On Sat, 11 Dec 2010, Jim Adcock wrote: snip
Most publishers, including presumably PG, are not around "forever." Part of the point of PG, in my understanding, is to make sure good books stay alive "forever", and to do so by making them widely distributed.
I think the PG eBooks are out there as much "forever" as anything. . . . Our distribution is so wide that I don't think anyone, including "spook" black ops agents of the CIA, FBI, new KGB, etc., could delete them all.
DRM prevents them from being widely distributed, and also it effectively asserts a copyright on something for which no copyright exists. Copyright law says that one cannot break DRM on works under copyright. It doesn't say anything about what happens if someone breaks DRM on something which is not under copyright -- not that I want to be the one to test that case!
Once the DRM is broken, the result can be put in the public domain, no matter what happens to the original cracker.
PG hasn't always been "lily white" about this issue either IMHO, trying to "pick and choose" winners and losers among vendors and distribution formats.
I don't think we have done any "pick and choose" "among vendors" or "formats." Hundreds of vendors of our eBooks are out there, and anyone who sends us a format to try out is welcome. snip