Another day, another DRM story. Princeton and several other universities will participating in offering electronic versions of their textbooks. I could totally give my support for this. Carrying around your science and math books are no easy feat, especially when you got to reach class in 5 minutes but it's on the other side of campus. Speed reading is no substitute for a full-text search.
But oh the restrictions... 5 months after purchase, you no longer can open the file; your two-thirds priced ebook has no resale value. The ebook isn't transportable if you downloaded it onto your desktop computer; so much for hiking to the library when trying to hide from your dorm mates. These restrictions may be wonderful for a publisher (no used book market to compete against!) but terrible if you're actually consuming these things.
Thankfully I think the society of consumers (in this case) will reject this scheme. Out of necessity (like no dead-tree books in stock) some will get sold and price might sway the penny pinchers. All the rest will see this for what it is: an expensive and restricted book lease.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment