Here’s an interesting short story on digital audiobooks and format wars, from the Digital Music weblog.
They bring up the issue of how some audiobook companies use DRM technology to make the book “automatically expire” after three weeks or so – just like how you return a book when it’s due. Of course, the DigitalMusic blogger finds that concept absurd – because you’re still stuck with a file that you then have to delete (and apparently didn’t think about copyright issues associated with borrowing the digital copy).
But it’s still something to think about – I can copy parts of a book, a magazine article, etc. Why does my file have to stop working? Do we have to mimic the traditional library in digital format, or is there another way?
ahem… I was gonna say “why can’t I copy my digital file,” but realized there are ways… one of them being with an audio out jack…