Why I hate eBooks and DRM

Aside from the obvious tactile differences, most mainstream ebooks are saddled with a handicap far more weighty than appearance: DRM or digital rights management.
Those familiar with digital music are likely aware of this issue but it comes down to this:

Downloaded material shackled by DRM licenses are not property of the people who paid to download them. They are considered 'licensed' with restrictions placed on what devices they'll work on, how many devices they can be transferred to etc. Which fundamentally means you don't own the books in your library. I find that completely unacceptable. If I pay for something, I own it. It's mine. First Sale Doctrine should apply to all items--even digital ones.

Intellectual property rights debates have existed for centuries: should lending libraries, used bookstores, etc have the right to lend/sell copies of books? The Supreme Court says yes--copyright owners must get all profits from the FIRST SALE of the book and cannot control what happens further down the stream of commerce.

DRM changes that by treating ebooks as digital items instead of BOOKS. And digital items are governed by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

I refuse to give money to an industry that is fundamentally ruining our access to information. Sure, artists and authors should receive compensation for their efforts. But that should not be able to tell us when and where we can use their work after we have legally paid for access.

#Amazonfail and the dangers of information monopoly

Easter weekend, a firestorm broke out on the social site, Twitter . It was discovered that thousands of books on Amazon.com had lost their sales ranking and were being labeled as 'adult.' The majority of the excised books had Gay or Lesbian themes or characters. Non-explicit books were deranked while heterosexual, explicit books remained accessible with rankings intact. Twitter users used the hashtag of #amazonfail to spread the word, and spread it did. Within hours, it was the #1 search on the site.

Why is this a big deal? Amazon sales rankings are a major factor is exposure for books on the site. They feature in recommendation areas, bestseller lists by category etc. Without a sales ranking, some books are virtually invisible on the site--and hidden in the main search. If people cannot find a book, they cannot buy it. They may not even know that the book exists. And to have that access arbitrarily messed with by a flick of the switch is scary.

Twitter was ablaze with accusations of censorship on Amazon's behalf. While it is still officially being called a glitch, this episode resulted in a HUGE backlash against the Amazon brand as well as an even larger concern for intellectual freedom advocates: what to do when the world's largest bookstore restricts, hides or otherwise impedes our access to books and information. And it also exposes the dangers of allowing one media source grow so big that a book's publishing success is wholly dependent upon it.

Here's hoping that many of the Twitter users so outraged by this glitch take the opportunity to support their local, independent bookstores. Allowing a monopoly for any type of merchandise is unwise--allowing it to happen to books is unthinkable.