[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Sgt.Stubby

Every time you buy a DRMed book, you do damage to consumer freedom.

Oh, dear.

You also work against the original (higher) purpose of copyright, which is to increase the amount of works of art and culture that the consumers have access to. DRM blocks and reduces access. I don't know about Bin Laden and Stalin in this respect, but I seem to recall that Hitler burnt books. I'm not one to play the Hitler card, but you brought it up apparently unwitting to the parallel.

Meh. I posit that the entire point of copyright law is, by definition, protecting the ARTISTS, and their works, not the consumers thereof. Otherwise: provide one good reason for the law to exist, it not to simply and clearly and unequivocally ensure that the artists get PAID. PAID. Compensated. Not ripped-off, in other words. There's nary a part of the law that exists for any other purpose. That is the "Higher Purpose" of the law.

If the Higher Purpose were to ensure that consumers got whatever art they wanted, when they wanted it, the original language would have been akin to Amazon's giant payment pools: "we'll collect X in taxes from the populace, you'll get supported to the tune of $Y/annum, and we will own all your works, to give away freely to the People."

But...that didn't happen, did it? if the Higher Purpose was to feed the people's appetite for culture, that's what WOULD have happened...but it didn't. Ergo...the law exists to provide a fair mechanism to support the authors/artists. Not the other way around.

There are plenty of MR'ers who have clearly functioning moral compasses, who somehow live with the heinous "crime" of buying DRM'ed books. I'm a raging libertarian, and remarkably, DRM has yet to conflict with my comprehension of the Cosmos and my (moderately well-informed) views on US Law and statutes. OR, for that matter, my internal views on right/wrong.

Every time a bell rings, an angel get its wings.

Diap: maybe that's, "every time a consumer clicks 'buy now' at Amazon, an angel Falls." I mean, after all, if you follow this line of reasoning, we're all aligning with the Fascisti, and it's hard to believe that that wouldn't knock off a few angels here and there.

Hitch