FBReader is a well-liked (20+ millions installs) multi-platform e book reader. Ebook stores and publishers will let you know there’s one very large and very legitimate purpose for all this restriction: piracy, both massive and informal. Books bought on most eBook shops (however not all) come loaded with digital rights administration software – DRM – which makes certain the copy you’re accessing has been bought and paid for properly. It does this by authenticating your file via the servers of the e-book store in question (or generally a company equivalent to Adobe, which acts like a sort of DRM wholesaler).
Antitrust regulation professor Christopher Sagers argues that the outcome of the DOJ’s ebooks case reveals that the real downside with the industry is not only that Amazon has a monopoly. The massive commerce publishers, he says, have a monopoly too. Analysis reveals that people observe whatever life-style adjustments they have … Read more
