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Lulu Introduces DRM
An anonymous reader writes "Print-on-demand publisher Lulu recently announced that they're offering 'eBooks.' Since they've always offered downloadable books as PDFs, that takes some decoding to figure out what part is new: it turns out that it means now they're handling more formats, they've significantly increased the share they take out of the purchase price ... and for an additional fee, they now offer DRM. I have a few items published through Lulu myself; nothing forces me to buy the DRM, but I'm considering taking my business elsewhere on principle. This isn't what I expected from the people who, when I first signed up with them, were solidly endorsing Creative Commons."
There are other ways to make money. Unless, of course, you can prove to me that the only way to make money in the publishing world is to restrict the ability to read and share.
Palm trees and 8
The free market generally only looks at short term gain and always exclusively for those in control of conditions. Calling "Free Market" as a refrain more often than not ignores many valid and important factors that aught not to be ignored.
Socialism does the same thing, except that it does it for the whole economy. In the free market, some owners do look ahead, do think things through, do take bets on the future, and that's how you have things like cars, airplanes, personal computers, and more.
The difference between socialism and the free market is not one of perspective, but risk management. If socialism makes a mistake, the whole nation suffers. If a company makes a mistake in the free market, life goes on. In socialism, the nation gambles with its own wealth, whereas, in the free market system, the nation can gamble with the peoples. It's a sturdier system and every time you dole out more power to the government, you make it weaker.
Socialists are just stupid, that's all.
This is my sig.