Having owned this device for nearly six months a few things really concern me.

1) The fragile nature of the screen.
2) Lack of multi format support (pdb,txt,html,rtf) etc.
3) Slow pace of development
4) No support from Mobipocket or similar provider.
5) Lack of search
6) Bugs, (page bar, loss of scribbles on occasion) to name a few.
7) High cost.

I have showed this device to loads of people, they are all impressed with what it can do..... However it's what it can't do that stops people from purchasing it.

I understand that this is a device in development, but quite frankly it has been in development far too long...

I am not trying to bash Irex but i think they need to either open up the OS to the community help in a serious fashion, or embark on a serious recruitment program.

Mark

2) Lack of multi format support (pdb,txt,html,rtf) etc.


Last I looked it could render txt and html...

1) The fragile nature of the screen.

This is an inherent problem with displays right now. eInk, LCD, etc. Time will correct this.

Note that hardened versions of the screens can be made - for significantly higher cost.

2) Lack of multi format support (pdb,txt,html,rtf) etc.

pdb is a Palm Database and not an eBook format.

PalmDOC is easily convertible to text.
Text is easily convertible to HTML.
RTF is easily convertible to PDF and HTML.

The iLiad supports HTML quite well.

3) Slow pace of development

As much as I'd like them to improve my iliad, I believe that their pace of development is appropriate for the market. The demand simply isn't there yet to spend lots of money on development.

4) No support from Mobipocket or similar provider.

Mobipocket is a closed, proprietary format and should be avoided at all costs.

5) Lack of search

I believe this is on their list to add soon.

6) Bugs, (page bar, loss of scribbles on occasion) to name a few.

"All non-trivial programs contain at least 1 bug."
Just be glad the iLiad doesn't run Windows.

7) High cost.

I have to agree with you on this one. The iLiad is the Cadillac of eBook readers right now and I believe that the market will demand a Chevrolet. But right now the people buying eBook readers are the first adopters who usually pay the high price for the newest tech.

I believe that iRex will come out with a more inexpensive reader with fewer options.

I understand that this is a device in development, but quite frankly it has been in development far too long...

Seeing as how the market isn't developed yet, it makes sense that the device isn't finished yet.

agree with the mobipocket comment around closed format, but hey they are the only people that i have ever bought a DRM product from, and they are fair about the number of devices you can install on (and support a wide range), sure there are issues around what happens if they go out of business etc etc etc understood.

The point of this post was to stoke a bit of debate on this subject, i have been dying for a device like the illiad to succeed. (putting my money where my mouth is like others here).

mark

agree with the mobipocket comment around closed format, but hey they are the only people that i have ever bought a DRM product from

If it has DRM on it, you didn't buy it. You leased it. You should have no expectation that you would be able to read any such content beyond the device you initially put it on - since that's all the DRM-providing company promised when you licensed (not purchased) the content.

The point of this post was to stoke a bit of debate on this subject, i have been dying for a device like the illiad to succeed. (putting my money where my mouth is like others here).

I understand, but asking for support for closed, proprietary formats is not the way to succeed (look at the first Sony eInk reader as well as the failure of all the other proprietary eBook readers).

If you paid money to license DRM content, your expectation should be that you will need to re-pay for that content for the next device you get. Any higher expectation is unrealistic.

The adoption of an open DRM format that is supported and works across many devices has to be the way forward. If it is an open free for all with no DRM, then publishers will never support these devices in the way we need.

In my view Mobipocket have come closest to this across multiple devices and made it a commercial success, i am not saying its ideal, but supporting a major DRM format like mobipocket would make the Illiad a much more desirable device !!!

As for the librie, i had one of the first in the UK hand carried from Tokyo (told you i was keen) :) and i can tell you two things about it.

1) The sony connect bookstore thing was shocking with very few decent titles (which is why i think it failed). It also only supported that stupid format BBE, or whatever it was called.

2) The screen was more hardy than the Librie, it survived a trip in my checked in luggage unboxed.

I love the librie and i really really want it to succeed but i also want to be able to purchase new books and read them on it, it will never win this argument on hardware alone.

As it is without some kind of popular DRM we will be left to trawl newsgroups for files, scanning our own books or reading 100 year old stuff :)

Mark

Well, I think some kind of DRM is OK. I don't like it, but as lng as it's fast and easy to use I don't really cae.
What I don't like is the direct device-bonding stuff and the internet activation routines that require you to register with half a dozen websites just to be able to use something you just bought.
I think no ebook reader will survive without DRM, but it will have to be supplied with enough titles at low enough prices to make it attractive. Look at iTunes. A subscription For 10€ a month would also be ok...but no more than that.
Until then...well...we all have our sources I guess and although I feel a bit guilty, there is little I can do about it at the moment.

The adoption of an open DRM format that is supported and works across many devices has to be the way forward.

I've already proven that this cannot exist.

For DRM to accomplish its goal of "protecting" content, it must be closed and proprietary. Therefore it will never work across all devices and all new devices will be hobbled by restrictions placed on it by the DRM owner (case in point: Windows Vista).

If it is an open free for all with no DRM, then publishers will never support these devices in the way we need.

Current pBooks have no DRM - yet publishers still publish.
Current CDs have no DRM - yet the RIAA still makes lots of money off them.
Current DVDs have broken DRM on them - yet they still sell just fine.

The idea that without DRM the content industry will withhold content was proven false when they tried to shove the Digital Broadcast Flags down our throats.

Content that sits in a vault has no value. The only way that content has value is to sell copies to people who want it.

The problem with the content cartel today is that they want to move to a pay-per-view business method. So you don't buy an eBook. Instead you pay every time you want to read it. You don't buy a movie. You pay each time you want to view it.

The problem with that business model is that the public doesn't want it.

