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Originally Posted by NatCh
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One huge glaring problem we have right now is that publishers really want to sell licenses to books, so that they keep control over how we use them, but they don't want to allow the same sets of reasonable options that come with software licenses and that make them bearable to the customer.
If they took the licensing thing to its logical conclusion, they would see that regardless of the format I've bought a book in, I can only read one copy of it at a time, and if I've bought (and still have) that one copy, they've been paid for my licensed use of it. If I want to lend or give that copy to someone, I should be permitted to do so under a reasonable license, just as I can let a friend come over and use Excel on my computer or give/sell them my original copy of a game as long as I don't retain access to it.
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Actually the new licensing schemes even for software are becoming a real problem/pain. The Personal Computer revolution in part was driven by a very simple model of software sales. You buy it and use it all you want. No licensing/service contract with IBM, no special restrictions, etc. In those days nobody cared. Thus you could keep using your dBase III+ for DOS even today.
Then Microsoft in its quest for ever more profits started crafting new licensing agreements with restrictions and pushing their clients to annual suscriptions, etc. Of course, they are shooting themselves in the foot. Despite all the so called studies showing new licenses are cheaper, everyone knows they are more expensive. Thus they actually promote illegal copying (as evidenced by ever increasing suuply from China despite all the efforts to stop/reduce it) and/or push their customers to alternatives (Linux).
It would be very stupid for publishers to repeat this mistake. Sure they can impose any number of restrictions via new license agreemnts and DRM. Once again they'll simply induce more illegal copying and/or push people to alternatives (Gutenberg). After all there is a huge amount of good content already available in public domain!!!!
This whole licensing game is quite pointless. Why do companies have to be so blind?