Out of interest, I decided to look into what this new DRM system is and how exactly it works, and I figured out a couple things that might be of interest (which have also been discussed in this thread). No idea if this information is new or if this is already known, but I figured it couldn't hurt to write this down here:
- Once a book license file (.lcpl file, like an .acsm for Adobe) has been turned into a DRMed eBook, there's no longer a need to contact the license server. Standard-compliant readers do still periodically ping the server for whatever reason, but when that connection fails (Reader offline, server down, ...) it still allows you to open the book. It only locks the book if the server deliberately sends a message to do so. So even if the server disappears from the internet, as long as you know your book retailer's account credentials you will always be able to read the book on compatible devices. Unless a retailer deliberately revokes all licenses before shutting down, but why would they do that.
- I have created a
Calibre plugin which can turn a LCPL book license file for this new DRM into an EPUB or PDF file encrypted with this new DRM. This process does not need any account credentials, other than with Adobe's ACSM files an LCPL file for this new DRM already contains the necessary account information. This does not help you if your Reader isn't compatible with the new DRM, but it does help you get LCP-protected eBooks onto a compatible Reader without having a working internet connection on that Reader.
- IMHO, this new DRM isn't much more difficult to crack than the old (ADE 2.0) Adobe DRM, so when book retailers actually start using this and drop ADE support (or enforce the not-yet-cracked ADE4.5 variant), I'd assume that someone will quickly release some kind of DRM removal tool for this DRM. I'm not going to do that, though, since I don't want to get into legal trouble.
- The DRM scheme *can* be "updated" (as they call it) once a public crack is available, but that's an update process more like with Adobe's switch from 2.0 to 4.5 (= meaning, new server software for distributors and new firmware updates for readers and stuff) and not like with Amazon where they can seemlessly update the DRM every once in a while, so I doubt the DRM would be updated often.