SanDisk’s DRM-enabled flash drive

I saw literally hundreds of different products in the vendor hall at NECC. Way too many, in fact, to have much of a look at many of them. One that caught my eye was a new product SanDisk was promoting. Their Cruzer Freedom USB flash drive:

is a uniquely designed USB Flash Drive that lets your students safely carry personal digital files. Powered by FlashCP technology (formerly known as “BookLocker™”, this drive becomes a “digital backpack”. The digital backpack allows easy and safe downloads of copyrighted content including textbooks, novels, study aids, learning tools and much more.

I’ve read about a lot of schools that are starting to provide flash drives for their students as a cost-effective way to facilitate moving digital content back and forth between school and home. The price is certainly right. I was at Costco yesterday and saw a 512-MB Lexar flash drive for about $40.

The SanDisk product isn’t as cheap, however, since they’ve had to license some DRM technology to prevent anyone from redistributing copyrighted content. So I guess the question becomes whether or not it’s worth paying 2× as much for a flash drive in order to take advantage of a select set of publishers’ titles and the ability to search, highlight, and annotate the e-text. If I was going to buy hundreds of these things I think I’d save the money and buy a standard flash drive for now. I’m sure the catalog of available digital content will grow, and I might come to the opposite conclusion a year from now. But do we really want to get our students reading more textbooks when there’s so much content out there that isn’t encumbered by draconian copyright that requires DRM?