In my view Mobipocket have come closest to this across multiple devices and made it a commercial success, i am not saying its ideal, but supporting a major DRM format like mobipocket would make the Illiad a much more desirable device !!!

Since I won't pay money to lease content (why should I pay when the library will lease it to me for free?), all DRMed content is worth $0. Therefore, there is no value in porting Mobipocket to another device.

Remember, that while a format is well supported today doesn't mean that it will be supported tomorrow. When content is in a closed, proprietary format, it basically has an expiration date on it. How many pBooks do you have that will fail to open in 10 years?

ha ha , i think we are going to have to agree to disagree here.

DVD's are a bad bad example, a DVD is a tangible product that you can purchase from a supermarket etc, if you copy a DVD and give it to a friend you know your breaking the law. Also the technology to copy DVD's like for like without compression and other techy stuff was not there for the layperson until of late. Add to this the fact that dual layer DVD's cost a fortune in comparision to their single layer and it all contributes to the reason why we dont have wholesale copying of DVDs etc.

However a downloadable ebook can be easily copied and passed betwen friends via email and is no bigger usually than a few MB at the most. A receipe for disaster for a publisher. I have heard it said that the physical book is the best DRM of all, and i agree... if you give it away you lose it.

I also disagree that you could not have an open DRM format, PGP is an open and well understood encryption technique but very hard to crack despite the fact you can examine the code in detail.

To me DRM has to be a balance between keeping the customer honest and providing the most flexible model for the consumer. To counter your 10 years from now scenario, with the correct open code, all you would need to remember are your keys and you will be fine.

Ha ha if only it were all this easy, and i see both sides of this argument, but open ebooks aint going to happen on the mass market IMHO.

Mark

BTW i am totally against the subscription / licence model. My opinion is that you should always own what you buy.

Mark

Also the technology to copy DVD's like for like without compression and other techy stuff was not there for the layperson until of late.

You need to look at link deleted

However a downloadable ebook can be easily copied and passed betwen friends via email and is no bigger usually than a few MB at the most. A receipe for disaster for a publisher. I have heard it said that the physical book is the best DRM of all, and i agree... if you give it away you lose it.

Yet places like Fictionwise don't seem to have any issues with wholesale copying.

I also disagree that you could not have an open DRM format, PGP is an open and well understood encryption technique but very hard to crack despite the fact you can examine the code in detail.

I've already demonstrated that I am correct on this in a previous post. In my example, I used PGP as the protection mechanism and it failed.

The main issue is that DRM is protecting the content from YOU - the reader - not a pirate. In order for you to actually use the content you paid for, you have to have the keys. Well, if you have the keys, then a program can be written that removes the DRM - the DRM has now failed.

The only solution is for the keys to be protected from you and embedded in the reader - making the reader a closed, proprietary product.

To me DRM has to be a balance between keeping the customer honest and providing the most flexible model for the consumer.

There is no balance with DRM. Between DRM and the DMCA, the content cartel holds all the rights.

To counter your 10 years from now scenario, with the correct open code, all you would need to remember are your keys and you will be fine.

But you have no keys to remember. If you knew the keys, then the DRM has failed and the content is no longer protected.

Again, DRM protects the content from YOU - the customer.

I don´t care - as long as an Open Linux works on it you can create everything you want to create ;=)

I am well aware of torrent and binary newsgroups, but this is hardly stuff thats available to everybody, to most people downloading divx or other formats and getting this to play on their player (not laptop), is far to much hassle.

If you browse fictionwise you will find that a lot of popular and new books are in the secured format. Any authors that i am interested in reading are only provided in secure format. When you are a struggling new author the trick is to get as many people to read your work as possible (this is why sites like this work for the author) as you become primetime then the switching to the secured format ensures your revenue and the payback for your hardwork.

Quote from fictionwise below....

Why does Fictionwise make this distinction?

The MultiFormat eBooks cover a wider variety of reading devices and platforms, but because they are not encrypted, many large trade publishers will not allow their eBooks to be sold in these formats.

While we prefer to offer eBooks in MultiFormat, we need to support secure formats that prevent unauthorized copying to give our members the widest possible selection, including national best-selling authors.

Anyway at the end of the day we can agree to differ, but a book is hardly multiformat either and if you damage the media you are not entitled to a new one, at least with an open and flexible DRM model you could redownload what you might have deleted by accident.

If writing does not bring rewards then authors willl stop writing especially if their work does not have some form of protection. You cannot rely on peoples honesty to feed your kids, pay your mortgage.

Expecting them to give you carte blanche with their work to me just sounds wrong.

Mark

I am well aware of torrent and binary newsgroups, but this is hardly stuff thats available to everybody, to most people downloading divx or other formats and getting this to play on their player (not laptop), is far to much hassle.

The MPAA disagrees with you.

The MultiFormat eBooks cover a wider variety of reading devices and platforms, but because they are not encrypted, many large trade publishers will not allow their eBooks to be sold in these formats.

And if we step into reality, we find that this translates to:
"Many large trade publishers would rather not make money off of eBooks of their works. Because by not releasing their eBooks without DRM, they create a large unfulfilled market that will be satisfied by the pirates."

Because that's what happens. People won't pay paper price for leasing an eBook. Period.

And I'll point out again that this is EXACTLY the same argument used by the content cartel to shove the digital broadcast flags down our throats: "Give us protections not allowed by law or we will pack up our content and go home." An argument that has been proven false. If they don't sell content, they don't make money. It's as simple as that.

I won't buy DRMed content and everyday more people start doing the same - especially when they see the unreasonable restrictions placed on them by DRM and the content providers.

Anyway at the end of the day we can agree to differ, but a book is hardly multiformat either and if you damage the media you are not entitled to a new one, at least with an open and flexible DRM model you could redownload what you might have deleted by accident.

