Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
It seems to me totally unrealistic to expect readers to rise up and boycott DRM-ed books. Books are not fungible. If I want to read Anne Perry's latest, I'm not content to substitute some other author's non-DRM-ed mystery for it--I want to read Anne Perry, and that's that. Why should I deprive myself when I can easily overcome the annoyance of DRM?
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You can still send email/paper mail to the publisher, store, and author indicating that you're buying their DRMed product under duress.
Edit: Personally, I'd rather just fly under the radar. DRM-free books would be nice, and I think the market will get there eventually, but as long as the major DRM schemes remain easily breakable I'd rather avoid drawing attention to that fact. The publishing industry today is approximately where the music industry was in 2000-2001. The big boys are just getting a taste of the digital market and are running scared from pirates, insisting on DRM even though no consumer wants it. There are a handful of smaller places that actually get it, selling non-DRMed works, but they'll continue to be niche sellers. Eventually a sea change will happen and publishers will understand that they don't need DRM to protect their works. My original prediction was that would take another 7-10 years, but it's quite possible that JK Rowling's DRM-free Harry Potter releases this fall will be the catalyst for change that we need.
Rather than selling books DRMed up the yin yang, we'll get DRM-free-but-watermarked books. DRM will only remain for time-limited services like library book lending, a la music subscription services like Zune, Rhapsody, etc. Though even those are going away in favor of streaming services like Pandora, Last.fm, Spotify, Slacker, etc, so perhaps we'll see legitimate subscription access to online book reading eventually. Google and Apple are almost there, with their "cloud-based" readers. Now they just need to enable subscription access.