I used .lit format from Microsoft for ebook reading since my early Jornada days. Unfortunately, now that Microsoft is no longer supporting .lit I can't read any of the DRM protected .lit ebooks I had purchased with my hard-earned money. When I try to open one of the DRM books a message comes up saying that the Microsoft Reader program has encountered an error and must shut down. This is very frustrating. I tried using Calibre to change some of the .lit books to another format, and Calibre won't work on the books protected by DRM, which is virtually everything that is not in the pubic domain. I expect the same thing to happen soon with .mobi format ebooks that I purchased from Fictionwise (which is now in the process of ending its operations).
I have no objection to authors and publishers protecting ownership of their works, but to protect the honest consumers we need formats that don't lock you out of the book if the publisher gets out of the ebook business.
The same problem exists with certain software. Even though you own a legal copy of the software, if the publisher goes out of business, you can no longer reach the publisher to "activate" your software, so it becomes useless and your money is long gone.
Does anyone have a proposed solution for these problems?