More on TechnologyTell: Gadget News | Apple News
How the New York Times was fooled? Sony’s misleading ePub-related news release
August 13, 2009 | 11:05 am
|
By David Rothman
Repeat. Adobe-DRMed ePub is not an open standard. Now look at the headline on a Sony news release that I just received:
SONY CONVERTS eBOOK STORE TO EPUB FORMAT
Open Format Combined with Affordable Pricing Continues Sony’s Drive to Bring Digital Reaidng to the Masses
But if the major publishers continue to use Adobe DRM with ePub—on bestsellers on sale in the Sony eBook Store and elsewhere—just how “open” will the format be in effect?
Whenever a news release says “copy protection,” which Sony’s does, then the New York Times and other media should realize the release means a proprietary DRM-tainted format for all practical purposes. Open standards not! Only non-DRMed ePub—an option which Adobe allows but which most major publishers are unfortunately avoiding—is open.
Of course, the NYT heard from Sony—via the release or something similar, apparently—before TeleRead did. And there’s a reason beyond the circulation and influence of the Times. Adobe correctly suspected the Times would gloss over the fact that the so-called “open” format would be Adobe’s creature when combined with DRM. A clarifying follow-up from the Times, please!
Specific example of Sony doubletalk in the news release, quoting Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division: “’A world of proprietary formats and DRMs creates silos and limits overall market growth,’ Haber continued. ‘Consumers should not have to worry about which device works with which store. With a common format and common content protection solution (DRM), they will be able to shop around for the content they want regardless of where they get it or what device they use.’” Of course, Steve. Adobe’s DRM is not proprietary in the least. (Sarcasm mode.)
Get it straight, New York Times. “Common” simply means “common with other customers of Adobe.” Nothing open here, necessarily! Adobe still controls the DRM.
Another outlet misled by Sony and Adobe: Tech Fragments.
The positive: I applaud Sony’s lowering of e-book prices, another part of the announcement, and I’m really excited about its %199 e-book reader.
Related: 17 e-reader devices supporting ePub via Adobe Digital Editions.
|
Previous
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
Comments:
That horse has left the barn.
To all *commercial* purpose, ePub = Adept.
Hijack accompli!
I respectfully disagree, Felix–the hijacking isn’t quite there yet. But it will be if the New York Times and others don’t awake from their snoozes on this issue. When it come to e-book standards, Brad Stone in this case is Judy Miller.
David
Addendum: I’ve enjoyed Brad’s other work. But e-book standards are important, and here he blew the story.
Brad stone often writes about ebooks, and he is just as often confused about ebooks. But the NYTimes has rid itself of editors and fact checkers so a press release addressed to Mr. stone is as good as writing your own story.
Well, I still think the NYT’s section is the best in the daily press despite screw-ups like this. I also like the Washington Post’s, though it is not as comprehensive or well organized. As for more editors, hear, hear! (Corrected just now from “Here, here!”) This is a business issue beyond the control of the NYT journalists themselves, alas.
A close-to-home topic. I’d love to see TeleRead have a bunch of fact checkers beyond some of the best checkers in the e-book world—TeleRead community members, from whom I want to hear when we are wrong!
Thanks,
David
Wish I wwere wrong but:
1- Not only are all the second-tier reader gadget vendors moving to Adept, their doing it with ADE mobile. So Adobe controls the back end servers at the retailers. The control the PC app to feed the readers, and the control the rendering device on the readers. Add in the chokehold at the publisher’s end and its a clean sweep.
2- Look to the support forums for the reader gadgets and the bug tickets for calibre; whenever a file does not display properly in ade, the answer always is: change the file. DRM doesn’t enter in it at all; in the here and now, ePub is what ADE says it is. Not what the standard says. If ADE doesn’t like a standard-compliant file, the expectation is that the file has to be changed. And with the widespread distribution of the ADE reader that Adobe has engineered, we are headed in a defacto ePub standard already.
In the early days of PCs there were as a perfectly open compatibility standard; if the device ran MS-DOS it was MS-DOS-compatible. But, if it also ran Lotus 1-2-3 and Flight Simulator, it was IBM compatible. Many MS-DOS compatibles from TI, Radio Shack and other vendors were clearly superior to IBM PCs.
The market went with IBM compatibility. And to this day, PCs are built to be able to boot 1-2-3 version 1.0.
If we’re not there yet, we’re 99% of the way.
Never mind the DRM: who controls the renderer?
Felix’s point is well-taken.
To me, the most important part of the Sony announcement is that they will support ePub… which means any other vendor (such as myself) can sell ePub that can be read natively on Sony’s reader. It does mean that I could not use any DRM except Adobe’s DRM system… but since I don’t use DRM anyway, that fact is immaterial to me.
So I am more concerned with the possibility of Adobe’s forcing further changes onto ePub coding by creating proprietary renderers… it would be a new Browser War, and no one needs that.
If Adobe limits its proprietary efforts to its DRM, fine, let them, as long as users can buy non-DRM ePub content from any source. But hopefully they will realize that the tighter they restrict formats and DRM, the fewer sources of literature will be available to the devices, and the fewer consumers will be interested in buying them…
Felix and Steve…
I think you’re both on the money about the issues, but what if Google or Amazon correctly sees the threat here and gets more active on ePub matters? The battle is far, far from over.
Meanwhile, except for the control issue, an important one, we’re better off than when there was no standard.
Not to minimize the control issue! I hope that in both the main area of the blog and the comment area, people will speak up.
Felix, want to do a full-length post on the rendering issues, etc.?
Thanks,
David