[jabberwock_11]

This thread was started by someone speaking on a very specific type of book, technical manuals. The discussions were not aimed at novels or other mass market books, but technical writing. Technical manuals used in medicine, engineering, etc. are not books used once and never again. These are books used and referenced on a daily or near daily basis and for these books, which is what this discussion was started in reference to, there is a need to be able to use and freely transfer these books over time and across platforms.

For the average readers who rarely reread their books and who stick with one platform, DRM is not a big issue...until they decide to buy a new device and find that that book they never intended to reread is no longer even available to them as an option. It's like when a kid picks up another kid's toy, suddenly the first kid wants to play with that toy again. There is no better way to get people up in arms against something than to take away their ability to choose, and DRM does take away a person's ability to choose. DRM limits which devices you can use and in what ways you can read the books "protected" by DRM. I am not in favor of DRM, but I would be completely in favor of some way to make ebook files which can only be cut and transferred rather than copied and transferred. When you buy a physical book and lend it or resell it you are not left with a copy of that book, this is not the case with ebooks. If there were a way to simulate that same situation in ebooks then I would not have any issue with that. DRM, however, is not an acceptable form of intellectual property protection.