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Originally Posted by drjenkins
When has the government done anything concerning DRM they weren't directed to do by private industry?
E-book DRM unification will likely come about the same way that VHS beat Beta. The marketplace will decide the preeminent format and other formats will fade away.
Unfortunately, if Amazon continues to dominate we may eventually be stuck with a proprietary format.
The best we can hope for is that ebook DRM is resolved the way MP3 DRM was resolved. Music is available in multiple formats from multiple vendors without DRM. Several e-book vendors, like O'reilly, have already taken this route.
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The difference is that O'reilly is a publisher, not simply a vendor. The same is true for Baen, another source of DRM free multi-format ebooks. It has always been up to the publisher, not the vendor, whether or not to use DRM. Some publishers sell DRM free books via all different vendors--Is there any vendor which forces DRM onto the books?
Shari