I agreed that the lack of a convenient channel for the acquisition of digital content plays a role in the piracy issue. This is actually a vicious circle.

The problem of html is that there is no standard way to define metadata, structure as well as table of content, and there is no standard way to package multiple html files or external CSS files into a single ebook file. And this is exactly what epub does: define how to package a bunch of multiple html files with the associated images, css files and etc. into a single ebook file, and define a syntax for describing metadata and book structure.

One of the biggest concerns is copyright… In recent years, authors often find out their works were scanned and shared on the Internet illegally,

Beside the obvious question of whether copyright is morally acceptable for Chinese culture at all, I would like to ask if this is not the fault of the publishers. I have never seen a publisher claim to support the PSP or the GBA or my phone. I read e-books on Motorola Linux phones (this should apply well to the Chinese market as the Motorola Ming and its clones are seen everywhere in China). This means I have to “roll my own” books. I mostly read Public Domain works, but many people like to keep up with more current culture. What are the publishers doing to help them? Where are e-books when one walks into a book store? Can you walk up to the cashier with a book you want to buy and say, “No, I want that on my phone”?

The fact is, most people would be willing to pay for a little convenience, but the publishers seem to be out to make things as inconvenient as possible for people who are tired of paper. Enforcing copyright will only make people more angry at the insult of calling them criminals after the injury of forcing them to make e-books for themselves.

Readers need to install different software to read e-books in different formats. This not only causes confusion and frustration, it also increases users’ switching cost. The lack of a standard format also causes headaches to publishers as they need to decide which formats to use in order to reach the most consumers and to maximize the profits.

This a part of the problem I just described above. However, there is a standard that almost all devices support: HTML. It is only the publishers (and crappy systems like the iPhone and Android) that do not support it. All this digital content could be rendered usable on almost all of these devices over night if the publishers would just use HTML. It works with all screen sizes, it works with all web browsers, and everybody knows how to use it.

E-book formats are the result of precisely one thing: Greed. The publishers want to force users to buy special equipment and be locked in to purchasing books only from them. If one buys a Kindle, one cannot read Sony’s e-books. If one has an old Rocket E-book Reader, one cannot read books downloaded from Amazon. Each device is designed as an isolated market.

The simple solution for this is to separate the device manufacturers from the publishers. So far, however, that has not happened, and the market will never take off until it does.

I, for one, hope that people continue to find their own solutions until the publishers get their act together. If the publishers miss the boat, like their cousins in the music industry did, I definitely will not shed a tear.