Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
Well, I love you too.
I'll just skip to the end to vaporize that strawman so beloved of the anti DRM crowd- the mythical multi device family that just CANNOT share ebooks without stripping DRM.
First of all, we have to wonder why the Multidevices did go ahead and buy different dedicated ereaders without considering the difficulties of sharing ebooks. Where they that clueless, really? Don't they get to pay a stupid tax? Do they also own Linux, Windows, and Macintosh PCs? They're gonna get a hell of a surprise if they try to share files and applications. Just sayin'
OK, so they all bought different readers without any forethought, because that's how the strawman is built. The Multidevices must surely have at least one PC in the house. If so, there are PC applications for Sony, Kindle and Nook so they can read each other's books on the PC.
Do the Multidevices have tablets, smartphones or PMPs? No problem-they can download apps and share accounts and libraries on those devices.
No PCs, smartphones, or tablets, but three different kinds of ereaders? Hey, I can go to that reducio ad absurdum too. They could-and I know for the digerati, this seems really insane- just physically LEND their ereaders to their other family members. After all, they are all family, right? And in the olden days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, people actually handed their physical books to family members, thus depriving themselves of the books for a time, till the borrower gave the book back. Lending ereaders is precisely analogous to lending pbooks, old school.
So there you have it. Family members can share ebooks in several different ways, without violating DRM or the federal copyright laws, as is your wont. You don't have to choose to violate the law if you don't want to.
I hope this lays to rest this zombie argument for all time-though I doubt it  |
All this would make a lot of sense --- if ebooks were significantly cheaper than pbooks (which don't offer any such restrictions). They are not.
Yes, you can work around those restrictions (we are the ones who know how to do that), but we as ebook buyers can reasonably expect not to have to do so. And yes, most people are new to ebooks now and on their first device, so they are blissfully unaware of the problems they will most probably run into in the future. It already happened to me, I just found a way to take care of it. Those problems will be coming for many helpless readers, however, and then publishers will face a backlash from the book buying public. Keep pretending that everything is just find and dandy, while your employers are cashing in on that first really big wave of ebook converts. And in the next 2-3 years another wave of angry users will be coming right at you.
You don't have to convince the MR crowd. For us DRM is just a 20 second nuisance at most. It is the publishing industry who should wake up and prepare for the future. You can rationalize all you want, but stabbing your own customers in the back doesn't bode well for the future, even if you are raking it in right now.