Quote:
Originally Posted by cromag
Ironically, I think the biggest factor in eliminating DRM from online music was Amazon's entry into the market with a DRM-free alternative to (then DRM-ed) Itunes.
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Yep. The music industry wanted Amazon as the counter to Apple's near monopoly position on selling digital music, rather the opposite of today's ebook industry where Amazon has the near monopoly position. It didn't really work for the music industry, of course, since Amazon mp3 never has been a big player.
Ultimately, I think that the fact that Amazon's ebook DRM is so easy to break has help to assuage the fears of rampant pirating, plus of course, the fact that Baen titles and Tor titles haven't been hurt by no DRM.
Right now, I don't think there is a lot of pressure to remove DRM from ebook by the general buying public. For the major source of ebooks (Amazon), those who want to can easily remove the DRM, and most people are quite content to read Amazon ebooks on their kindle device or kindle app. It would take people wanting to read their Amazon ebooks on some 3rd party device to put pressure to remove DRM.