Comments on: DRM on my eBookwise: A deterrent to piracy, or a deterrent to purchasing? http://www.teleread.com/drm/drm-on-my-ebookwise-a-deterrent-to-piracy-or-a-deterrent-to-purchasing/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:22:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ficbot http://www.teleread.com/drm/drm-on-my-ebookwise-a-deterrent-to-piracy-or-a-deterrent-to-purchasing/comment-page-1/#comment-710263 Ficbot Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:48:43 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/02/06/drm-on-my-ebookwise-a-deterrent-to-piracy-or-a-deterrent-to-purchasing/#comment-710263 Paul, you can get your multi-format fictionwise titles onto the ebookwise quite easily, and you can get hundreds of thousands of manybooks and munseys freebies on it too. The 'secure' ebookwise books are totally useless though, and I would not recommend them at all :) Nobody is going to find any ebookwise titles, secure or otherwise, even remotely useable unless they have already shelled out the $100 and change for the reader, so I really don't see how such an audience is really the type the publishing world needs to be 'protecting' itself from. If I knock my ebookwise off the table tomorrow and it shatters into a million pieces, I would have to re-buy my three-day-old 'secure' title again to finish reading it. Insane! Ridiculous! I know that if any fictionwise people are reading this, they will say the publishers insist on it. I understand that, so I won't blame them for it. But I do continue to very strongly feel like they have dropped the ball---badly---by not providing desktop software for anyone other than PC users. If people (rightly) decide they don't want to buy into a ridiculous DRM scheme that restricts their fair and reasonable use of ebooks they legally acquire, their only options are uploading their own content which they buy at fictionwise in .rb format, or download elsewhere. It is imperative that fictionwise therefore provide these users with a simple way to get it onto their devices. That personal content server works, but is buggy as anything. I have had to upload some of my files 3 or 4 times before they load. Paul, you can get your multi-format fictionwise titles onto the ebookwise quite easily, and you can get hundreds of thousands of manybooks and munseys freebies on it too. The ‘secure’ ebookwise books are totally useless though, and I would not recommend them at all :) Nobody is going to find any ebookwise titles, secure or otherwise, even remotely useable unless they have already shelled out the $100 and change for the reader, so I really don’t see how such an audience is really the type the publishing world needs to be ‘protecting’ itself from. If I knock my ebookwise off the table tomorrow and it shatters into a million pieces, I would have to re-buy my three-day-old ‘secure’ title again to finish reading it. Insane! Ridiculous! I know that if any fictionwise people are reading this, they will say the publishers insist on it. I understand that, so I won’t blame them for it. But I do continue to very strongly feel like they have dropped the ball—badly—by not providing desktop software for anyone other than PC users. If people (rightly) decide they don’t want to buy into a ridiculous DRM scheme that restricts their fair and reasonable use of ebooks they legally acquire, their only options are uploading their own content which they buy at fictionwise in .rb format, or download elsewhere. It is imperative that fictionwise therefore provide these users with a simple way to get it onto their devices. That personal content server works, but is buggy as anything. I have had to upload some of my files 3 or 4 times before they load.

]]> By: Paul Biba http://www.teleread.com/drm/drm-on-my-ebookwise-a-deterrent-to-piracy-or-a-deterrent-to-purchasing/comment-page-1/#comment-709980 Paul Biba Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:46:24 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/02/06/drm-on-my-ebookwise-a-deterrent-to-piracy-or-a-deterrent-to-purchasing/#comment-709980 I agree with you 100% in everything you say. A couple of months ago I bought one of these. It was cheap enough that I thought it was worth a try. Also the backlit screen could be useful in certain situations. While I am a rabid Fictionwise supporter and have bought hundreds of books from them, the DRM setup surrounding the eBoowise caused me to relegate it to the shelf - even before doing a review for TeleRead. Just wasn't worth my time. The annoying part is that Fictionwise doesn't make this whole schema really clear on their site so I hadn't realized how truly restrictive their setup is until I actually had time to play with the unit. Thanks for taking the time to do this review. Fictionwise dropped the ball on this one. I agree with you 100% in everything you say. A couple of months ago I bought one of these. It was cheap enough that I thought it was worth a try. Also the backlit screen could be useful in certain situations.

While I am a rabid Fictionwise supporter and have bought hundreds of books from them, the DRM setup surrounding the eBoowise caused me to relegate it to the shelf – even before doing a review for TeleRead. Just wasn’t worth my time. The annoying part is that Fictionwise doesn’t make this whole schema really clear on their site so I hadn’t realized how truly restrictive their setup is until I actually had time to play with the unit. Thanks for taking the time to do this review. Fictionwise dropped the ball on this one.

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