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Amazon trying some DRMless music, Sony customers with new DRM-related concerns–and another e-book ‘protection’ horror story
April 23, 2007 | 3:02 pm
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By David Rothman
Moderator’s note: Amazon plans to try out DRMless music, and Sony customers could be suffering more DRM woes. Meanwhile a TeleBlog reader named Joseph Gray has written a mini-essay called DRM Madness—it’s below, with links added. Hint, hint. Shouldn’t e-publishers, too, rethink “protection”? – DR
I thought you might find my recent troubles with DRM of interest. Personally, I hate DRM and normally refuse to purchase anything with DRM. However, I wanted to read Longitude by Dava Sobel and made the mistake of purchasing a copy in LIT format, with DRM.
After paying for my purchase, I tried to download the e-book. The Web site would not allow me to download it unless I had MS Reader installed on this particular PC. To make matters worse, they also insisted that I must use Internet Explorer. Well, I don’t even have Internet Explorer on this PC. I have Firefox installed.
Since I don’t intend to read that e-book on this desktop PC, why should I have to install two pieces of software that I don’t want on this computer? The LIT file already has DRM on it, so why am I not allowed to download the e-book I paid for and read it on another computer?
I have contacted the Web site in question about this and wait to see what (if anything) they will do about this. Needless to say, I am very angry about this situation.
Moderator’s Note II: Hmm. So Joe maybe wants to read the book on a PDA? See Tamas’s comment to understand the complexities here. Whatever the case, Joe has lots of company in his anger. I doubt that Microsoft will drop DRM—dream on!—but at least it’s intends to experiment with some DRMless music for the Zune. Time to do the same with books? Maybe DRMless books at a higher price? Also, it is really true that future Microsoft e-reading software will be at least somewhat gentler on customers?
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Comments:
Hi
I understand your anger but unfortunately there is no way the company could send you a DRM protected file “just like that”.
They need to have a receiving application on your end.
Otherwise they would send the exact same file for everyone… so where is the protection then if anyone can read it?
In their case the application that they require is the MS Reader, which in turn requires IE. It’s quite common for a Windows application to rely on IE… it comes as part of Windows. Actually… how did you remove it?
My point is that it’s annoying but given the fact that you’re buying a DRM protected book what they require is very reasonable.
I know of people (I won’t say who) who had such bad experiences trying to buy a DRMed book that finally they downloaded a pirate copy.
He could always install the IETab extension for Firefox that allows it to emulate IE, and see if that works? But even if he did, in order to remove the DRM from a LIT ebook it’s necessary to have an installed and activated copy of Microsoft Reader anyway, because of the way the DRM works.
Tamas,
Actually, while lots of products do assume IE and other software, it does not have to be done this way. I don’t care for DRM myself, but I do prefer some DRM schemes to others. For instance, eReader (of ereader.com, not the Sony product) allows you to download the file, move it to wherever the software resides, and enter identifying info to unlock the file when you open it. I don’t use it anymore (they don’t have a client for my handheld), but it was fairly painless when I did.
That being said, now that I am using hardware they do not support, I can no longer access the books I purchased through them. Better than MS Reader, perhaps, but far from perfect.
Jack
The IE tab works for me. It’s frustrating but what can we do these days?
I thought I’d post a followup to my ebook misadventure. First, I purposely did not identify the web site that I purchased from. The reason was not to protect the guilty. Since this DRM problem is so widespread, I saw no point in singling anyone out. Second, after exchanging some emails, my purchase price for the ebook was refunded, since I was never able to download it.
As for that web site and also the author Dava Sobel, both of them lost a sale. I will probably go to the local used book store and find a copy to read.
I have purchased other non-DRM ebooks from the same web site and have been satisfied. If it wasn’t for the hassles and restrictions that all DRM schemes impose, I would buy more ebooks than I do. The multitude of ebook formats is hard enough to deal with. It’s a shame that my reading selection is further limited by DRM hassles.
One other point about DRM and LIT ebooks in particular. I have gotten LIT ebooks without DRM before. I have read some of those ebooks on a PDA. I no longer have the PDA. I currently use a Nokia N800, which of course can’t read LIT files. By using ConvertLit, I can read the extracted HTML on the Nokia just fine. Adding DRM to the mix doesn’t make this process impossible, just more trouble than I think is necessary.
As has been mentioned here many times, there are too many different ebook formats. If I were to try to read even most of them on one device, I would have to install several pieces of software (each having a different user interface). And we all know how hopeless it is to try reading a PDF on a small screen. Even the Nokia N800 (which has a built-in PDF reader) requires too much zooming and scrolling for my taste. Personally, I try to stick to HTML or TXT, since they are the most widely supported formats.
Being somewhat cynical about the whole thing, I don’t think that one (or even two) ebook formats will ever become dominant. There is too much vested interest in proprietary formats, control and greed. I hope I’m proven wrong, but I doubt it.
As for the question about removing IE, yes, all but the core files can be removed. As to why I would want to, let’s just say that I have been using the internet since 1994 and it has been many years since my PC has been infected/compromised. I take great pains to ensure that my PC is secure. I have had enough experience cleaning up and rebuilding other people’s PC’s over the years. And yes, I know that IE7 is supposed to be much better than IE6. However, by the time IE7 came out, I was already using Firefox and some very useful plugins. I don’t think that IE7 would be any better than what I have, so why should I waste time trying it? If something significantly better comes along, I’ll look into it.