I'm surprised that people keep thinking that this rental of our culture is something that is coming soon.
Sadly, it is already here.
What most people don't seem to realise is that encumbered ebooks guarantee that everybody will be locked out of all their encrypted books sooner or later.
When you have to re-install your operating system or upgrade your computer your ebooks no longer recognise your system and refuse to open. I've had this happen to me on a couple of occasions, which stung me so badly that there have been a lot of books I've wanted very much to buy, but haven't. I have very little money and can't afford to throw it away on renting expensive books.
Now the only ebooks I buy are unencumbered ones. Baen Books sell (and give away) a lot of ebooks by current top-ranking SF writers, all without locks of any kind, in a number of formats, including plain vanilla html. It has worked really well for them. Every time they give away a free book it boosts sales of their for-profit items. They are living proof that the dopey protectionist arguments that many publishers make are total hokum.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised that people keep thinking that this rental of our culture is something that is coming soon. Sadly, it is already here. What most people don't seem to realise is that encumbered ebooks guarantee that everybody will be locked out of all their encrypted books sooner or later. When you have to re-install your operating system or upgrade your computer your ebooks no longer recognise your system and refuse to open. I've had this happen to me on a couple of occasions, which stung me so badly that there have been a lot of books I've wanted very much to buy, but haven't. I have very little money and can't afford to throw it away on renting expensive books. Now the only ebooks I buy are unencumbered ones. Baen Books sell (and give away) a lot of ebooks by current top-ranking SF writers, all without locks of any kind, in a number of formats, including plain vanilla html. It has worked really well for them. Every time they give away a free book it boosts sales of their for-profit items. They are living proof that the dopey protectionist arguments that many publishers make are total hokum.