Doctorow's article is a bunch of illogical meanderings. He could write an article that said: "Hachette wants DRM, only Amazon supplies it, so Hachette is locked." But he's going on to claim that the move away from a DRM laden store, similar to what was done with Apple, is impossible because of DRM. So, exact same case, but somehow now it won't work.

I'm very confused about the article's main argument. I understand that because of the DMCA it would be illegal for Hatchette to release tools to circumvent Amazon's DRM. However, surely Hatchette owns the rights to the actual IP and could sell the e-books elsewhere without DRM (or with another company's DRM...). So what's to stop them from having some sort of deal to give away free copies of the book on other platforms to people who already own the Amazon version? (I'm thinking how GOG let people redeem keys for Witcher 1-2 from the disc version or Steam, and other game developers have done similar things giving away copies of a game on a new platform to people who already had it elsewhere.) I don't think Hatchette is locked into using Amazon. I think they are just too greedy to even consider giving away other versions of their books to people who already bought it on Amazon.

I'm surprised if it really is the store (Amazon) who has the sole right to remove Amazon DRM from the books, not the IP rights holder (publisher).

Is that really so? To me that sounds somewhat similar that if e.g. some old EA or Activision game had old Starforce or SecuROM copy protection that needs to be removed in order to release the game on GOG (or EA Origin), then EA or Activision would have to get a permission from the company who made the copy protection, in order to remove it.

The article was talking about if Hatchette hypothetically released a program that would remove Amazon's DRM from e-books. I assumed the article was right about that not being allowed because it could be used on other e-books too.

I mean, going with the game analogy, I think this is more like Steam than SecuROM, Starforce, etc. As I understand it, developers license those other DRM's like SecuROM and then implement it themselves into the games so they can remove it too. Meanwhile, Steam is more of a platform like the Amazon Kindle library and maybe the DRM is built into the platform rather than the book publisher putting it in themselves. Developers who own the IP rights to their own games can re-release the game DRM-free or even patch the DRM out of their games (and only their games) since they put it there to begin with, but they wouldn't be allowed to release a tool that would "convert" someone's Steam library to DRM-free or to another platform like Origin.

That's why for example EA allows people to redeem the same key on Origin which doesn't affect the Steam version but is simply giving the person another version of the game for free instead of having to buy it again. I don't know how well it's working for EA, but the idea is obviously to entice people try out Origin and buy future EA games directly there instead of from Steam.

I think that was the article's main argument about what Hatchette should do (try to migrate its customers to another e-book seller) but the article focused exclusively on the idea of cracking Amazon's DRM and didn't address this simpler and definitely legal solution that Hatchette could try if they really wanted to.

It's that "If they wanted to" that's the rub.

According to that article (I have no previous knowledge) Hatchette have been very publicly rabidly insisting on DRM.
To get away from Amazon without fracturing their consumer base, they would now have to admit to the folly of their previous stance. They don't seem to have the stomach for that.

I'm always amazed by this kind of people. They go to a walled garden and they still expect to make the rules. What's even worse is that they try to paint Amazon as the bad guy, a thing which the consumers won't believe.