Ebook vendors like eBooks.com (my company) face a real challenge with regard to DRM. On one hand we want frictionless freedom of use for our customers, but on the other hand the vast majority of our authors and publishers require that we secure their ebooks with DRM.

eBooks.com provides the ability for our customers to filter out DRM-ebooks from our catalog. There's a link to DRM-free titles on every page of eBooks.com. https://www.ebooks.com/en-au/drm-free/ But that's a very limited subset of our collection.

Opponents of DRM make important, legitimate points: "Ownership" of an ebook is very contingent. Even the slickest DRM system imposes unwelcome additional steps for the user, and limitations on what can be done with the ebook. And there is very little interoperability between vendors - silos as far as the eye can see.

But authors and publishers have a point too. There's a chart at the bottom of this article (our blog) that says it all, as far as publishers are concerned. It compares the gross revenue of music labels from 1993 to 2016 with that of book publishers during the same period. https://about.ebooks.com/should-we-sell-your-ebooks-without-...

We launched eBooks.com in 2000 and have continued to argue for DRM-free in every available forum. But we face understandable anxiety from authors and publishers. We can, and should, all argue the merits (or otherwise) of DRM but it remains a fact of life and will be with us for some time to come. So it falls to vendors and capable tech partners like EDRlab to try and make the best of it.

I know the guys at EDRlab and they are not conspiring with Big Tech, not motivated by profit but by good will. It's a rare thing. They are working on many fronts to build a system that gives authors and publishers the security they desire while at the same time minimizing complexity and maximizing interoperability for end users.

And interoperability is really important. It can unlock innovation.

The commercial ebook market is dominated by a single, ruthless almost-monopoly that sees authors as irksome, hates independent bookstores and strikes fear in the hearts of publishers large and small. It gets its way with everything and at the same time does not innovate. Why should it bother with R&D when it owns the market? In present circumstances, if a small team in Bhutan comes up with some genius idea (ebooks that sing in the bath?) they can't reach a market of any meaningful size. I mean, if a user is excited about this new app that can sing your books in the bath they might install the app but they won't be able to read any of the ebooks that they already bought from Kindle - or eBooks.com for that matter; because we're all using different, proprietary DRM protocols.

If enough vendors adopt it, EDRlab's DRM system holds out the prospect that users around the globe will be able switch from our platform to a better, competing platform, and take their collection of ebooks with them. That's beginning to look like a healthy, competitive market that can foster innovation.

In summary, yes we all hate DRM, but it's not going away. So let's give some credit to guys who are trying to make the best of this situation to the benefit of readers everywhere.