1. You have no right to redownload an eBook you mistakenly deleted. With DRM content holders hold ALL the rights. You have no rights. The content holder may permit you to re-download, but you have no RIGHT to do so.
2. You make the invalid assumption that the company that you purchased the eBook from is still in business, still remembers that you purchased the eBook and still permits you to download it.

If writing does not bring rewards then authors will stop writing especially if their work does not have some form of protection. You cannot rely on peoples honesty to feed your kids, pay your mortgage.

And we all know how well the RIAA is loved by treating fans and customers as criminals.

But you have already been proven wrong. People will pay and be honest - if the content is honestly provided and at a reasonable price.

I've already pointed out Fictionwise. I'll also add Cory Doctorow's works - which he makes available for free download - but also sell well. Podcasts like Escape Pod and Geek Fu Action Grip do well too. Also there's Podiobooks.com - who don't charge, but accept donations.

Expecting them to give you carte blanche with their work to me just sounds wrong.

And expecting content creators to be able to break the copyright bargain without any justification definitely is wrong.

The world has changed (note past tense). The old business models for distributing content simply don't work in a world where the infrastructure not only permits, but facilitates, the easy copying of digital information in all forms.

Any company that sticks to the old business models is a dinosaur and like all good dinosaurs, they will become extinct.

Any company that sticks to the old business models is a dinosaur and like all good dinosaurs, they will become extinct.

Good dinosaurs become birds, and fill the skies today... Bad ones get bigger and bigger until they get killed climate changing / asteroid impacts.

Last I looked it could render txt and html...

HTML support is broken. CSS is spotty and the chopped lines issue is still not fixed. Reading HTML is a chore, not a pleasure. Converting all my HTML books and documents is more trouble than it's worth. I'm still using my REB1100 for most of my reading.

Straying off the DRM argument for a second, i agree with this. There is nothing pleasant about reading on the illiad at the moment. Even on PDF which is the best supported format as far as i can tell, it can still be a painful experience, zoom implementation is not intuitive for new users and reformatting is a total mare.

A good reader has to be able to handle pretty much everything you chuck at it OR provide a painless piece of software to do the conversion on the PC side and then transfer over.

Mark

Straying off the DRM argument for a second, i agree with this. There is nothing pleasant about reading on the illiad at the moment. Even on PDF which is the best supported format as far as i can tell, it can still be a painful experience, zoom implementation is not intuitive for new users and reformatting is a total mare.

I have to agree with that. Pan/Zoom is a poor way to read an eBook.

But this is not an iLiad problem. It's a PDF problem. PDF is a not an eBook format. It's a page layout format. By that I mean that when you create a PDF, you are basically creating an electronic version of a paper product - complete with deciding on the physical paper size to be used.

The iLiad is not an 8.5"x11" device. It's about 1/2 of that. So if you read a PDF that's formatted for 8.5x11, it will be like someone shrunk the book by half - including the type being half-sized. If the type is small to begin with, it's unreadable - unless you zoom in.

My iLiad-formatted PDFs, on the other hand, look great and are a pleasure to read.

A good reader has to be able to handle pretty much everything you chuck at it OR provide a painless piece of software to do the conversion on the PC side and then transfer over.

I agree.

But the issue isn't the reader here. It's the eBook formats.

my god we agree on something nearly :)

to get people to transition we need to understand that this is an imperfect world and that the reader will have to deal with many formats (some crap) and render them as best it can. I mean if we had good working text support , that lets you choose a couple of basic fonts and bookmarked your position and formatted well... that would be a good thing for now, most formats can be converted to text.

i will hold my hands up and say that i have not tried txt since the original firmware version, so if you fire right back and tell me thats all present now and working i will have to go and check it out.

Also in my imperfect world i still maintain some form of DRM support is needed , ha ha couldnt let it go could I.

I agree that if you take the time to format a PDF file for the device it looks really impressive, but i aint got time for this ... i need it to happen at the press of a button.

Ohh and we really need search in PDF files.

Mark

HTML support is broken. CSS is spotty and the chopped lines issue is still not fixed. Reading HTML is a chore, not a pleasure. Converting all my HTML books and documents is more trouble than it's worth. I'm still using my REB1100 for most of my reading.

While html isn't perfect it is still useable... Line chopping appears to be a css bug when changing text size and has been reported to Ires,

to get people to transition we need to understand that this is an imperfect world and that the reader will have to deal with many formats (some crap) and render them as best it can. I mean if we had good working text support , that lets you choose a couple of basic fonts and bookmarked your position and formatted well... that would be a good thing for now, most formats can be converted to text.

Ideally you would want RTF support as this would allow styling. If you want one so badly, whats to stop you or anyone else writing a RTF-reader for the Iliad...?

Or look at improving the html browser (Dillo...?), PDF is support is nice, but ultimately a dead-end. Its a format for replicating paper documents, and therefore isn't dislay agnostic. Unless you have a display agnostic reader on the Iliad you will always have to do some re-formatting to match the size of the screen. (Unless the world standardises on A5)


I agree that if you take the time to format a PDF file for the device it looks really impressive, but i aint got time for this ... i need it to happen at the press of a button.


I have a script which does this, and there are many other scripts and macros around that will do this for you...

nothing to stop me from writing/porting one, and if i could be sure i could get my code onto it without bricking it, i would probably be able to port one time permitting. Though i am not a linux programmer i have written plenty for dos and windoze over the past few years.

I was hoping an official SDK might be in the works at some point.

PDF would not have been my priority if i were irex, it would have been txt, rtf, html in that order, and then perhaps PDF.

Mark

btw do you have a script that will run

a) on windows
b) or use MS office ?

Thats really what i need.

Mark

nothing to stop me from writing/porting one, and if i could be sure i could get my code onto it without bricking it, i would probably be able to port one time permitting. Though i am not a linux programmer i have written plenty for dos and windoze over the past few years.

