WSJ to Sony: DRM Sucks
Posted on Sunday, February 19, 2006
at 9:13 AM (permalink)
Well, maybe that headline is overstating this WSJ article's message a little bit, but the important thing, as Tim O'Reilly points out, is that a major business paper is acknowledging that DRM can be bad for business. In the case of Sony's new ebook, I believe that DRM is a product killer, and it looks like analysts are starting to agree:
"From a hardware perspective, it's wonderful," Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director with JupiterResearch in New York, says of the Reader. "It's a question of whether the content restrictions are going to be so onerous and so difficult to use that consumers simply won't bother."
Sony is generously allowing users to transfer books they download "to as many as six different devices, such as laptops, that they have registered with Sony." Here's a simple test: name a single electronic device that you own that has been in continual use for more than 10 years. Take away TVs and house phones, and name a computer based device that you are still using after 5 years. Sorry, but books are among my most valued possessions. I'm never going to buy a book that has such a short life. 
