In one important aspect music differed from movies and books: Music was never in a copy protected format. The point of digital songs with DRM was absurd, because you could just rip & burn an original CD. But movies were copy protected even on VHS cassettes. DVD and BluRay are easy to rip/burn, but pro forma they have a DRM. And ORC scanning of books is inconvenient. It makes sense to at least try to establish a DRM for digital books.
But it is true: "All this has happened before. All this will happen again." (So say we all)
iTunes DRM helped not the big labels, but turned out to be a (small?) competitive advantage of Apple. Steve Jobs just didn't care, because Apple is in the business to sell the razor (iPod). This is a compelling analogy what happens now in the eBook disruption. With the difference that Amazon is in the business to subsidize the Kindle plattform to sell more blades (books).
But it is true: "All this has happened before. All this will happen again." (So say we all)
iTunes DRM helped not the big labels, but turned out to be a (small?) competitive advantage of Apple. Steve Jobs just didn't care, because Apple is in the business to sell the razor (iPod). This is a compelling analogy what happens now in the eBook disruption. With the difference that Amazon is in the business to subsidize the Kindle plattform to sell more blades (books).