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The Great Library of Amazonia
theodp writes "Amazon had a dream. To bring the world a modern-day Library of Alexandria. Apparently they had a second dream. To own the patents on it. Interestingly, fears of lost cookbook and reference text sales voiced by the Author's Guild are echoed in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's patent application for the Suppression of features in digital images of content and a9.com CEO Udi Manber's follow up Access to electronic images of text based on user ownership of corresponding physical text, which discuss how one might block content from viewers who have no proof-of-purchase for a book on file with booksellers."
At the time it was published, it was easy to look on Richard Stallman's story, The Right To Read, as dystopian hyperbole. It was easy to believe that he was writing about an exaggerated worst case that could never come to pass. Sadly, with each passing year it looks more and more like the only thing he was wrong about was how quickly it could happen.
Companies generally don't do things just to be evil, they do things to make money.
Design a system where honesty and ethics are rewarded big bucks, and you'll see companies fall all over themselves to be corporate saints.