Someone else has already done a quick first port of Dillo already...

a) on windows
b) or use MS office ?


No... I don't use Windows, and my only Office script is simple macro to format page sizes... When I get around to I publish more pdf/html resize/extraction scripts... :D

to get people to transition we need to understand that this is an imperfect world and that the reader will have to deal with many formats (some crap) and render them as best it can.

Then you've just significantly increased the cost of the reader - both in development costs and license costs. Remember that many proprietary formats are also patented and the licenses may (probably will) cost.

This also adds to the Tower of eBabel issue instead of solving it. Plus it increases the odds that the format you bought your eBooks in will not exist in the future.

The best thing is to pick a few open formats and make it work with those.

I mean if we had good working text support , that lets you choose a couple of basic fonts and bookmarked your position and formatted well... that would be a good thing for now, most formats can be converted to text.

And to HTML as well. And, unlike text, HTML preserves most formatting. HTML is a much better format to standardize on.

The only thing that the iLiad doesn't do is bookmarks for HTML files. That is because eInk is a page-oriented technology and, so, they made the iLiad page-oriented. HTML is layout-oriented, so it's much harder to remember what "page" you were on with HTML. And why PDF works so well on the iLiad.

i will hold my hands up and say that i have not tried txt since the original firmware version, so if you fire right back and tell me thats all present now and working i will have to go and check it out.

I haven't looked at text format since the start either. I have no interest in that format on the iLiad.

I agree that if you take the time to format a PDF file for the device it looks really impressive, but i aint got time for this ... i need it to happen at the press of a button.

3 clicks in OpenOffice to access the page layout dialog.
A few more to adjust the page size to 6.5x5.5".
Save.
Export to PDF.

A little more than the press of a button, but easy nonetheless.

Ohh and we really need search in PDF files.

Another thing we agree on.

yipee straight from mobipocket themselves !!!

>>Illiad support is already on the tracks (using our Java SDK)
>>But for the PSP it's another story.

http://www.mobipocket.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18286#18286

Interesting. A Java based reader makes it more likely that the reader will continue to work even if existing platforms expire, though if I understand correctly, Mobipocket only allows you to have up to four devices activated at once, and sets the device ID for only the activated devices when the eBooks are downloaded. I wonder how the device ID will be set for the iLiad? Does it have a software-accessable serial number?

Mobipocket's prices aren't that great when you consider they still hold your content hostage. You get maybe a dollar off paperback prices at best, and if they fold or don't support a future system, you can't read your content anymore. Of all DRM systems, I still think the "least evil" is probably eReader/Palm Digital Media, which uses your credit card number as the key. Too bad they don't have a Java version.

still i think it is a step forward for the irex in terms of being a viable business and selling more units.

Mark

.... Does it have a software-accessable serial number? ..
My first guess would be the MAC of the ethernet port. But there could also be a CPU-ID or a serial from some of the other components.

My first guess would be the MAC of the ethernet port. But there could also be a CPU-ID or a serial from some of the other components.
The MAC can be tweaked, but probably the vast majority of users don't know how, and it would be a nuisance if one were trying to trick more than one piece of software using different MAC addresses.

I sent a note to eReader asking about iLiad support. They don't have a linux version yet, though they do have a Mac OSX version, which shouldn't be that hard to port.

Interesting. A Java based reader makes it more likely that the reader will continue to work even if existing platforms expire

Actually it doesn't. It means that their reader will work across multiple platforms that support Java.

though if I understand correctly, Mobipocket only allows you to have up to four devices activated at once, and sets the device ID for only the activated devices when the eBooks are downloaded.

So when Mobipocket goes out of business (which is inevitable for proprietary formats), you still won't be able to use your eBooks on new devices - even if they do support Java.

Of all DRM systems, I still think the "least evil" is probably eReader/Palm Digital Media, which uses your credit card number as the key.

And how long do you keep the same card number? I'll bet that the answer is far smaller than the length of time you keep some books.

And how long do you keep the same card number? I'll bet that the answer is far smaller than the length of time you keep some books.
The credit card does not need to remain active. However, I do, in fact, have a credit card which I have had for about 20 years. There are books I've had for longer, but not as many as I've bought since.

You've made your position on DRM eminently clear in a multitude of posts. Less clear is what you, personally, are doing to help bring about an alternative reliable channel for authors to reach readers who are interested in their work, and for readers to find new works in which they are interested. A boycott is not a constructive strategy in the absence of a competitive alternative. (Downloading pirated copies of books you buy in paper is not a viable alternative for the majority of users. Most books in print are not available this way, there are inherent risks in accessing "warez" sites, the formatting and proofing of the documents are generally poor, the activity is effectively invisible to publishers, and some law-abiding people will simply refuse to pursue this course.) If you really believe a publishing house can be successful with no editors and no DRM, go start one. If you're right, we'll all be happy and you'll put the current vendors out of business. You'll also be quite wealthy, and deservedly so.

Meanwhile, another alternative is working with vendors whose business model seems better than their competitors, even if still not ideal. I think this is a worthwhile strategy. You may not. I can respect your point of view. Can you do the same for mine?

To be honest i cannot see how it is possible to attract new authors to a model which does not protect their work. Having it freely available and relying on peoples honesty is a huge risk and i believe that it will not provide enough security for a lot of authors to take the risk in investing a year of their life to write a book.

Conversely it may help some authors get noticed and go direct to their public thus cutting out editors and publishing houses, but i think in general it will be to the detriement of the industry. That saying it is not correct for a publisher to expect to charge the same price as a bound copy, digital media should always be much cheaper as the transport, production costs are not the same.

