‘With Rumors of Amazon Selling DRM Free Music, Will Books Be Far Behind?’
Here, from DearAuthor.com. The TeleRead take: Remember, people who buy more than their share of e-books are the most harmed by DRM—well, assuming they don’t boycott “protected” titles. Related: ‘EMI to go DRM-free’ in Apple iTunes deal, ‘but at a price’: Biz model ahead for some e-publishers? from the TeleBlog. Also see Killed By DRM: e-Books, from Wired News’s’s gadget blog.
The other side: A more DRM-friendly perspective from Oxford University Press exec Evan Schnittman. He says Apple’s iTunes shows that a “complete technology sales model” can work even with DRM. My counter-argument would be this. Does the book-industry really want one big player dominating e-book retail to the extent Amazon dominates p-book retail and Apple dominates online music? Without this “one big” situation, the industry will need standards in DRM and core-formats to spare consumers the Tower of eBabel. Even if IDPF members can agree on a core format, will they cooperate on DRM interoperability? That remains rather iffy, though I wish them luck. Oh, and don’t forget that Microsoft is going its own way in the standards world.
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