Barnes & Noble DRM Fails with Expired Credit Card
Yet another reason why DRM is wrong. When a Barnes & Noble customer tried to download a previously paid-for book, an error message appeared, stating that the download had failed because the credit card on file had expired. As the cool kids say, “Epic fail.” The expiration status of a credit card for a previously purchased book should be entirely irrelevant for a later download, and to extend the scenario, there should be no requirement that the account be linked to a credit card at all after the purchase has been completed.
I hate DRM as much as the next geek, but this has nothing to do with DRM.
The connection is a couple of steps. Because the book was protected by DRM, the user had to re-download it from Barnes & Noble to load it on her Nook. Because the credit card had expired, even though the book had been purchased, Barnes & Noble wouldn't let her do so. Thus, the DRM prevents a backup copy from being useful or transferred easily among devices.