Security and the e-textbooks proposal | Security News - Betanews

Security and the e-textbooks proposal | Security News - Betanews: "Students of copyright history will recall Basic Books Incorporated v. Kinko's, in which the publisher sued the copy shop for photocopying materials for educational purposes -- a practice Kinko's argued constituted fair use for non-profit educational purposes. (No, Kinko's was not an educational facility; that was part of the problem with the case.) In the aftermath, most schools got very, very nervous about photocopying 'packet' materials for students, often requiring them to buy an entire textbook in order just to acquire one or two pages of relevant content. The Kinko's case took years and many lawyers to get the publisher's desired result -- that is, shutting down the practice. With an electronic book, the process could be as simple as flipping the proverbial switch. Amazon has already run into controversy for locking Kindle users out of their accounts (and thus their purchased texts). What happens when a school can't pay for 'updates' and the publisher decides to pull access entirely? For that matter, what happens when some kid messes with the settings on her e-book reader and the device decides it hasn't got any of the textbooks it's supposed to have?"

Interesting take on the security issues with the DLC proposal.