At Ars Technica (via johnaugust.com), John Siracusa has a long, and quite good, article about the future of ebooks. He makes a lot of good points, including that ereaders are taking longer to gain adoption than mp3 players because book technology hasn’t changed in hundreds of years (among other reasons).
He also compares the future of paper books to horses today (i.e. they’ll still be around, but not for mainstream or practical use). And he has this to say about digital restriction measures (DRM):
DRM for digital media distribution to consumers is a mathematically, technologically, and intellectually bankrupt exercise. It fails utterly to deliver its intended benefit: the prevention of piracy. Its disadvantages, however, are provided in full force: limiting what consumers can legally do with content they have legitimately purchased, under threat of civil penalties or criminal prosecution.
I just can’t get enough of that.
Anyway, all of that and much, much more at the original article.
[original at Ars Technica {via johnaugust}
