Quote:
Originally Posted by clifswin
Maybe more reasons than this, but here's my "they're evil" -- I've been buying DRM books from Ereader.com for over ten years, probably averaging six to eight books a month. I've also bought from Mobipocket, and more recently Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I read on my Palm PDA for years, then I switched to using a smartphone about four years ago. My latest WP7 phone? LOVELY device -- but Barnes and Noble hasn't made a peep about supporting it, with EITHER the Nook OR Ereader format. Suddenly I find myself the proud owner of a large virtual shelf of books I'm functionally barred from reading except when sitting at my computer, and could completely lose access to when I next change my computer's OS. I wouldn't accept a dead-tree book that only allowed me to read it under terms like that, and I'm not happy when a DRM ebook does it either.
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Your concerns are real. Unfortunately, things like this happen in the computer world. I lost files switching from Word Perfect to Word. If you switch from Mac to Windows or vice versa, you'll lose your programs and probably at least some data. There is just no certainty that your new device can read your old files.
Pbooks aren't ebooks. Ebooks have lots of advantages over pbooks. One advantage they DON'T have is durability. I think this is just something that you have to figure in making your decision between p books and ebooks. If I bought a book that I KNEW I wanted to be able to reread in 20 years, I'd buy a Pbook. That said, I believe that booksellers should be required to have a migration path if you want to switch to a new device. that's quite achievable with DRM.