My biggest problem with them placing DRM on backlist books is that they are running them through an automated process and then charging $8 for their incompetence. They could at least knock it down to $2.99 for such shabby work, then I wouldn't feel like I wasn't taken so badly.
Why not setup something like
Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders? Many people would do the proofreading just for getting free copies of books that they want. It would increase the quality of the final product and still not raise the costs of bringing the backlist books to market. Then you could charge $2.99 for a quality product and if you removed geo-restrictions and DRM people wouldn't be going to the DarkNet as much to get their books because they would be getting their money's worth.
I'm only saying older backlist books should be $2.99, newer books should cost more. However I still think the eBook should not cost more than the paper version currently out.
And I don't think the "Agency Model" is legal. To me it seems monopolistic, but then again copyright is a monopoly that is granted to the author for not only his life, but 70 years after he is dead in the United States. Of course I have to wonder how this is to encourage a writer to write more novels after he is dead. By the time the copyright runs out on a novel, not only is the author dead, but quite likely the only survivors are their great-great-grandchildren.
Etienne66