Comment by dangus

I'm astonished that Microsoft is apparently just refunding the original purchase price of (everybody's?) books.

What's most mind boggling is the realization that apparently nobody sat down and planned this situation out - because if they did, the idea that someone could get an okay from their boss on the idea that even a mildly unsuccessful result and end of life of the product would end in full refunds for everybody.

What's the point of even doing business?

Am I misunderstanding this outcome? That means anyone who used this product got free book rentals for whatever they wanted to read?

...

Let's talk about DRM now.

DRM in itself as a concept is not bad (IMO), and it's probably necessary for a lot of products that obviously would not have been created had 100% of the customers decided not to pay.

However, I think what we fail to talk about is how there's no agreed upon standard regulating the end of life and transferral procedures involved with works sold under DRM.

I suspect that book publishers would not agree to allow Microsoft to say "the store is closed, your books can be unlocked once you follow this procedure." Even if they're okay with that, Microsoft probably didn't even have the foresight to implement that sort of thing on a technical level.

So, what we need in the digital goods industry is some kind of statement to the customer that's set in stone regarding what will happen with your content if the business ceases to exist and the platform is canceled.

There's some semblance of this concept around. For example, Ultraviolet is shutting down in July - so, you have the option to transfer movies to other services for most movies on that platform (it should be all movies).

MoviesAnywhere is also a DRM service making an attempt at avoiding platform lock-in for digitally purchased movies.

But beyond that, there needs to be some sort of guarantee that you'll get perpetual access or a refund. The fact that Microsoft is dishing out refunds since that's cheaper than getting sued by every customer they've ever sold a book to is not a given - imagine if Valve were to go bankrupt and simply shut down their servers one day. That's where DRM should have a sort of mandatory living will.