[GregS]

My pleasure in reading is non-fiction, I like taking notes, slotting quotes away, I would like to annotate, but could never bring myself to do so, my iliad has not yet arrived, but even so I would like to print out the occasional work from time to time, I also like to listen to lighter works.

In other words my use of any particular book is unpredictable. Hence crippled DRM ebooks are most unattractive. Tethering ebooks to devices, is very much the same as monks chaining books to tables. Ironically a handwritten book was a very expensive item, while an ebook is potentially a very cheap one to reproduce.

Passwords are too difficult, too difficult to keep, but besides they do not change the problem, the ebook is still crippled, for if it is open to reading it is closed to other uses, if it weren't then the password effectively nullifies itself.

DRM cannot escape the fact that it is crippling the ebook against legitimate use.

If the problem is pirating then the cure is policing, and on the web bots can be sent out easily, but only if they also have an easy method of checking.

In terms of models there is an easy way to check things using hash tables, a suspect file can be checked, the graphic cover can be used along with the text, the TOC etc.,. It is not hard but it can be made easier again with digital signatures and identity numbers.

First the work is given a unique identifier, and the edition, and the publisher signs the book with a hash table. One other thing, the publisher's signature also hashes the distributors signature, and the distributor signs a receipt that includes a unique identifier of the transaction and thereby the ebook itself.

All of this can be combined in one way or another that the removal of one part corrupts the other signatures - an easy check for falsely resold ebooks that look genuine.

Of course, all the signatures can be removed, and new ones created making the book suspicious only to electronic bots, the publisher's hash table and records being sufficient to prove the ebook a knock-off.

Nothing would stop giving copies to friends, but arguably this small circle hardly effects overall sales, and besides it is likely to create a greater readership for future works by the same author, I know this happens in my family when a friend lends us a book they have liked, we return the book, and buy subsequent volumes as they are published. Public libraries act in much the same way - they expand the market.

I don't mind that the right to resell the item disappears. That seems a fair exchange given the nature of the medium.

Basically reliance on electronic means to restrict and cripple literature, means that I will only buy material I know before hand I can crack - not to pirate but merely to freely use.

As for students, even book reading clubs buying only one copy and sharing it, I should not that in my country the right to reproduce works for the purpose of study has co-existed as a common law right with copyright since its inception. Twice big business tried to have this eliminated and twice the courts upheld that copyright cannot stand in the way of study - this has not led to rampant piracy, it has led to more readers.

The model being proposed is one of affixing seals or stamps which has been used for ownership purposes for centuries.

I would not want to mandate personal information being signed in, some books in some parts of the world are dangerous to read, that should not be forgotten ever. But I would not mind being able to mark my books with an exlibris signature - it would make it easier for me to keep track of my collection for one thing.