As a complement to this note, whats getting really silly in this mess is the current spate of brick and mortar eBook stores that take a globally readable electronic document and reduce it to an even smaller subset of possible clients that require a specific non portable device with DRM lock in. Where is the interest of a Barnes & Noble reader device which is tightly tied to a single store? Dont even think about moving to another country and continuing to use your library in the same manner unless you retain a credit card from the original region.
At least the iPad (and it’s eventual competitors) are neutral in that there are standards based readers like iBooks and Stanza that are optimized for ePub, and store specific apps like the Kindle app. This is still not ideal since it means that my library is split into pieces by reseller, which makes absolutely no sense to me as a consumer. My music collection is not organized by music label, but by artist and genre. My books are organized by author and topic, not by publisher or reseller.
This is exactly the kind of behavior that motivated the hackers to find ways to unlock the various types of music DRM with the goal of having the flexibility of using the player of choice. Most important here is the freedom to change and select a new tool as new opportunities present themselves. There is already significant activity in this arena for eBooks, with tools that unlock Kindle and Fictionwise eBooks (and probably others that I’m not aware of). If history is any measure, eBook publishers will be fighting the same losing battle as the DRM-happy music publishers.
Then from the legal standpoint, we have a curious situation in the US concerning right of first sale. Today, I can buy a book and sell it once I’ve read it or loan it to friends and family. DRM protected eBooks do not permit this, outside of a few select situations. I’m now licensing the right to read a book from the distributor, which strikes me as an exceedingly odd situation given people’s relationships with books. If eBooks were substantially cheaper than their paper equivalents, this would bother me less, but currently most eBooks are priced about the same as the printed copy.
To top it off, the recent actions by Amazon to remove books from Kindles or block new downloads on previously purchased items is just going to motivate people to ensure that they have a un-DRM’d copy somewhere, even if they aren’t regular copiers/sharers.