It’s no longer news that Microsoft is closing down their ebook authentication server and those who have paid Microsoft for ebooks will shortly be unable to read them. It’s easy to say it’s their own fault and that’s not wrong but the majority of the blame lays with the book industry and their mule-like insistence on keeping their books locked up with DRM. They and their lackeys in congress enabled this situation with the execrable Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I’m sure the publishers considered all those contributions to congressional campaigns well spent but they will, I think, come to rue the day they made that bargain.
I say that for two reasons. First, Amazon leveraged their insistence on DRM to achieve domination of the ebook market—and probably the dead tree market as well—to the point where they can mandate terms to the publishers including what they pay for the books. It’s pretty much “sell your books with us or don’t sell them.” That’s all because DRM allows Amazon to lock readers into their ecosystem. If there were no DRM, the publishers could tell Amazon that if they didn’t want to buy books on their terms and prices, there are plenty of other outlets that would and users, being able to read books no matter where they bought them, wouldn’t care who sold the books to them.
Secondly, my sense is that the public’s patience is wearing thin. If I were a Microsoft ebook reader and lost my books, I wouldn’t have the slightest compunction about procuring a pirated copy to replace the copy I had already paid for. Once I did that, I would probably avoid future problems by doing away with official copies altogether. At the very least, I wouldn’t feel bad at all about procuring the easily available software that breaks the DRM to make sure these vultures could no longer steal my books.
How long will it be before people who haven’t lost their books adopt the same attitudes? Once the publishing industry comes to be perceived as thieves with no concern for their readers, those readers will no longer have a concern for them. Anything that’s left after Amazon gets done with them will have become worthless.