Quote:
Originally Posted by volwrath
You know the strange thing about all this is that I think that Amazon has a distinct advantage of having a huge selection of DRmed ebooks that can have the DRM stripped. The reason they opened up their ebook library to the iPhone is to get more sales. Now that their DRM can get stripped in so easy a fashion as long as the person has one of two devices, they really have an opportunity to be the defacto ebook standard because their ebooks are cheaper and can be read on any reader now. I think they are a little short sighted and will realize in the near future, that this will really make a difference much like .lit is still standing after microsoft has all but stopped supporting it.
sorry for al lthe runon sentences
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I think companies like Amazon and Microsoft must know that DRM stripping is good for certain areas of business. I don't know exactly what they're thinking about when they uses patches and take-down notices to make it harder to strip DRM but they know it doesn't stop it from happening. And from a business standpoint, I would expect that they might wonder what the content providers will do if no effort is exerted to keep DRM stripping from happening. It's clear Amazon wants to dominate the e-book market with Apple-like control but these tools and discussions about them are just going to spring up in other places. There's is no way anyone educated about this market would not know that.
That said, Amazon has still made a great reading device. As annoying as their tactics are, I wouldn't tell anyone not to buy a Kindle because of it. It's a losing battle, first of all. Amazon has the most press. Many people who know of e-book readers only know about the Kindle and if they know about the Sony and/or other devices they probably want the Kindle just because it's the most popular. This is how the mainstream operates. I know many people here are happy with their various readers but we're not the mainstream. People more familiar with tech usually have higher or different standards and know what devices are capable of doing and what they
should do. I enjoyed my Sony before it broke. I was perfectly content with it. I just think Amazon has made a superior device for my personal desires.
Since fighting the Kindle hype is a losing battle and the fact that I like Amazon's Kindle, I would rather educate everyone I know who gets one. I will personally give them the tools if I have to. I'll show them where to get them, where to get information about them, how to operate them, why DRM is evil and should never be accepted, etc. This is what forced the music industry to change. People didn't stop buying Apple products because for many people Apple had built the best device (personally, I'm one of those tech geeks I mentioned before and I hate iPod for the most part), they just took the DRM off their music or got it from sources without DRM for free. Now MP3s are sold at almost every online music store. This is what needs to happen with e-books and I think it will be unavoidable once e-books become more popular but there needs to be people who are ready and willing to educate others about these types of tools. Sites like this exist to increase consumer choice, whether it's the original intent of these sites or not. Choosing to not support Amazon financially is a great personal choice if Amazon's tactics make you too uncomfortable to continue purchasing from them but that won't change things. Buying from Amazon, stripping DRM, and teaching all your friends how to do the same will have a much stronger effect.