DRM Lite for Electronic Textbooks

bcrowell writes "The New York Times reports that textbook publishers are backing off somewhat on the level of DRM used in the electronic editions of their textbooks. They no longer become unreadable after a certain amount of time, as in RMS's famous essay The Right to Read. Even so, most students aren't interested, because the books can't be sold back; the solution, however, may be to make it impossible to return printed books either. No mention in the NYT article of the steady progress being made by free books."

Comments

textbooks are a racket

[Robocoastie]

The textbook market is such a racket. So many classes have a "required" textbook that you never use anyway. At the end of the semester you can open it and still feel and hear the crackle of the newness of it. Their biz is such a sanctioned scam its ridiculous. But so is the whole "good ole boy" educational system anyway.