[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by frahse

If your eReader dies or you update it, it is not simple to move the DRM file to a new one. A book also might be damaged and made unusable.

True, but knowing how much falling-apart-books I fixed or just read, regardless of their massive lacks in structural integrity this comparison is an anti-eReader at all argument from my POV.

think of the eReader and the DRM files on it as a unit. Just like a large book.

In this case, rather the whole shelves - pack this together with your loose-one-loose-all attitude plus considering how much money sits on shelves of some bibliophiles and we are at the anti eReader argument again.

Until someone doesn't come up with a damn sturdy reader which doesn't need batteries because the very little amount of energy it needs can be generated on-the-fly by reading light the idea you promote -
Let's call it eBook transplants instead of copying - will hardly win friends.

You cannot at this time have a DRM digital file that does everything good that a paper book does, and at the same time make sure that there is just one copy of the file like there will only be one copy of the paper book.

Right about DRM, wrong about copies. Make a textbook expensive enough a must for a university course, go into the library and watch the queues.

So that means that the ordinary reader buying a DRM protected file is making a tradeoff. Giving up something to gain something else. If he considers that the eReader and his eBooks are a single unit, then it is pretty much the same as a large paper book.

(sic) library
Portability./. Fragility, yes.

It's one thing to live with tradeoffs when they lay in the nature of something, compared to having then artificially added like DRM schemes and stuffed down ones throat.
See CD's & mp3: I personally am damn happy that I can store the original discs safely away, while having my music on all devices I want them to be available on.

As I said somewhere already: were there a similar solution for books like data cartridges (the old 8-bit console thingies come in mind - sturdy things) let it be a bastard between a cartridge and SD readonly cards (single books or even series don't need as much space as digital audio)
Having no rewrite ability needed the cards contents could be hardwired like the old cartridges. No rewrite on card means less circuitry too = cheaper than SD.

Were there such a solution to buy this instead of paper as original media and proof of legally clean possession I'd be in. Or possession certificates or whatever reasonable one can come up with without crippling the actual content please.
The geo-restriction troubles would be gone too as a bonus.

The main problem I see with the eBook system today is the insistence that the eBook costs about the same as a paper book.

When people say things like that it becomes easy to disbelieve other things they say. I have never said anything like that. I believe that a eBook should cost half or less than a new hardbound and when the paperback comes out, it should cost half or less than that.

there we are both on the same side of the fence.