofread, but I'm too longwinded. Please, Argue with me!!