And now weāre ALL screwed. . .
Probably outdated stereotypes want to know: Did they bury the hachette?
Point of order: Amazon never ārefused to sellā any of Hachetteās books. They just stopped discounting them and stopped carrying an inventory of them in stock so they couldnāt fill customersā orders until Hachette filled their own order. But Amazon was perfectly happy to let customers order themāunlike when the major publishers illegally imposed agency pricing and it removed Macmillanās āBuyā buttons in protest.
Nearly a year of Amazon āmaking it harder to buy booksā from Hachette would be more accurate.
If Amazon refuses to sell DRM free ebooks could Hachette legally offer customers a DRM free copy with proof-of-purchase?
If Hachette wanted to sell ebooks without DRM they could just open up their own store (ala TOR) relatively easily. With eBooks there is really no need for a middleman like Amazon or any other bookstore.
You only need a middleman if you wan to add DRM and lock them to specific devices. Consumers arenāt going to buy a different E-Reader for every publisherābelieve me, the publishers tried. Thatās why you see crazy dance with Amazon, whom the publishers hate with every fiber of their being but are also trapped with since they canāt imagine a world where digital goods are sold without arbitrary customer punishing restrictions.
I am concerned about Amazonās Walmart like power, but books donāt ālock you into their walled garden foreverā.
Itās the use case.
Most people donāt re-read books at all.
Nobody reads books on shuffle.
Books take a long time to read, so an app switch is trivial.
Amazon e books are available on all significant platforms.
Music has the power to lock people in because people listen to lots of songs in quick sequence. And re-listen a lot.
Apps have the power because they are often locked to an os and therefore to some hardware and because you put your data into them.
Books just donāt.
Talk to the people whose copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four were vanished along with their own notes. Itās also insanely short-sighted to be okay with not being able to export the stuff you paid for to another device. Iām sure the creators of the 8 inch floppy thought youād always be able to read them easily as well.
Music locks people in? Only through laziness or subscription. itunes downloads are DRM free.
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