I am a firm beliver in the right of the consumer to have as flexible and open model as possible to consume digital media but i do not belive that a free and open model will work. For instance how many people download winzip but dont pay a penny for it even though they have a reminder screen telling them they have to pay every time they use it.

DRM and flexibility do not sit side by side at the moment , and i share some of the concerns echoed on this thread. Personally i am disgusted at some of the DRM stuff in Vista , to the point where i wont be using it. I believe that it may be Microsoft's worst mistake yet. I have been to Redmond and spent time with the dev teams so if they are losing the confidence of people like me, they must be doing something very wrong IMHO.

Anyway whilst we make the transition to the new world, we must embrace some form of protection for authors or they will refuse to allow their works to be published to digital media. For people who say DRM does not work, you only have to look at Sky Digital in the UK, they have the market well sewn up with DRM which works and has not been cracked, so its only a matter of time before somebody comes up with a solution that cannot be worked around.


Mark

Interesting. A Java based reader makes it more likely that the reader will continue to work even if existing platforms expire, though if I understand correctly, Mobipocket only allows you to have up to four devices activated at once, and sets the device ID for only the activated devices when the eBooks are downloaded. I wonder how the device ID will be set for the iLiad? Does it have a software-accessable serial number?

Mobipocket's prices aren't that great when you consider they still hold your content hostage. You get maybe a dollar off paperback prices at best, and if they fold or don't support a future system, you can't read your content anymore. Of all DRM systems, I still think the "least evil" is probably eReader/Palm Digital Media, which uses your credit card number as the key. Too bad they don't have a Java version.

ON the other hand, our library uses Mobipocket for electronic books, so it is free. Can't beat that price with a stick ;)

The credit card does not need to remain active. However, I do, in fact, have a credit card which I have had for about 20 years. There are books I've had for longer, but not as many as I've bought since.

My understanding was that the reader accepted only 1 credit card number at a time.

So if you purchase a book with CC#1 and another book with CC#2, you couldn't easily swap between the two.

You've made your position on DRM eminently clear in a multitude of posts. Less clear is what you, personally, are doing to help bring about an alternative reliable channel for authors to reach readers who are interested in their work, and for readers to find new works in which they are interested.

I thought that I had made it very clear.

The negative:
1. Speaking out against DRM. Making sure that people know that this represents a significant shift in the Copyright agreement and that it basically takes all rights away from content users and reserves all rights to content holders.
2. Boycotting all forms of DRM and speaking out against those companies who try to sneak it in.

The positive:
1. Supporting artists who make use of Creative Commons licenses.
2. Supporting authors who make their books available without DRM - mainly fincially through purchases (Fictionwise, Baen Books), donations (in the case of those authors who let their works go without demanding payments.
3. If I see a work being passed around when I know it's available without DRM for a reasonable price, I speak out against the people passing the work around (you'd be surprised how little this happens compared to DRMed works).

A view of my bookshelves will show many books by people who make their products available for free on the web. MegaTokyo, Aoi House, Errant Story, Cory Doctorow and more.

(Side note: I believe that I have the distinction of being the person who has paid the most for a Cory Doctorow novel. I purchased the proof of his Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town at Penguicon a couple years ago.)

I have many, many books from Fictionwise. I have my subscription to Baen Universe (and will very probably be renewing it).

And that's just for eBooks.

I am a content consumer and I vote with my wallet. DRMed content will not get my money.

To be honest i cannot see how it is possible to attract new authors to a model which does not protect their work. Having it freely available and relying on peoples honesty is a huge risk and i believe that it will not provide enough security for a lot of authors to take the risk in investing a year of their life to write a book.

And I can't see people paying money to rent an eBook while you can rent it for free at the library.

One idea that I had was this:
All works must be registered with the gov't (sort of like the way Copyright was).
Just about anyone can set up a content server. Everytime someone wants content, the server sends a message to the gov't and checks on the state of the work.
If the copyright has expired, the content is sent to the user unencrypted.
If the copyright is still in force, the content is encrypted for the user only.
(This is just to prevent one user from sharing with another.)
The content is sent to the user for no money.
A message is sent to the gov't telling them that the content has been requested by a user.
Everyone pays a Content Tax - let's say like Income Tax where it's tied to how much you make.
The gov't uses number of downloads of a work to decide how to split the money from the Content Tax. The more popular the work, the more the author gets.

Imperfect, but it's just an idea. Everyone gets content. The content is locked up only until the Copyright expires. Since all content is "free", it eliminates the need to pirate it. Content creators get rewarded based on how good their work is.

Anyway whilst we make the transition to the new world, we must embrace some form of protection for authors or they will refuse to allow their works to be published to digital media.

But that's what Copyright is for.

Unfortunately, the moment that they made Copyright extend beyond the author's life, they made Copyright disrespectful - so no one respects it.

For people who say DRM does not work, you only have to look at Sky Digital in the UK, they have the market well sewn up with DRM which works and has not been cracked, so its only a matter of time before somebody comes up with a solution that cannot be worked around.

Many experts have already proven that this will never happen. Anything locked up can be unlocked. Remember that if the device displaying the content can't unlock it to display, then the content is worthless.

I believe that it was Bruce Schneier (counterpane.com, Applied Cryptography, Secrets & Lies) who said that DRM is like encryption - but the attacker is also the recipient. It simply cannot work in the long run.

You say that the content will be encrypted for the user, what with the users PGP key or something is that your idea ? What happens if user A emails the content to user B, is it wrapped in some kind of envelope that sends a request to the server in your theory ?

Also in terms of a content tax, to make it fair you would have to allow people to opt out of the content tax, not everybody consumes content. Some people would react strongly to being charged for a content they do not consume.

I agree with your comment on the extension of copyright, i thought it was 100 years here in the UK i could be wrong.

