DRM is stupid and counterproductive
DRM and overpricing is what lead to the music industry being viewed as the villains they are - the publishing industry should not follow then over the cliff-edge.
DRM'd content is just bad for the customer in oh so many ways :-
* It is difficult to deal with and often fiddly to get 'authorised'
* If a problem occurs with your equipment, it is sometimes impossible to recover what you have paid for. Similarly if you upgrade you can have major problems.
* If the seller goes under or simply decides that it's not cost-effective, you can lose your collection.
* With a book, I am responsible for looking after it. If I lose/damage it, I buy another copy. Fair enough. With DRM, looking after what I've paid for is taken out of my hands.
* The cost of the DRM technology contributes to the ridiculous prices of the books.
The fact that I do not run Windows or MacOS on my computer at home, plus the fact that a hard copy of a book is no more expensive means that as it stands, I cannot buy an ebook from Borders, even though I have just bought their ebook reader device (a great bit of kit, I love it). Nor would I want to at the current prices. For something that is less accessible, less valuable and has a much lower production cost than the physical product, there should be a corresponding reduction in the asking price. No, having an ebook price that is more expensive than the same title in paperback is not good value for the customer.
Even the music industry have recognised that DRM is a bad idea - just look at how many stores have dropped DRM over the past year.
I understand that it is the publishers telling the retailers to put expensive and restrictive DRM on their books which simultaneously makes them less valuable and more expensive, but in my view the big stores like Borders, Waterstones and Amazon should 'grow a set' and demand to be able to sell a product that their customers want at a fair price.
Eric Flint has written a large number of well thought out essays on the effects of DRM and e-publishing within the industry (http://baens-universe.com/columns/Salvos_Against_Big_Brother). He is a prolific Sci-Fi author and almost all of his books are available in DRM-free formats at a reasonable price - generally 4-5 dollars (not pounds). He works with Baen publishing and they both put their writing where their mouths are. They have evidence to back up their claims as both the publisher and it's authors are estimated to enjoy a far greater profits on e-books than their more restrictive competitors. They have had plenty of my money over the past few years and all the books I have bought from them now sit nicely on my ebook reader.