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Getting back to the original subject, I just don't think reading devices will become mainstream until a solution is found to the DRM problem.
Of course when we talk about problems we need to define the market. One split is between people who read books & people (like my kids) who almost exclusively read only news & magazines (mostly trash, IMO). For entertainment, they watch movies.
eBook news/magazine subscriptions aren't likely to become mainstream, IMO, until I can read an article & talk to somebody else about it-without needing to read the entire article to them. To use the Web as an example, if I read an article on CNN I can include the link in the email I send to someone talking about the article. If, on the other hand, I read the article in a DRM-protected subscription then it doesn't matter whether I send them the article or not-they still can't read it.
That's what I see as the DRM problem. I don't have a problem with the basic concept of DRM, but I do believe the underlying 'rule' should be to treat the eBook the same as you'd treat a hard-copy. If you subscribe to a magazine & want to show somebody an article you read in it, what do you do? You give them the magazine. DRM needs a way to transfer 'eBooks' between people. Not copies, but transfers. Nothing I know of supports that.
Even for books, DRM is inhibiting sales-and I'm not talking necessarily about the 'format wars'. I suspect that most people who read eBooks very often fairly soon settle on their preferred format-whatever it is. No, my problem is that I have a fairly large library that I'd like to leave to my heirs. The fact that my kids probably won't read is irrelevant-they can sell the books or maybe their kids will like to read. Whatever, I've invested considerable money in building that library (over 5000 volumes) and would like to leave it to my kids.
Now take my eBook library. Do you think I'm going to invest the same amount of money in building that library? Certainly not-because it's not an investment, it's an expense. Under the current DRM policies (that I know of) an eBook is not an asset, it's a consumable. That, IMO, needs to change. The media shouldn't matter-all books should be treated the same. (FWIW I've seen, believe it or not, attempts to treat hard-copy books the same as eBooks. Can't remember where right off, but I remember seeing a book that included a printed license agreement prohibiting the purchaser from transferring the book to anybody else. Doubt if it's any more legal than the DRM policies are-but I also don't know of any court cases on the issue. Maybe when I die my estate will file the first one-because I do intend to leave my library, including my eBooks, to my heirs.)
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