An Israeli hacker responding to a message board challenge has cracked the DRM protections on Kindle for PC, allowing users to convert books to a more portable Mobi format.

Amazon is expected to find and patch the security hole, likely to set off a long game of DRM Whack a Mole. The Kindle has been hacked before, but hacking Kindle for PC could open up a lot more content for sharing. I recently wanted to lend my aunt a few of my Sookie stories to read while she’s laid up in bed recovering from surgery- hardly black market stuff of DRM nightmares. Since all my Southern Vampire series books are on my Kindle for iPhone, there was no way to do that short of giving her my iPhone, and I need it for phone calls. (Theoretically.) Consumers are already really tired of artificial limitations placed on the content they’ve purchased to protect profits. (And by “consumers,” I mean me and by “tired of artificial limitations,” I mean that I wanna lend my books out.)

What Amazon is probably not considering is that more manageable content will likely only help the e-book/e-reader market. Consumers are still wary of entrusting their content to a device or a retailer once it’s purchased, (rightly so) and assurances that content is theirs with which to do what they wish could go a long way in getting people to shell out in the lukewarm e-reader/e-book market. We already know pirates buy the most music legitimately- so how do you think this will wind up? Will Amazon realize more flexible content means more dollars or will they go futilely hole patching against an army of Israeli hackers?

Israeli dude hacks Kindle DRM is a post from: The Inquisitr

Chief spokesdude for the RIAA Jonathan Lamesauce Lamy has stated DRM is dead, but not before pissing off all the people who have legitimately downloaded music since you could legally do so.

Way way back two years ago, the RIAA was defending the practice as serving all sorts of unnamed consumer benefits. They couldn’t tell us any, but I’m sure they were there. Like the benefit of not being able to easily move your bought and paid for music from device to device or being treated like a thief when you get a new computer. That was pretty awesome, I’ll miss it.

Despite all the imaginary pros of someone placing artificial restrictions on content owned by consumers, shockingly, big players like Amazon and iTunes began to reject and/or discontinue the practice. DRM effectively worked against legal music sales and created piracy where none may have existed.

It seems that even the most vocal proponents of the practice are finally accepting what is rather than what they’d like there to be and realizing that DRM in the end impacted what they hold most dear: sales. But the fact that the music industry is so slow to accept the changing relationship of their product to technology at the pace at which technology develops doesn’t bode well for players like the RIAA. Until they realize they have to keep up with the changing market landscape and create distribution channels that offer real incentive to win consumer dollars, rather than just trying to thwart fans trying to listen to music because they don’t want to accept their revenue model has changed forever and it’s not coming back, steps like this will continue to be a drop in the bucket.

[Source: TorrentFreak]

RIAA chief declares DRM dead is a post from: The Inquisitr