Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I really think most people are pretty honest and that, if they accept the refund they'll accept the loss of the books.
Actually I think piracy proves, in an odd way, the honesty of most people. It's easy enough to get a pirate copy of a book today. A lot of people either know how or could easily find out how, and do it. And yet most people buy their books.
Barry
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I agree with you 100% about piracy. It is a point I have made many times. What is amazing about e-book publishing is that a profitable market still exists despite the ease of obtaining pirate copies.
However, I expect that many of these honest people would not regard keeping these books as being dishonest. Interesting but not strictly relevant is the question of who bears the costs. I imagine it would be Microsoft. I somehow doubt that publishers and authors, having been paid by Microsoft for these books, are going to refund any amounts to Microsoft. If this is the case, we have the situation where the Author/Publisher has been paid for a license which cannot be used. The reason why the book will not be available is not so much because of the license but because Microsoft chose to lock its e-books to the Edge browser with DRM, and is no longer prepared to maintain its licence infrastructure. Some authors/publishers may be in for a windfall. I'm not privy to the legal arrangements but one possibility is that the licenses purchased from Microsoft remain in force but of course cannot be used.
The question is moot in any event because the DRM scheme used has not been circumvented.