Comments on: DRM situation getting worse and worse – maybe we’d be better off without Epub – shame on the IDPF!

By: stbnchristine

stbnchristine — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:33:15 +0000

All of this reminds of the stupid games companies have always played. Only one power cord to fit every device, based on the plug and port. If you lost your cord you had to back to the manufacturer to get one. Radio Shack had the cabling fix for that.

Then it was cables for cell phones. I can’t even count the number of different power cords and car chargers I have thrown away because every upgrade forced me to buy their cables. All the normal basic stuff any device would need. Finally there is an industry standard…not the iphone of course it’s still special, special enough to buy the extra junk for

This whole book DRM makes me just as mad, actually madder. I’ve spent 6 years with ereader. I have hundreds of books, which I love. None of them will work with ibooks on my iPad. The money I spent went to the company and they profited, money went to the publisher and they profited. I can still pick up a book from 15 years ago and read it in a new house in new state, in a different world. We should be able to read books we have legitimately purchased on any upgraded technology which comes along. DRM stinks!

By: Rick Blackmon

Rick Blackmon — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:26:13 +0000

I am another, (along with Tony Cole) that doesn’t understand DRM. It seems the unanimous opinion that DRM is basically wrong, stupid, etc. I have chosen the nook as my ebook reader, but am seriously considering switching my allegiance to the Apple iPad and yes, I know it is not an ebook reader. I suspect, though, I would run into the same limitations mentioned by others.

The consumber can’t win, just spend money.

By: borax99 (AlainC.)

borax99 (AlainC.) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:25:28 +0000

I can’t stand what Sony is doing with ePub (no right-justification), and after a quick hands-on test with the Kindle, I find the device far too sluggish to use – it’s even slower than my PRS-505 !

My standard of choice for a reading device is a Viliv S5 running Windows XP. I have my Mobi, Kindle for PC, Adobe DE and ereader.com ebooks all stored there and can access them without too much hassle.

I can’t find it in me to blame the folks who strip DRM from their legitimately-purchased ebooks, though, because, when all is said and done, DRM is a humongous scam, just another tool to fleece the consumer.

By: maratc

maratc — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:54:55 +0000

Bill,

If you’re talking about the standard as in “the document I can print out and use for weight-lifting exercises”, then this standard is only worth its weight in paper.

“Standards making 101″: the standard is worth nothing; execution worth everything. To make a good standard, you license out the right to claim standard compatibility (for free or for a fee) and you test everyone claiming to be compatible (or release a tool to do that). If the standard is not implemented well, then you sue the hell out of whoever damages your standard by falsely claiming support. If there is no good solution across devices, you exclude the feature from the standard. Leaving it to the implementors is not going to make a standard.

More on that: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html

And don’t get me started on JavaScript. JS is another non-standard in a row of w3c epic fails. It’s better left out of ePub, already failing on its standard role.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:40:11 +0000

Hai, please leave a comment on my blog and I will walk you through the steps of removing Sony DRM.

By: Bill Seitz

Bill Seitz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:42:38 +0000

Well, I think you need to separate (a) the standard, from (b) whether the standard is implemented well by the reader, from (c) whether the standard is implemented well in a particular ebook, from (d) whether there *is* a good solution that works across devices with different screen sizes.

Tables are a challenge, and ePub is not a SilverBullet. A large/complex table is not going to be very usable on a small screen, regardless of technique. (Though maybe some sort of inset scrolling-table-with-locked-headers JavaScript technique could work, if ePub was willing to support JavaScript.)

By: maratc

maratc — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:54:44 +0000

A somewhat refreshing post in a huge wave of usual TeleRead “ePub is king; hear that, Jeff?” stuff.

Besides being a bad *format* (when encumbered by DRM), ePub is also a terrible *standard*, since its base lies in XHTML/CSS (which are somewhat better as formats, but are an epic fail as standards). Not all readers display it in the same way. Sony, for one, couldn’t do tables last time I was bothered to check. So we will either succumb to the least common denominator (txt or ‘textify’ would be better at that), or go the “ePub for Sony/ePub for nook” way.

I may even write a bigger post on that one day if I’m not lazy.

By: Hai

Hai — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:01:59 +0000

Nook most definitely cannot read Sony eBooks, not even the free one. Just tried and demanded my money back from the Sony people because their customer representative couldn’t understand what DRM is.

