Could Bill Gates in fact hate e-books? No, but he might as well–given the damage that his people’s Digital Rights Management schemes have done to the industry.
In Writing on Your Palm, consultant Jeff Kirvin nicely lays out the evolution of Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management scheme–and along the way makes an important point about the Convert Lit tool used to crack DRM5, the latest “protection.” Convert Lit won’t work unless you already own a legal copy of the book in the original Microsoft format.
The DRM zealots might say, “But what if the results are then pirated?” That won’t wash, however. Wasn’t the latest Harry Potter pirated from paper–within hours of its release?
How long until the business side of Microsoft wakes up? I blame the marketers and the rest, not the techies, who must be in sheer pain–given all the stupidity that Bill Gates’ business people have forced on them.
The scary thing is that books are just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft wants DRM schemes to be far more widespread than they are now, and this could hurt everyone from engineers to writers, scholars and, yes, business people.
Reminder: Of course, as Jeff Kirvin and others have noted, Microsoft’s offer of free e-books is really just a bribe to get you to “upgrade” to the newer DRM. Plus, Microsoft wants signups for Passport.
(Via Pocket PC eBooks Watch.)
