If it really is the case that Rowling owns the rights to digital distribution of the Potter series, how did the publishers not have the vision to realize how valuable that would be? Are they really that short sighted. That just seems baffling to me.
Kudos for Rowling to put them out DRM free as well.
Those contracts were signed a long time ago. The first version of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ was released in 1997!
Edited to add: Hindsight doesn't wear glasses. ;)
Right but new books have been published since then. I am sure the contract has changed over the years as new things have been brought into the fold, movies for example. You would have thought that by book 4 someone would have brought this up.