[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The major booksellers ( Apple, Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Sony) have all established systems for backing up and archiving your purchases-systems far more elaborate and powerful than that available to the average consumer.

If the book is removed from their sales offerings, it may or may not remain available for download.

Geographical restrictions prevent purchases: they don't affect books already purchased, AFAIK.

Geographic restrictions can be added after purchase, preventing further downloads. This happened at Fictionwise. When the book's contract changes, the previous publisher may no longer be legally able to offer it--and ebook stores, despite their promises of permanent access to one's purchased libraries, have been very erratic about providing that. They don't host the books themselves; they contract with the publishers & DRM server hosts to process the books anew every time the buyer wants to download it. If that title is no longer available through that publisher, or that DRM host has changed systems, the book is no longer available.

DRM'd ebooks from Rocketbook and EBookwise are no longer available, and can't be converted to new devices. LIT books from Microsoft may no longer be available, if you don't have access to the account used to purchase them.

Indeed, it is quite possible that your Non-DRMED ebooks may not be readable on some future ebook reader.

A diligent reader can convert non-DRM'd ebooks to whatever the new, trendy format is, to make sure it's still readable. And even without much diligence, txt remains a viable backup format for long-term storage. Neither of those options exists with DRM.

In making these points, I don't dismiss your concerns: they are real. But your concerns should be balanced against the the right of the creators of the ebooks that you enjoy to preserve and protect their intellectual property.

The creator has no right to control how their books are read, only how they are copied. Their right to "protect their intellectual property" doesn't include a right to restrict its use to recent buyers only, and keep it away from those who bought it two Windows updates ago.

If they can't do that, then they won't create any more ebooks. When you chafe at these restrictions, think of whether you would prefer no restrictions and no future ebooks from a favorite author.

My favorite authors tend to release books without DRM; apparently, they don't think that your concerns are important. If every DRM-infected ebook vanished from the market, it wouldn't change my reading habits. So I'm not concerned with what protection they think they're getting from DRM; they've already decided they don't want my money.

I'm pretty sure the literary world could survive losing those few authors who'd refuse to publish if they couldn't lock readers into a single program. Other authors would realize they just have to convince people to buy their books instead of swapping them around... which, apparently, is working out okay for dozens of ebook companies.

If lack of DRM causes widespread casual sharing, why isn't Baen bankrupt? Sure, they're a niche market--but why hasn't that niche been filled with free pirate books?

Where is your evidence that dropping DRM causes less sales? Every company that's done it, has reported an increase in sales.