The purported "loan to a friend" feature of the Nook does sound a bit Zune-like. It's unlikely that there will be a DRM free approach, but I've seen notably les

The purported "loan to a friend" feature of the Nook does sound a bit Zune-like. It's unlikely that there will be a DRM free approach, but I've seen notably less hacking on the Amazon format than on AAC. Perhaps since the decryption doesn't happen on a general purpose computer, it's harder to crack. Or maybe crackers don't read books?