As the flame of this debacle grows dim, I find myself still bothered by the misrepresentation and poor fact checking done by fellow bloggers and reporters. Case in point…
A lot of people are trying to link this unfortunate episode to DRM. While I oppose DRM, and think that Amazon has squandered what little possible benefit DRM offers the consumer, this is quite clearly not at DRM issue. Digital Rights Management is concerned with access control, and specifically with limiting the ability of the consumer to copy and transmit copyrighted materials. Most people dislike DRM (possibly without know much about it) and therefore bloggers and the media have co-opted the term in hopes of raising our hackles. I post this short afterthought in hopes of settling your DRM hackles back down, at least on this count.
