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By Joanna

towerofbabel I’ve been a long-time e-book fan, and have read thousands of pages on my desktop computer, on the tiny screen of my old Palm m125, and on the bigger screen of my pretty new Alphasmart Dana, which, I am coming to love.

Thus far, I have limited myself to freebies from Manybooks.net and Project Gutenberg, because they are plentiful (over 100,000 titles) and free and easy to get in the formats my device can handle. But recently, my stepmother made a comment that most people probably don’t want to to read that stuff. They want the current bestsellers. So I thought I would check out some options and see what I could find.

My first stop was Fictionwise, a site I know my sister has used in the past. One of the first things I noticed was a Star Trek category. I checked it out and found that they were selling the Pocket Books novels I enjoyed as a teenager, and they were priced at a very affordable $3-4 each! I clicked for more details, and found to my disappointment that only three formats were available, all of them  “secure” (i.e. DRM’d) ones.

Practical concerns, not just philosophical ones

Uh oh. Philosophical opposition to the business model notwithstanding, I had some practical concerns. My Dana came with a pre-installed e-reader version that has been specially optimized for its wider screen. I did not care to download a new program, even a free one, because I had no way of knowing (until I bought a book and it didn’t work) whether such a program would be similarly widescreen-enabled. I would be pretty angry to pay real money for a book only to find that the only way I could read it was in a tiny window that used a third of my screen! That right there is exhibit one against DRM—the vendor has no way of knowing what hardware the reader has. That’s why a non-restricted file is really the only  way to go until we have a standard format.

Second wrinkle—I was sufficiently motivated to actually check the FAQ and see if my question could be answered. I found a daunting screen and a half of information on how to unlock your secure e-book, what you might be doing wrong if it isn’t working, and what trouble-shooting steps you should take before you pester Fictionwise about it. It seems they use your credit card number as the code they encrypt your purchase with. That means that if you ever change your card, you won’t be able to unlock your books again unless you have the number. I wonder how many people, when disposing of an old credit card, will have their Fictionwise secure e-books at the top of their minds and will remember to write down the number somewhere safe! I wound up clicking away from the site right there and then, without buying the Star Trek novel—or anything else.

eBabel at the public library

My second stop was the Web site of my public library. They have an e-book and audio book lending service, and I thought I would check it out.

Again, I had some concerns about the formats. I had the choice (for some titles) of Adobe Acrobat or Mobipocket, and I went with Acrobat because I was fairly sure I already had software for it on my Mac.

My first frustration was the discovery that they seem to be clinging to the print model a little too closely—many titles were unavailable because they were ‘on loan’ to other patrons. This is a meaningless distinction in the digital age. I understand that the library is  obviously working on some sort of licensing system here, where they get licensed to have 3 copies or 4  copies or whatever. But why is that necessary? If you are saying that people with a valid library card  can borrow the item, why should you care if 100 do so at once or if those same 100 people take turns? Either way, they are all going to read it, and really, there is no practical reason for limiting the copies. But it is what it is, so I adjusted my search to only titles which are ‘available’ and found two books I wanted to check out.

Here, I encountered my second difficulty. It seems that the knock-off reader on my computer was not good enough, I needed the genuine Acrobat Reader. Well, fine. I wasn’t happy about cluttering up my hard drive with a program I didn’t need, but it’s a free download, so I went with it. I let it download, then clicked on the book again. It told me I needed a certain plug-in, and did I want to download that? I grumbled about yet more disk-cluttering downloads, but fine, I had come this far, so I clicked okay. When I finally had everything they wanted me to have, I again clicked on the book. It turns out you actually won’t be reading these in Acrobat at all—you only need Acrobat to enable the plug-in, which is the true reader they’ll make you use. Of course, it had a tiny, pokey screen and no customization options. And of course, it could not be loaded onto my portable device.

Two useless programs—and no books

So much for e-book best-sellers. At the end of an hour or so, I had two useless programs on my hard-drive, and no books. I have to wonder just how necessary all of these shenanigans were. Is on-line piracy of almost decade-old glorified fanfic really such a problem that Pocket Books has to lock them and and in doing so, lose a sale of something they themselves don’t feel is worth more than $4? Do so many hordes of library patrons really want to read Rosie O’Donnell’s biography in a tiny, pokey little window that we have to make them download all sorts of garbage and limit them to 3 at a time? This won’t work for me. If you lie down in the DRM bed, you are going to get DRM fleas. They’ve lost me until they make this stuff a little easier.

Related: Past observations on eBabel.

 
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