I'll point to the music industry for prior art: Originally, the CD you purchased was your to enjoy in perpetuity unless you chose to resell it. Current 'state of the art' is either:
A. Purchase a streaming 'membership' where you only have the right to personally stream music from a remote server
B. Purchase encrypted, non-transferrable 'tracks' which will become unplayable when the company supplying them stops running their servers.
There are still avenues (Amazon mp3) which do not take this approach (DRM), but you still cannot legally resell the goods you purchased.
To say that there are “still avenues” for buying music without DRM is a grotesque distortion of history.
For the longest time it was impossible to buy any (mainstream) music without DRM from anywhere online. This is no longer true. New services (like Amazon MP3) now sell music without DRM and old services (like iTunes) also switched over to selling music without DRM.
Music is the clearest example that this issue is quite a bit more complicated and that working towards more freedom is possible, has already worked and might work again in the future.
How long was it impossible to buy mainstream music on CDs? CDs don't have DRM, and they're all-digital. Your position is the grotesque distortion of history.
Online. You could only ever buy music with DRM online. It seemed like history was trending in the direction of less freedom but that has completely changed by now. To suggest otherwise is grotesque. CDs are really irrelevant to this particular discussion.
(By the way, the labels also tried to bring DRM to CDs for quite some time. I think they stopped doing that, too. I’m not so sure because I didn’t buy any new music on CD ever since I could buy all the un-DRMed music I wanted online.)
I was, but none of those methods even came close to working; you could "circumvent" them just by putting the CD into a computer running an unexpected operating system, because they all had to be compatible with existing CD players.
DRM has passed the music scene for individual purchases. I didn't accept either of those propositions you mentioned, so I purchased CDs until DRM went away.
Now, I get the bonus of being able to buy just one track.
I would say the people's will is doing nicely in the music industry, even given how hard the RIAA has fought it. I suspect books will follow as people determine what the new norms are and companies find a way to flourish or die therein.
I'm a little unclear why you are referencing patent law.
Anyhow, it seems strange that you feel like you have a right to something produced by someone else. I'm not sure they should be able to make laws making circumvention illegal. But, aren't you complaining because you can't access someone else's work in a manner that you think is convenient?
The whole "our rights are being squashed because I can't share my ebook with you" argument reeks a little too much of entitlement for me to get behind it.
Entitlement is indeed a pretty useless concept in this context.
Are you "entitled" to lend a paper book to someone. Publisher say no, and they are backed up with the force of law in some countries.
Are you "entitled" to read a book out loud? The Authors Guild says no.
Are you "entitled" to sing a song out loud? ASCAP says no.
Are you "entitled" to sell a CD that you own? Music publishers say no.
Eventually I'll might get to something to which you do think you are "entitled", and smart money bets there is someone in the content industry who wants to deprive you of it, and someone in the legislature willing to make you a criminal if you if you try. The slippery slpe has been well documented for a long time.
BTW, if you haven't already recognized it, this discussion is about much more than just Amazon's TOS.
This whole 'entitlement' angle is just wrong thinking here.
The fundamental is that technological advance has given us something good, that we did not have before, for free. The sensible question is, how can we best benefit from it.
Are we entitled to the invention of the car? Are we entitled to comfortably travel at faster than walking pace? The question seems meaningless, let alone unhelpful.
I don't think that's necessarily the sensible question.
Aamazon built the kindle. It is their to decide what to do with it. You and I have no right to usurp their product because we want to alter the benefit. If you don't like the DRM or the features, don't use the product, or start a competitor to the Kindle.
Please don't expand my comment to any other industries. There are certain safety and utility businesses that require regulation. I don't think being able to electronically download a book over a propriety network using a proprietary device (that someone chose to purchase) is one of those.
If it comes to be that a significant majority of the book market is locked by DRM schemes, then no, Amazon ought not have the right to do as they please, and a regulatory agency should be established to ensure fair and equitable access to the materials.
Education, water, electricity, communication, and healthcare are all fine and proper examples of what happens when incumbents reach "escape velocity" and their past innovations turn into today's rent seeking.
A. Purchase a streaming 'membership' where you only have the right to personally stream music from a remote server
B. Purchase encrypted, non-transferrable 'tracks' which will become unplayable when the company supplying them stops running their servers.
There are still avenues (Amazon mp3) which do not take this approach (DRM), but you still cannot legally resell the goods you purchased.