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Further, all the books had physical DRM. The glue they were bound with and the cardboard the covers was made out of was designed to disintegrate over the course of a semester, even with good care. I kept my books on a shelf next to my desk in my dorm and never took them to class, and still couldn't sell them at the end of the semester because they'd fallen apart.

That is not DRM. That is shoddy craftsmanship, poor quality, etc. But it is not DRM. DRM specifically limits your rights - Digital Rights Management - with regard to the content.

Plus by definition if you create software which supports new features you have lock-in.

Not necessarily, if it is an open standard - and if it is an open ePub 3 standard, then that is great. However, if it is DRM inhibited, then it is enforced lock-in. However, interoperability is key, so it needs to be both an open platform, and DRM-free. And it would be disingenuous to argue that the book format is an open standard, if it has non-open DRM locking it down. The DRM becomes part of the book, and cannot be separated from the standard, at that point.

I am not arguing that the college textbook industry does not need reform, or is not prohibitively expensive. It does, and it is. I am arguing against DRM in textbooks, and device lock-in.

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