In the physical realm, things wear out, become obsolete, get lost or broken, used up, etc. So the seller of physical goods has a reasonable expectation of selling another "copy" of the same thing to the same consumer. In the digital realm, information doesn't wear out. Instead, the storage format becomes obsolete or the storage medium wears out, gets lost, etc. (Or the DRM server crashes.
) The seller of the storage medium has a legitimate expectation of repeated sales. But just as an automobile owner can extend the useful life of his vehicle by expending time, effort and maintenance, so can an information owner extend the useful life of information by backing it up to newer media or by converting the information to a new format. In a "natural" information economy (that is, one not warped by interfering laws and regulations), there would be no artificial obstacles to the extension of the useful life of information. To the extent that anti-copying measures or anti-format-conversion measures are wrapped around information, the value of that information is reduced. In a natural information economy, one should not be willing to pay as much for crippled information forms as for unrestricted information formats and media.
Following this line of reasoning, my first shopping priority is to look for ebooks that I want to read that have no DRM restrictions. I really appreciate Fictionwise or Baen Books in this respect. But if there is a particular book that is only available in DRM-protected formats, I will choose to purchase the format that is most easily backed-up and format-converted. Only if I desparately want to read an ebook that is only available in an unconvertable format would I buy it in that form. And if the price is the same as or close to the same as the cost of that information in paper-book form, I would be just as likely to buy the paper book because its useful life is likely to be far longer than the DRM-locked, single-format ebook.
Most purchasers have an intuitive grasp of the economics of paper-books versus e-books. That is probably why paper books will continue to dominate over e-books until 1) the cost of readers comes down (you get a free p-book reader with every book) and 2) the consumer feels that the longevity of e-books is as great as that of p-books, or 3) the cost of e-books are greatly reduced compared to e-books.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm still trying to work out the issues relating to a natural information economy in my own mind and this was a good opportunity too try out a few of those ideas on this group.