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This is quite disturbing how they are trying to artificially keep the old books alive. I'm sure there's always people who prefer them, and I suppose libraries would still want them even if they could lend ebooks too. But the ebook just offers so many advantages from environmental to convenience and cost saving that it makes no sense why the publishers would want to fight against it. The bookstores are a different thing though, they will probably die out slowly, which is sort of a shame.
Of course there are disadvantages too, like the whole DRM nonsense. I understand they are afraid to let it go, but it is just such a hindrance to end user I hope they'll see that in reality it doesn't do any good. It will not hinder piracy no matter what they think, rather encourage it if they make things too difficult for users. They could always still watermark the sold books to discourage regular users from copying those to their friends, then it just becomes a legal issue if they choose to do it or not.
I just bought wife Sony reader for xmas, but now that I've been trying to acquire her some books to go with it, I've realized how infantile the business still is and how hard it is for user to legally acquire ebooks, especially if not in US.. these delays with ebook releases and geographical restrictions along with DRM really is dampening my excitement about the whole thing and probably will wait to see how things develop until getting myself one.
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