Libraries Use DRM to Expire Audiobooks

Valleye writes "CNN is reporting that some US libraries are using Microsoft Media DRM to automatically 'return' audiobooks checked out of their catalog. A patron with a valid library card visits a library Web site to borrow a title for, say, three weeks. When the audiobook is due, the patron must renew it or find it automatically "returned" in a virtual sense: The file still sits on the patron's computer, but encryption makes it unplayable beyond the borrowing period."

Comments

Ultimately not reasonable.

[k.a.f.]

No, it is not reasonable, because the world changes.

Some people write books to make money. Some people write books because
it satisfies them personally. Back when book copying was infeasibly
expensive, both of them had an incentive for continuing to write. Now
that copying has become feasibly cheap, those that write only for the
money have less of an incentive, and that is as should be (cue
Heinlein quote).

Establishing artificial restrictions on copying in order to prop up a
failed incentive is ultimately wasteful.