I have read Bruce Schneier's books over the years, yet Sky is a secure smart card based system which despite attacks with electron microscopes and other technolgies has not been cracked for the past five years... I agree it will one day but the amount of money and resources required is probably way beyond the gain.

I think what i have been trying to get across is that i am in favour of a fair system, fair to both content creator and content consumer and i don't believe that such a thing exists at present.

You say that the content will be encrypted for the user, what with the users PGP key or something is that your idea ? What happens if user A emails the content to user B, is it wrapped in some kind of envelope that sends a request to the server in your theory ?

The idea was to prevent sharing since I want to keep track of how many times a particular work is downloaded - since that's how authors get compensated. If works were allowed to be shared between people, it wouldn't get recorded and authors would miss out on compensation.

I simply used encryption as a method to lock the content to one person in such a way that it would be difficult to casually give it to someone else.

Also in terms of a content tax, to make it fair you would have to allow people to opt out of the content tax, not everybody consumes content. Some people would react strongly to being charged for a content they do not consume.

You can't opt out of paying taxes that fund your library.
You can't opt out of paying the fees that allow you to hear music on the radio.
You can't opt out of paying the feed that allow you to see shows on broadcast TV.

I would argue that everyone enjoys and benefits from artistic works during their normal day. Some people just enjoy those works more than others.

I think what i have been trying to get across is that i am in favour of a fair system, fair to both content creator and content consumer and i don't believe that such a thing exists at present.

That's what everyone wants (except the Content Cartel). But the problem is that DRM is inherently unfair to the consumer. Which hurts the creator because "DRM" means "don't buy it" to many people.

rlauzon: I see in your utopian plans a call for more and larger government that will settle on one and only one form of eBook for everyone so that they can enforce the copyright protections-restrictions-payments that propose. This is having once central authority deciding what is best for us. They (as all government agencies) will extend their power to allow only the books they agree with.

The open market where new ideas are free to fail and where each person selects what is best for him or her is a far better model than the one you propose. I just see too much "1984" in your plans.

actually in the UK , you can OPT out of the the taxes that pay for the radio and other government tv channels, it is called the licence fee and provided that you can prove you do not have a content consuming device (a television) then you do not need to pay it and you can opt out.

rlauzon: I see in your utopian plans a call for more and larger government that will settle on one and only one form of eBook for everyone so that they can enforce the copyright protections-restrictions-payments that propose. This is having once central authority deciding what is best for us. They (as all government agencies) will extend their power to allow only the books they agree with.

You misunderstood my message. It was simply an idea and, yes, has many, many problems.

The point was that there were 3 alternatives (that I could see):
1. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but trust your customers, dump DRM, and use Copyright law to protect the content.
2. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but treat your customers as criminals, use DRM and lose alot to piracy.
3. Move to a communistic market type (like my idea).

All 3 alternatives have issues. The question is which one has fewer issues.
You've accurately pointed out some of the issues for alterative #3. We have #2 today and it doesn't work well.

Here are a couple of good links to further the conversation:

Cory Doctorow's famous speech to the Microsofties on why DRM can't work (http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html)!

Kelsey and Schneier's proposed Street Performer Protocol (http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html), a scheme that seems to provide a realistic basis for compensating content creators.

Read those, and then see if you can still espouse the cause of DRM.

The point was that there were 3 alternatives (that I could see):

Your missing out #4:

4. Use weak encryption to so the majority don't know how to break it, but the technically literate can. See iTunes for a working example...


3. Move to a communistic market type (like my idea).

See the history books for reasons why this doesn't tend to work...

You misunderstood my message. It was simply an idea and, yes, has many, many problems.

The point was that there were 3 alternatives (that I could see):
1. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but trust your customers, dump DRM, and use Copyright law to protect the content.
2. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but treat your customers as criminals, use DRM and lose alot to piracy.
3. Move to a communistic market type (like my idea).

All 3 alternatives have issues. The question is which one has fewer issues.
You've accurately pointed out some of the issues for alterative #3. We have #2 today and it doesn't work well.
Not that I don't like your reasoning, but to be fair, #1 should be revised to:

1. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but trust your customers, dump DRM, and use Copyright law to protect the content, and lose alot to piracy/copyright law circumvention.

Copyright law circumvention _could_ be reduced if the products were looked upon as fair and square and the price was low enough. But don't count on it... at the best assuming so is questionable. Personally I think people will pirate anyway, at least if the price is high.

Jæd's alternative 4 is a good one, and is widely used today :)

There was an interesting article including figures about publishing DRM-free pdf on loud thinking in 03/2006 :
http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000580.html

"Then we spent a day building a dead-simple shop in Rails that would take $19 from your credit card and give you a PDF.

That scenario worked well for Getting Real, which was all short essays that you could print out if you liked or even read on the screen without too much distress. And in just three weeks since its release, we've sold over 5,000 copies."

rlauzon: Thank you for the clairifaction.

4. Use weak encryption to so the majority don't know how to break it, but the technically literate can. See iTunes for a working example...

Which means that the technically literate remote the encryption and post it for everyone to download for free.

Technically option #2.

See the history books for reasons why this doesn't tend to work...

As I said, the theory has problems.

1. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but trust your customers, dump DRM, and use Copyright law to protect the content, and lose alot to piracy/copyright law circumvention.

We don't seem to have an issue with piracy when the content isn't protected with DRM.

Also, the current copyright law is unfair to the public and the DMCA effectively gives the Content Cartel the power to change copyright law.

Most people obey laws not because of the punishment for breaking those laws. They obey laws because they believe that the law is right. When most people believe that the law is wrong, they do not obey it. Which is what we are seeing today.

Jæd's alternative 4 is a good one, and is widely used today :)

His alternative 4 is my alternative 2. It doesn't work because the "speed bump" of DRM makes people disrecpect copyright even more and feel no guilt in pirating the work. Indeed, DRM makes law-abiding people commit crimes just to exercise their fair use rights under copyright.

