We keep bitching about the consumer-unfriendliness of copy-protection in CDs: consumers do not want restrictions on what they can do with their own CDs, DVDs, or MP3s and other digital codecs, either. Once it's yours, it should be yours and screw their encryption.

PW Newsline says the same thinking applies to eBooks:

Evangelist entrepreneurs Fictionwise have been flogging for years the idea that unencrypted ebooks are more user-friendly and saleable than the encrypted kind. Now the startup has a notable, if highly temporary, partner in Random House, which is taking three ebooks from Del Rey and releasing them as unencrypted titles via Fictionwise.

The promotion for the three books, Tainted Garden by Jeff Stanley, Stone Maiden by Anne Aquirre and Thagoth by Michael McClung is, according to the publisher, just a one-time deal. The books are the result of a writing contest and are not being released in print form.

...."Unencrypted outsells encrypted, even though you could argue the encrypted gets 100 times the publicity," says Fictionwise co-founder Scott Pendergast. "We'd like to see a lot of publishers sell authors in [unencrypted] formats. But these are baby steps." He says the company has experienced very little piracy with unprotected titles.

....Says Pendergast: "There's a very large percentage of buyers who will not buy encrypted titles, mostly because of ease-of-use or they're worried they are buying a title that will not be supported in a few years."