Letters

E-FAHRENHEIT 451?

Berkeley, Calif.

The article on electronic books ["On Pixel Pages It Was Writ," June 12] left out the most intriguing aspect of this new format: digital rights management technologies (DRM). These technologies are being developed by the electronic publishing industry to protect the rights of the copyright holders and, of course, are not so diligent about protecting the rights of readers. DRM standards, such as the XrML standard developed by Xerox and endorsed by Microsoft, contain mechanisms to allow publishers to put time limits on reading, to potentially charge by the page or by the minute, to protect against excerpting and printing. These "rights" go significantly beyond the rights recognized by copyright law.

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