Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
The publisher has to allow lending of the book.
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Exactly! And the fact that B&N managed to get this much of a concession from
any of the major houses is a testament to their 600-pound-gorillaness in the market space.
We seem to go through this every time a new feature/restriction couplet appears on a device. E-book reading systems (roughly: hardware/software/delivery mechanism) are always balancing acts. They've got end user demands on one side and publisher demands on the other. Folks like B&N are trying to find a way to get both ends to meet in the middle, while still making money.
In one sense, B&N, Sony, Amazon, etc. are acting as consumer advocates in the e-book space, trying to get concessions out of publishers to meet the demands of consumers. The more concessions they can get from the publishers, the more features they can offer.
Eventually, the publishers will come around, but it's an incremental change.