To Encrypt or not to Encrypt?
Some interesting subjects came across my screen this week, besides the continued "fall-out" from Riding the Bullet. One that tweaked my interest was the fact that when you buy an electronic book from some electronic publishers, like Nuvo Media and GlassBook, a record of your purchase is kept. It was pointed out that there are advantages and disadvantages to this service. The advantages being you can get replacement copies of your books if you lose them or if they are stolen. Try to get this kind of a guarantee from a bookstore or publisher of p-books!
What brought up this subject was some individual's reluctance to by electronic books which are encrypted to work on only one kind of device, like a Rocket-eBook. Consumers have been burned in the past with electronic goodies that become outdated and are no longer serviced. Any one who bought a beta player and invested heavily in movies or an 8-track player knows what I mean. And the time period for obsolescence keeps getting shorter. I received an e-mail from Sympatico last year that Windows 3.1 was obsolete and they could no longer support it! That means after only 4 years of buying it (assuming you bought your system just before Win95 came out) your system is obsolete.
Some people can accept that with computers but not with books. Books are ageless. As a retired bookseller, I can assure you that people expect to be able to get any book at any time from any time. Booksellers are expected to have the newest book along with some of the oldest in stock, all the time, from Plato to Grisham. Imagine, if you will, going into a Chevrolet dealership and asking for a '57 Impala. "What do you mean you don't make them anymore? Order one for me!" Get the picture? Only books are expected to last forever, even out of print ones. So, imagine owning a library of electronic books only to find out that your Reader is obsolete and that all the new books now require a newer model. Or it breaks and no one will fix it or you can get replacement books but they are all in a different format that your reader can't read?
So you can see where the hesitance is coming from in investing in electronic books that are encrypted to work on only one kind of reader. But if they aren't encrypted then publishers and writers will be hesitant to publish if they don't get their works protected in some way so that they will get paid for at least most of the ones that are read. At least this
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