DRM is just another way of saying "you live in a Dictatorship but you're too stupid to realize it".

...

It's my Book, I'll do what I want with it.

Anyone want to buy and own a dead-tree book?

Circulating an "ebook bill of rights" is about as useful as signing an Internet petition.

Want to make a real difference? Don't buy ebooks that have DRM.

You'd think literary types wouldn't abuse the word "rights" this way. It's an eBook User's Bill of Opinions.

These are fine opinions and anyone is entitled to hold them, but you might be a megalomaniac if you actually think believing an opinion turns it into a right.

I'm an ebook author. DRM is a pain in my ass. I'm all for this.

@3 There aren't many ebooks for sale that don't have DRM. They're out there, but the publishers sure don't publicize that. For example, I just bought Arslan from B&N's nook store and it turned out to be DRM-free, compared to purchasing Oil! that required me to rip off the DRM. There's no mention on either book page that one is DRMed and the other is not.

Despite ebooks and e-reading technology having been around for over two decades, the ebook publishing industry is still in its infancy. The Kindle was the ebook world's iPod, and it took several years after the iPod for the music industry to realize that non-DRMed MP3s sell better than locked-down music. The ebook industry will realize this eventually, it just might take 5 more years. In the meantime, every DRM method has been cracked save one (the iBooks version of FairPlay hasn't been cracked yet, but that's mostly because nobody cares -- fuck iBooks. It's a shitty reader and a shitty store and its only legacy will be forcing the rest of the industry into Agency Pricing bullshit). Buy what you want, liberate it, and use it where you will.

One other thing that is needed:

Author and translator contracts from before 2010 that make no mention of e-books or digital rights should apply royalty provisions for paperbacks to e-book sales.

Source, Paul?

Paul, you made it pretty far without getting an ebook reader. Why not stick to physical books? It seems like such a bad idea to start down the road with ebooks. I'll never buy one. The makers have shown their true colors. Don't expect anything different than what FaceBook users are experiencing now. There is always the threat that ebook publishers will pull this crap again in the future even if you get the deal you want today.

The only issue I have with this set of proposals is the "right to resell" - not because I don't tnhink we shouldn't be able to resell ebooks, but simply because there's no way to be sure it's happened.

That is, if I were a publisher, how would I know that person A had actually sold his ebook to person B? When that happens whiht physical books, the physical copy is passed along to person b, and is out of person A's possession.

This is not necessarily the case with ebooks. How can I know that person a hasn't simply sold a copy of the ebook to person B, and actually still retains his copy on his ebook reader or hard drive?

I'm inclined to agree on the "one file, many readers" request. I've got the Kindle program on my pad, but I also have a Sony Reader (love the e-ink). Okay, well, Kindle books are usually MOBI files, and Reader books are usually EPUB. In order to get my Kindle book onto my Sony Reader, I have to first strip off the DRM, then use something like Calibre to convert it to EPUB.

@5, you're not the only one. Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton are two of many others who agree with you. They've both found some ways to deal with this, but the fact still remains that providers such as Amazon and Apple will not sell an ebook that doesn't have DRM. That makes distribution a headache.

@3, as has been noted, it's hard to get an ebook that doesn't have DRM. TTBOMK you can't get one from Sony's Reader store, and you definitely can't from Amazon. Apple might allow DRM-free public domain books (I'm not sure about that), and I don't know what BN's status is.

If you're looking to get the latest Stephen King as an ebook, you simply have no choice but to buy the DRM'ed version. What you do with it afterward is, of course, up to you, but I'll say that if you google around for terms such as "remove DRM from kindle books" you'll find some very interesting things.