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Any cultural object that requires an intermediary device runs the risk of your losing access, either partially or completely.
E.g. if you bought 8-tracks, vinyl records, cassettes, an Atari 2600 cartridge, Laserdiscs, minidiscs, and so forth -- most of which did not have DRM -- you'd still have trouble accessing that content today, regardless of how much you paid for said content.
In this respect paper has the advantage, in that no intermediary device is required. At the same time, if my house burns down, those books are gone; if my ebook reader gets destroyed, though, I can just reload or resync my books.
DRM adds a possible layer of difficulty, but it seems that the odds that B&N, Apple, Amazon et al will go belly-up without someone buying their business and scooping up those customers is pretty small. As such, I just do a basic backup and don't sweat it.
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