Which means that the technically literate remote the encryption and post it for everyone to download for free.

Then you can sue the hosting site for copyright violations... "Free" copies therefore end-up only on pirate/warez sites which non-technically literate don't usually know about.

As I said... See iTunes for a working example of this method... Breaking their DRM is quite easy but people still buy tunes from there...

Then you can sue the hosting site for copyright violations... "Free" copies therefore end-up only on pirate/warez sites which non-technically literate don't usually know about.

Hasn't stopped Pirate Bay. Bringing suit in another country is very difficult at best - especially if that country is hostile toward yours.

As I said... See iTunes for a working example of this method... Breaking their DRM is quite easy but people still buy tunes from there...

Correction - no one "buys" music at iTunes. They pay money for a license to use that music on their iPod.

And how pirated are songs from iTunes compared to songs released under a Creative Commons license?

Hasn't stopped Pirate Bay. Bringing suit in another country is very difficult at best - especially if that country is hostile toward yours.

...

Correction - no one "buys" music at iTunes. They pay money for a license to use that music on their iPod.

Yep, but the iTunes store is one of the more viable business models out there... Can't see them going under anytime soon...!

We don't seem to have an issue with piracy when the content isn't protected with DRM.

Ehem... care to elaborate on this? Are you saying only DRM'ed content is "pirated"? Or are you defining "pirating" as only applying to DRM'ed content?

I remember snail-mailing VHS videos and copying them for friends, ditto for music, just to name an obvious example. This was a problem, but impossible to stop, for the Content Cartel. DRM makes it harder to copy this kind of content, but I don't see the principal difference between pirating DRM'ed content and copying copyrighted works. If they save enough money / hassle, people _will_ copy copyrighted works, DRM or non-DRM.

I suppose anything's possible, but I would be astonished if there were ever any kind of tax to fund eBooks in the US. Every year we have more and more trouble providing a miniscule amount of funding for PBS, and that's TV, which Americans like. Additionally, getting all countries to agree to the same tax idea seems, to put it gently, highly unlikely. And if some countries do and some don't, the content will be copied and shared from those that have a tax and freely distributed content to those that don't.

More likely, in the American market, is embedded advertising. There would still be the problem that some people would create versions of the content with the advertising stripped out, but most wouldn't bother. Then it wouldn't matter if the files were passed around -- in fact, the publishers would prefer it, because they could then charge more for their ads.

I think this is consistent with Cory Doctorow's views, btw. Every book is effectively an advertisement for more books by the same author (and, to a lesser extent, the same publisher). Cory can hand out free copies of his books, electronically, and still make money, because the free samples encourage people to pay him for more content. This works because he still sells content as well as giving it away.

It would be an interesting experiment to build a website that would accept manuscripts from authors (or publishers), automatically insert the ads, track downloads, and bill advertisers and compensate authors based on the downloads. A better method would be to track views for both ad rates and author compensation while the user is reading, which would capture views by others the file is shared with, but that would require tracking software integrated with the reader sw that would report back to the server. Not impossible, though. Generally readers are connected to the internet periodically to update content. The tracking stats could be forwarded during the connection process, as long as the process was efficient. I suppose the format of the files could still be open, as the server company would then be motivated to make sure good reader sw existed for as wide a range of platforms as possible. If the server company drops support for future devices, they don't get their ad revenue, but the file is still viewable. If they want the ad revenue, they have to make their reader better than whatever alternatives someone might hack together without the ad trackers.

Then we would just have the problem that some advertisers don't know how to make effective ads and settle for ads that are merely annoying. :rolleyes:

Oh, and this would imply a huge invasion of privacy in terms of who's reading what, and how often. But Americans don't seem to worry about that most of the time. :(

Ehem... care to elaborate on this? Are you saying only DRM'ed content is "pirated"? Or are you defining "pirating" as only applying to DRM'ed content?

I'm saying that, based on my unscientific research, when I see lists of pirated content available for everyone to get, what I typically DON'T see is content that is available without DRM.

Ex: I usually don't see eBooks sold by Fictionwise without DRM on the Usenet eBook groups. I usually don't see MP3s sold by AudioLunchbox (which doesn't use DRM) available for download.

My theory is that pirates see non-DRM content as being "fair" and DRMed content as "unfair". The copyright of fairly available content is more respectful, and, so, they respect it. Copyright of unfairly available content is disrespectful and, so, they do not respect it - and make it available for everyone to download.

Then we would just have the problem that some advertisers don't know how to make effective ads and settle for ads that are merely annoying.

Yes, we all know how this has impacted TV viewing and DVRs.

In fairness, they are getting better about the TV adds.

I have the 30 second skip set on my Tivo, so I don't watch a lot of ads, but I generally go back and watch new ones, unless they're for some product that I have absolutely no interest in. Even some of those I do -- I don't care about Geiko, but I love their Caveman commercials -- I'll watch them multiple times. Same goes for the Jack In The Box commercials, though I rarely eat there. The Messin' with Sasquatch (http://www.messinwithsasquatch.com/) commercials are my current stand-out favorites -- I'll watch those things two or three times when they come on. :laugh4:

I think the lesson advertisers need to learn, and seem to be starting to learn, is that if they want their commercials watched they need to be good commercials. As neko pointed out, they need to be less annoying. :nice:

There are a couple of magazines I subscribe to in which the ads are nearly as interesting as the regular content, and well worth looking over. But I generally ignore website ads, which are often poorly targeted as well as being annoying.

Ads in a book would need to be at the beginning, at the end, in margins, or between chapters. Between chapters would probably be the most effective, but hardest to do from a technical standpoint-- an author would need to manually break up their text, which means providing authoring tools or requiring multiple files in the submission, which I suspect many authors wouldn't bother with. Margin ads would have the potential advantage of being somewhat context-sensitive (though any ads in books should be more carefully targeted than web ads), but could be really obnoxious. At least E Ink doesn't support color, flashing text, animations, etc.

