Back in December I re-published an editorial at Palm Addict by P. J. Arts about his problems with e-books and changing platforms. Well, today Peter published the end of his story. Although it worked out well, and Fictionwise came to the rescue, it seems that it still leaves a fair amount of ill-will towards the publishers—one of the side effects of their insistence on unworkable DRM schemes. Here is the full text. You can read the original here.
“Back in November, I wrote an editorial lamenting that since I had migrated to a Blackberry 8830, I could no longer access my library of Palm-formatted eBooks. Even worse, was the news from eReader that I would have to re-purchase all of the books in a Blackberry-supported format to read them again.
“To my aged mind, that’s like saying I have to pay a book publisher again if I read one of my ‘real’ books somewhere else then my den. I consider it low-grade extortion, usury and damned rude, to-boot! As those who follow my editorials know, I just jumped from the Blackberry 8830 to a Samsung Blackjack II (my company made me an offer I couldn’t refuse). Although I am much happier with this device then the Blackberry (it has a camera, much better email/application bundle/browser and library of 3rd-party apps), I still missed my bloody books!
“2 days ago, I remembered that I also had a bookshelf with Fictionwise; and, sent them an email asking about being allowed to convert my books to a WinMo-supported format. Although they promptly answered with the same tale of publishing shenanigans, they did offer me an option. Take a look at their nifty response
“We’re sorry, but once you download an encrypted/Secure title in a given format, we cannot exchange it for a different format. The reason is, once you download, the publisher must be paid royalties, and publishers consider each different secure format to be a new sale. We wish it were not this way, but we are bound by the contracts. There are large warnings about this displayed at purchase time. If we were to do a format exchange for your e-books, we would be forced to pay royalties a second time for each.
“The eReader software (formerly known as Palm Reader) should work on a Windows Mobile device.
“Here is a link to the installers for eReader. Please try the PocketPC version on your Windows Mobile device: http://www.fictionwise.com/help/ereader-download.htm
“Hoorah! I didn’t have to re-purchase my library; nor pay for additional software. Kudos to the good folks at Fictionwise for playing straight; boos to eReader for being cagey; and I award the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award to e-book publishers for being such a bunch of low-down, tin-horn swindlers.”
