See also the lawsuit against the Internet Archive, as some other comment already pointed out. What this also primarily is, is a direct attack by the publishers on the first sale doctrine, a crucial balancing part of copyright law.
Time-limited and self-destructing book copies, as for any (digital) media, is nothing short of a cultural atrocity that only philistines could have come up with. The word "scam" is more than apt for this latest effort by the publishing industry to milk the maximum amount of profit out of something without putting in any additional work or providing any additional value in return. Asking money for doing literally nothing -- I don't think that calling that a scam goes too far. This from an industry who, like many others, keeps claiming that they are acting in the name of protecting the creatives, while having a long and flowery history of fleecing and bleeding dry those very artists.
Time-limited and self-destructing book copies, as for any (digital) media, is nothing short of a cultural atrocity that only philistines could have come up with. The word "scam" is more than apt for this latest effort by the publishing industry to milk the maximum amount of profit out of something without putting in any additional work or providing any additional value in return. Asking money for doing literally nothing -- I don't think that calling that a scam goes too far. This from an industry who, like many others, keeps claiming that they are acting in the name of protecting the creatives, while having a long and flowery history of fleecing and bleeding dry those very artists.