|
All this dickering would end if there were no DRM.
As it is, my iTouch 4G can display any of 'them' if I install the appropriate reading program. My Sony 650 wont; I have to do fiddly things to get rid of DRM before I can install everything I own on my Sony -- I dont want to bother. DRM is bad, I dont like it.
DRM is bad for we book readers, unless -- we are willing to stick with one book seller as most Kindle owners seem to be.
Never mind the IT types who delight in "rooting" Nook colors or "Russianize" their (our) Sonys. And, I suppose, similar efforts to overcome the designed-in limits of the Kindle. What I would like and would be willing to pay double for is an excellent machine (Nook color with the Apple "retina" screen) that could display anything I wanted to read without all the effort of overcoming the effects of the civil war between publishing companies.
They, from my emotional point of view, want to make us all sharecroppers if not slaves to their greed. I am willing to pay for written content. I've made my living providing such content and feel that I should get paid for my efforts. DRM does provide some protection and, if I had to 'give' my writing away, well -- I probably wouldnt do much of it. And, arrogance aside, the reader would be the loser.
An intermediate solution would be a uniform, common DRM, one that Apple, Amazon, Sony, etc. could use. Then we could all use the DRM'ed documents on all our readers. I could read "East of Eden" on my Sony 650 in the sunlight and on my iTouch 4G the rest of the time. In order to do that now, I had to learn how to strip DRM and how to use the ins-and-outs of the excellent program "calibre."
Library books are easy to deal with, once one has learned the details of the Dewey Decimal System: you dont need a special pair of glasses to read the books. I am looking forward to the time when authors and publishers get their fair share and we readers can enjoy what they have offered us. A uniform DRM would go far toward this. Never mind those who steal things from others; there arent that many of them and there would be less if we "teach your children well."
Joe
|