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E-book publishing right now is in its infancy. In 5-10 years, I expect book publishers to be in roughly the same situation that music publishers are in today.
Right now, everyone and their kid brother has an mp3 player of some kind or another (iPod, etc.). And everyone wants to buy their music electronically, except for vinyl purists. Yet, the music industry is STILL wasting time and losing money by mucking around with a babel of DRMs, suing pirates, and playing with copyright law. They haven't yet learned that the best way to do business is simply to sell un-DRMed mp3s from official sites with a common user-friendly interface. Less hassle = More business.
Heck, iTunes became hugely popular even WITH DRM, because Apple understood the cardinal rule: less hassle = more business.
Now, compare that to the book industry today. They don't even have a huge demand to motivate them, simply because the easy, convenient e-readers don't really exist yet. Few people even have a Sony Reader. As a result, we have an even WORSE babel of DRMs, a lack of available titles, ridiculous pricing... etc.
But looking at the music industry makes me despair that book publishers will get their act together, even 3-5 years from now. The only hope I see is that book publishers might learn from the music industry's mistakes...
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