[stonetools]

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

And books go out of print all the time. Are you asserting some universal right to download any ebook ever offered for sale?

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

didn't know that. Sounds like the rare case to me, though. You don't invalidate general systems because of the rare case. More on that anon. In case of geo restrictions, you should understand that the creator of the work has the right to decide when and where his work should be offered for sale. The anti DRMists seem to believe that this right should be overriden by fiat. Legally, however, such rights have to be negotiated, author by author, and publisher by publisher. Such things may take time, but that's how WE would want it if those were our rights. In any case, I think that georestrctions are an anachronism that will disappear as ebooks become more important.

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.

As I have said above, it may be legit to strip DRM in cases where the company goes out of business, on a couple of different legal theories. This is again the exceptional case that doesn't invalidate the rule.

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.

Actually, you don't know this. We simply don't know where the technology will go. It may go to a place where where DRM and non DRM files will be unplayable in the preferred media player of the future. It has happened in the past and will likely happen again.

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.

The copyright law grant is quite broad. I would argue that the creator DOES technically have a right to limit to recent buyers. In any case, most creators are quite willing to allow buyers to access products that THEY HAVE BOUGHT. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the main focus of creators is to protect their property from being pirated and casually shared in a way that dilutes the value of their work and reduces their incomes. Most authors think that the minor inconveniences that so exercise the techno-sophisticates are a small price to pay in furtherance of that end.

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.

And many, if most, bestselling authors disagree. Go through most author's forums if you doubt that.

If lack of DRM causes widespread casual sharing, why isn't Baen bankrupt?

I really don't know what Baen's finances are -perhaps you could enlighten me? Could Baen have done even better if they had been a DRM shop? Do you know for sure that their authors did not lose many sales to casual sharing and/or piracy? Is the average Baen book really as likely to be casually shared as, say, "Unbroken" or the latest Oprah's Book Club selection?
I don't know the answer to these questions, but if I was the owner of a big publishing company, I would need definitive answers before exposing my authors' IP rights in that way.
Again, I appreciate your stance. You at least are not insisting that the vast majority of authors and publishers bend to your will.