Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
In other words, a "streamed" ebook? Sort of like Netflix?
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I am not familiar with the details of netflix ... but I seriously doubt if real streaming is required for ebooks. Since the online application that displays the text of your book is a signed component loaded from the site, its ability to tightly manage the access to the book should be quite flexible and secure. If the ebook is never fully downloaded onto your device then strip-n-copy is not a straightforward process. It may be possible to capture the book in much the same way existing software captures streamed movies, but the use of online applications may make that difficult ... and the fact of purchasing a service rather than a product may alter the legal framework too.
It may require some redefinition of what they are selling you - but since people apparently never read the agreements the don't think they are making, they should be able to make such changes without disturbing each anyone overly much. For example I can imagine some new service coming out and bragging about offering
cheap access to books, and if you read the fine print
access is indeed all you are buying. Since you are no longer buying a book as such, simply paying for a service that gives you access to a book, then exemptions in the law for such things as backups and so on no longer apply. And since many of these applications are innately portable you cannot claim the need for a file copy between devicies, you simply access the book from whatever device you have - as long as it can get online (and if your device cannot get online, well it cannot access the service that the
service is what you have paid for, not the book). The fact that you are in fact purchasing a service has other implications regarding your fair use rights etc too.
This is all just musing at the moment, but I express it here to try and warn people so confident that effective DRM is impossible. The current approach may not be working, but by looking around at the way technology has been heading - and people's ready up-take of all these amazing connected devices - it seems quite feasible that books could go this way too.
Disturbing thought: If reading books becomes a service, what does that do to the author's royalties, which are currently based on product sales?