I don’t get it. I mean digital contents.

I bought a Kindle. The device is a pleasure in itself, easy on the eyes in many ways. The speed by which the books are delivered is also nice, because it’s instant.

The thing is that the books are copy-protected (if bought from Amazon, O’Reilly and Pragmatic Bookshelf are DRM-free). I might have a right to transfer the DRM’d contents to a new Kindle, but that’s up to Amazon. As far as I know I can’t transfer my e-books to an iPad or to another device. And that is simply not right.

I have bought those books, paid full price. It should be my decision on which gadget I read them on.

Copy protection has an obvious consequence: the value of my device goes up – because I’m locked to the device. I really don’t like the idea of my device going up in value. Think about it: let’s say that your iPod had 3000 copy-protected songs. If you paid full price for that your device would be worth 3000€, should you be not able to transfer those songs to another player. Who would want to carry around 3000€? I mean really? But hey… Of course you can transfer the stuff, because you can play mp3’s on any mp3 player in the world.

What if the device would be stolen? What if the device would break up? Where is my library then?

Your library is yours. I want my book library to be mine. I don’t want to ”license” content. The copy of the book is mine. DRM is simply fucked up, as it makes value where there should be none.

At least the DRM should be so that the license is mine and I should be able to use the stuff on any device, regardless of the manufacturer and I should be able to make backups of the stuff. I should also be able to change the device at will.

That’s one of the reasons I’m digging Spotify. I can have access on my mobile, my computers, my whatever. The license is for me, not the platform. The makers of the music are compensated somewhat, I don’t know if fairly but still.