Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
There is a very simple way to take down Amazon's eBook empire. It doesn't require fiddling with pricing. All they have to do is make their ePub eBooks DRM free. Then Amazon would be the ones selling DRMed eBooks and people would jump ship.
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I doubt that other e-book vendors going DRM-free would affect Amazon much. They seem happy to be moving in the other direction.
Amazon's dominance of the e-book market leads them to a different strategy with DRM. They can use it to keep customers within their walled garden in order to maintain their market share. Having a large selection of both books and reading devices/apps allows them to get away with this when other vendors could not.
The KFX format, introduced for e-books this year, uses strong encryption to prevent books from being moved outside of the Amazon ecosystem. Unrestricted books can be moved between devices and across accounts, but can only be read using an Amazon device or app. So even if a publisher wants to sell e-books DRM-free on Amazon they won't be able to do so.
Currently there are still ways that customers can avoid KFX and get true DRM-free copies of Amazon-sold e-books. If I am correct then Amazon will take steps to reduce the opportunities for customers to avoid KFX and gain control of the books they buy.