[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Now, I understand you better. When you said "as well as replace the device" I assumed that you meant the same device.

Not necessarily. Though the PDA I use as a reader is a Horrible Example of restrictive DRM. It was designed to be a hand-held gaming platform as well as a Palm OS PDA, and had hardware inteneded to make it a gaming platform. To lure game developers concerned about casual copying and sharing of commercial titles, the designers modified the OS to include DRM provisions. Commercial titles for the device that used the API for access to advanced features of the hardware had to be digitally signed. Once installed, they were locked to that device. If you lost or broke your device, and got a replacement, you had to get a new authorization key from the manufacturer of the device, not the software vendor, before you could install and play your game. The vendor went belly up. There were some unhappy gamers out there...

I agree that purchasing DRM ebooks does lock you into a specific type of reader ... however, that does assume that the purchaser is one of those sweet and honest types who would never even think of stripping off that bad ol' DRM in the face of losing all of that content.

Depending upon the format, it doesn't lock you into a specific type of reader at all. Mobipocket, for example, has reader versions for the PC, Palm OS PDA, WinCE/Windows Mobile PDA, Symbian based cell phones, and Blackberries, and their default DRM will let you register up to four devices and read your purchased content on any of them. eReader has a similarly broad range, and supports Mac OS/X and the iPhone, which Mobi doesn't, with DRM that lets you read your content on any device.

With Amazon, you can read it on anything you like... as long as it's a Kindle.

Thankfully ... I am not that purchaser. If someday, in the dim and distant uture, I am forced to give up my beloved Kindle and purchase something that will not read Kindle content ... you can pretty much bet the farm that I will be giving a one fingered salute to the copyright laws.

And you are someone who hangs out in places like this, and can do so. I fear the broader market is not in that league.
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Dennis