Luckily that is partly changing. A few years ago the European Commission’s position was that DRM was going to be the next big thing and that therefore the local system of levies had to be phased out. Now the commission have reversed their position and are giving levies a chance again, but the law that says you can write your own copyright law with DRM is still harmfully active. Publishers should simply not have that much power, not because of the many good publishers, but because of the many bad ones.

The debate should not be about what balance we should strike, but whether we should attempt to strike a balance at all. The debate should be about what we hold dear, and what methods we have to foster those things.

In terms of preservation, consider the number of books that have been completely lost. We all know about great plays and philosophical works which have vanished from history–because they were written on paper, papyrus, or other easily damaged materials. eBooks do have their own problems, but they have one advantage–they can be copied perfectly and cheaply, becoming available everywhere.

I understand your DRM issues and don’t use DRM on books I sell directly or through Fictionwise. On my own website, I include an HTML version of every book. Although some formats may vanish, I think HTML is so widespread, it’ll continue to be readable into the increasingly distant future.

Eliminating copyright just so you can make archive copies seems like overkill to me.

Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com