Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerVA
I should know this by now. DRM is an evil thing, I gather from everybody here. I'm not even sure which if any ebooks I have on my Kindle 3 are DRM and I'm not sure what the difference would be. Could somebody give me a quick rundown? (If this is too much to answer, I understand that, too.)
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So long as you only read your books on your Kindle, you won't notice any difference between DRMed and non-DRM ebooks, except that only the DRMed ones are likely to prevent you using the Kindle's text-to-speech feature.
When you replace your Kindle with a new ebook reader, if it's another Kindle, you still won't really notice the DRM. (Although any back-ups of your ebooks you made won't work on your new Kindle - you'll need to download from Amazon again.)
But if it's anything other than a Kindle, you won't be able to re-read any of your Kindle ebooks on this new gadget.
If Amazon stop supplying Kindle ebooks in general, or some Kindle ebooks in particular, you won't be able to read affected ebooks on new devices, since the DRM locks each copy of a Kindle ebook to one particular device, and you need to download from Amazon for each device you want to read the ebook on.
If your SO or children want to read any of the ebooks you've bought, you'll need to register their Kindles with your Amazon account, rather than their own Amazon account. You can't just copy a DRMed ebook from your computer onto their Kindle.
There are two ways to avoid these potential future problems.
1. Don't buy DRMed ebooks. Non-DRMed Kindle ebooks have, in the Product Description section, the line: "
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited"
2. If you do buy DRMed ebooks, removed the DRM. This may or may not be legal for personal use, depending on the country you live in. In some countries (including USA) it's unclear whether it's legal or not, and the courts have never ruled on it. In any case, if it's only for personal use, I can't see how anyone would know.