Bud Frede wrote:
"Carlos E.R." writes:

On 19/10/2019 13.11, Bud Frede wrote:

What DRM really does is inconvenience or harm people who pay for the
content legitimately. They may not be able to make backup copies, the
content may be tied to one specific device, if the vendor goes out of
business the content may cease to be accessible, etc.

Yes, but you can do a backup; in some countries it is legal.

I live in the US, which is not very consumer-friendly at this point, and
the state that I live in is not one of the more consumer-friendly
states.

So I just have to assume that if I purchase a DRMed ebook, I'm renting
it and may not be able to read it more than once. (Maybe not even once
if I wait too long.)

You're not renting it. You bought a license to use it, often on
several devices (which are all tied to you/your_purchase). Unlike
renting, there is no time limit. Most of the time you can verify that
it's not renting, because the price is in the same ballpark as the
printed version.

Yes, the publisher/distributor *could* revoke the license, if they
think it shouldn't have been granted in the first place (for whatever
reason), but that's not a normal event.

As to backup: That's quite possible, but probably most people don't
bother, so if their e-reader goes up in smoke and the publisher/
distributor has gone belly up, they're indeed out of luck.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike DRM as much as anybody [1], but in most
cases, for most people, it's not that big of a deal.

There are some scenarios which are a problem or cumbersome for DRMed
ebooks (and other media), which are not a problem for printed books
(and other physical media), such as lending, giving away, selling, etc..

[1] Only in a year or so, I lost - access to - the very first DRMed song
I purchased! :-(