If someone could help with removing the DRM, that would be great, although I’m loathe to download :/

By: Bill Seitz

Bill Seitz — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:58:54 +0000

All DRM is stupid and anti-reader.

You should host or point to a definitive page noting which readers support which formats, and that every dang one of them involves DRM, reducing your freedom to read the book on any device you own (e.g. where’s my maemo support? where’s my kindle app for Android?). And, if you really have stones, linking to info on defeating each DRM version (if it’s possible).

Note the failure of DRM in software and music.

Support social-DRM as an alternative.

By: Eduardo

Eduardo — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:37:45 +0000

What’s the point of DRM, if almost anyone could, if want so, break it?

I have a friend that bought Paul Auster’s Invisible. The e-book was on sale for about US$ 22,00 on many ebookstores, but on Kindle Store it was for US$ 11,00. What did he do after that? Broke Amazon’s DRM, so he could read on his Sony Reader.

He bought it cheaper, and could read everywhere. Wasn’t it to be always like this?

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:00:57 +0000

I do agree that this DRM fragmentation thing is a real and very serious problem for readers and ebooks. ePub is to blame partly, because the specifications don’t say what kind of DRM is required. That vagueness has led us to this path we’re currently on. If ePub mandated a DRM scheme, it might be that many device makers and publishers would simply avoid it, and create their own format instead. It’s hard to speculate on that, I think.

But yea, at least adobe’s drm is easy to remove.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:55:04 +0000

The two, soon three, mutually-incompatible .epub formats demonstrate that Amazon made the smart move when they stuck with .mobi format rather than .epub and why opening up the Kindle to .epub directly (they already support it indirectly with kindlegen) would be bone-headed. For the general audience “While your B&N device will, of course, read books bought from the Sony store, your Sony device won’t read books from the B&N store, even though they both say ‘epub’ on them, and naturally neither of those will read .epub books from the Apple store; but never fear all these stores and devices can be made interoperable with the right Python scripts, as long as you’re willing to commit criminal acts” translates as “Fuggedaboudid, I’ll just buy a Kindle.”

By: Tony Cole

Tony Cole — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:19:19 +0000

Hi, as a Sony user I was very confused to begin with, as I was under the impression I could only purchase books from the shop I bought the ereader from (Water Stones in England). But I quickly discovered that this wasnt true, and once I also discovered Calibre ( a program to convert files to ePub among other formats) I was away, and have not really had any problems owing to the DRM problem. However, I agree with the general tenor of the comments here, especially crauscher, who points out that the problem isnt ePub, but the non-standard way in which the makers of ereaders are applying it. Obviously we need the publishers and ereader makers to get together and agree on one standard. Protecting intellectual property is perfectly reasonable, but it has to be done in a manner that works for us, the consumers – which it patently isnt doing just now.

By: Spider Mattheson

Spider Mattheson — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:10:42 +0000

@bjgger: I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. As people have pointed out, the Nook and Sony Reader (and I’m sure there are other readers) can both read Adobe’s original ePub DRM. As long as you shop at the right place, you can use that DRM scheme on multiple readers, which I think is better than what you get with most readers. If you shop at the Sony E-Book Store, you should be able to read those on the Nook. Personally, I own a Kindle and would never buy an ebook I couldn’t strip the DRM off of, but I don’t think the adoption of ePub is hurting anything. And since ePub is really easy to strip, I can in effect get tons of DRM-free ePub books, which are easier to edit and manipulate than other formats.

By: Tony Cole

Tony Cole — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:49:16 +0000

I read the article above with interest, and deepening confusion – which is curious as I run a blog all about eReaders and so on. To be honest, I have never really understood how the whole DRM thing works. I know how ePUB works, as I use that format most of the time when I download books that come in some other format (good old Calibre!)in order to put them on my Sony eReader.
So there obviously isnt a problem with ePub – as crauscher pointed out, but with the weird games the various eReader and Publishing houses are playing.
Protecting their intellectual property I understand, but surely one universal form of protection would be the sensible answer. And anyhow, no one stops me giving my old paper books to friends. We need the ePublishing world (to coin a word) to find a way that works in all our interests, and then we should be OK.