>But we are drifting into a world where the industry Powers That Be are going to hide everything behind rental models, and it will no longer be possible to buy

>But we are drifting into a world where the industry Powers That Be are going to hide everything behind rental models, and it will no longer be possible to buy an open-ended, use-it-as-you-like version of information products. When they switch the servers off, it's gone. If you move account, it's gone, and you have to pay again on your new service, just like when they went from LPs to tapes to CDs. >I'm not sure that is a healthy direction to move in, but as long as significant numbers insist on breaking the law and ripping off others' hard work, that's the direction that market forces will push. If it comes to that, I can safely predict one thing: piracy will increase enormously. Just, as they said in the blogs comments, like Harry Potter books in electronic are among the most pirated because there are no official Harry Potter ebooks for sale.