[Mivo]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

When we "buy" an eBook, we are only receiving a LICENSE to read the eBook. We do NOT own that eBook file in the same way we own a print book on purchase.

That is of little practical relevance with books. With Steam, however, it is, because they can and will lock you out your purchases. You see, if I ever have a payment dispute with Kobo, the worst they can do is prevent me from buying new books. They can't stop me from reading the books I already paid for. If you charge back a payment made to Steam, you will not be playing any of your games, including the ones you paid for. You are, in essence, a hostage of their DRM scheme.

Now, a lot of people think that this is just a theoretical concern, as did I at once point, just don't do anything wrong and you'll never have problems. So here's a story: A while back, Steam offered a game for pre-order. The only bonus was a 10% discount, and I pre-ordered and paid in advance for it. On the exact day of the release, the game was discounted by 33%. I had no way of cancelling my order in a supported fashion, so I emailed Steam about it. They said that the 33% discount was a mistake (but didn't pull it), and that they were very sorry. However, they were neither willing to return the payment in full, nor give a cash refund, and they also refused to give me store credit.

Under normal conditions, I would have charged back my payment, but with Steam I had no such option, unless I was willing to either take legal steps (over what, ten dollars?) or accept that they ban my account and thus access to games that I spent thousands on over the years. Of course, they have gotten no money from me since, but it illustrates how DRM that can't be removed or bypassed essentially imprisons you and what you paid for -- even if you are a "good customer".

Thus, the Steam model may work for eBooks in the same way as it works for games. So far as I know, neither Alf nor anyone else has been able to break the Steam protection model.

You should visit some torrent sites, then. Plenty of Steamworks games on there, and they presumably work. I have no first hand experience with this, because I won't risk running executables from shadowy places outside of a sandbox, but it doesn't actually matter, because what matters is that my money now goes elsewhere, such as GoG.com, Desura, etc., none of which use DRM.

Its obvious to me that the ease of getting rid of protection using the Alf plug-in for Calibre makes the present DRM technology totally obsolete.

If I could not remove the DRM from books that I have purchased, I would not have purchased them.

That is what you and the publishers are not giving importance to: I am a customer, not a baby with criminal tendencies who needs artificial force to do "the right thing". DRM doesn't prevent piracy, it fosters and encourages it. The music industry has shown that removing DRM globally won't kill the market (the removal came after 2008). It's not just evidence, it's hard proof, and yet publishers of books and games largely ignore it.