As an example of poor web targeting, Yahoo mailing lists ("groups") started displaying ads on the home page for the list a couple of years ago. A Chinese Adoption list I was on started displaying ads for dating services emphasizing Chinese women. Bad choice. Perhaps an author submitting a text could click on the advertising categories they want to be included in. The more categories they choose, the more likely they are to get paid, but if they click categories that don't match their readers' interests, they could lose some readers.

Text-only ads, e.g. Google ads, though, generally rely on a link to more info. Such a link wouldn't work on a device not currently connected to the net. Maybe the ereader could cache items the customer clicks on, and display info when the next network connection occurs.

This topic (DRM) is so popular (and subverts so many threads) it desrves it's own top line thread ... Alex - if you're reading - how about setting one up so we can transfer these interesting discussions and allow threads to remain pure.

Ex: I usually don't see eBooks sold by Fictionwise without DRM on the Usenet eBook groups. I usually don't see MP3s sold by AudioLunchbox (which doesn't use DRM) available for download.

My theory is that pirates see non-DRM content as being "fair" and DRMed content as "unfair". The copyright of fairly available content is more respectful, and, so, they respect it. Copyright of unfairly available content is disrespectful and, so, they do not respect it - and make it available for everyone to download.


I totally agree with rlauzon on this. There does seem to be an unwritten code of conduct used by the book pirates to leave stuff alone that they consider to be fairly offered to consumers.

Pirates will deliberately target stuff that they consider to be "locked up".

You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
:)

.
I totally agree with rlauzon on this. There does seem to be an unwritten code of conduct used by the book pirates to leave stuff alone that they consider to be fairly offered to consumers.

Pirates will deliberately target stuff that they consider to be "locked up".

You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
:)

I would be nice if you are correct in this, and I really hope you are. However, I can not verify this observation myself. I don't know where to buy, e.g, popular videos without DRM. I can't legally download the music that I am interested in, DRM or non-DRM. In fact, eMule seems the only way to get it :(

Furthermore, remember that there are different kinds of pirates. Some are "hobby-pirates", they just like to share and to download. Some are professional and actually make money off pirating. I am not sure they will consider profitable-but-non-drm'ed content fair and therefore avoid pirating it.

Perhaps I should do some research into what different content providers (books, music, movies) provide of non-DRM'ed content and see what I can download on P2P or similar services. Has there been any scientific research into this that someone can link to?

If its mainstream it will be posted DRM or not, and if its not posted on newsgroups it will be shared P2P anyway.

Mark

To be honest i cannot see how it is possible to attract new authors to a model which does not protect their work. Having it freely available and relying on peoples honesty is a huge risk and i believe that it will not provide enough security for a lot of authors to take the risk in investing a year of their life to write a book.

"Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors than piracy. –
For all of these creative artists, most laboring in obscurity, being well-enough known to be pirated would be a crowning achievement. Piracy is a kind of progressive taxation, which may shave a few percentage points off the sales of well-known artists (and I say “may” because even that point is not proven), in exchange for massive benefits to the far greater number for whom exposure may lead to increased revenues."
Technical Publisher Tim Reilly

Regarding well-known authors:

"Case in point: the Harry Potter books. When pressed as to whether Harry Potter e-books would be made available, the publisher elected not to do so, “citing security concerns.” They were afraid that an e-book version could be cracked and illicitly downloaded. “Oh, that’s too bad,” said the legions of e-book-wanting Harry Potter fans—and then they went home to their computers and downloaded the illicit version, which had been completely scanned within eleven hours of the printed book’s release. And it’s not even the first time this had happened to a Harry Potter book, either. Thus, the publisher has foregone in the name of “security” a revenue stream that, while nowhere near as large as the print version’s, would still be additional income requiring almost no additional expenditure—while still publishing its work in a version that is far, far easier to copy than a properly DRM-protected e-book could ever be."
E-books: The peer-to-peer Dichotomy by Chris Meadows.
See the full version here:
http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=5348

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter at this point what any of us thinks about DRM. I tried to propose non-DRM PDF as a distribution method to my publisher (for a non-fiction book on language learning games -- formatting matters, so PDF is appropriate for this book). They declined. As things stand, there will be only a printed version of the book, which schools will probably only buy one of and then photocopy, or, worse (from my point of view), keep in some central area so teachers won't be able to access it easily. But the publisher has the marketing engine and presence, and I don't. I'm not in a good position to do without a publisher, if I want this book to be distributed widely enough to do any good.

The mainstream publishers are the ones who need convincing, both to publish eBooks at all and to forego DRM. The question is, what's the best way to do that? iLiad users represent a very small market at this point, so saying none of us are going to buy DRM isn't likely to impress anyone-- certainly not enough to decide to unlock titles that are already available, but DRM'd. Those who think DRM is a fine idea can continue to work to try to get DRM support on their device of choice, and get more ebooks published, albeit in DRM format. For those of us who think DRM is bad for both readers and authors, what's the best approach? We might find that we have common cause with the DRM folks, in the short term-- or we might not. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to discuss strategies for getting from here to a DRM-free, ebook-rich world. Arguing amongst ourselves here isn't likely to change anything. I don't, personally, think a boycott of DRM books is going to change anything, either-- if it is noticed at all, it may just make the market for ebooks look smaller. What are our other options?

what do you think about mailing a formerly DRMed document back to the publisher, in un-"secured" form.

Maybe someone gets it.

If publishers would only realise the goldmine they are sitting on.

Walt Disney, at one stage, were struggling financially – the only outlet they had for their movies were the cinemas and the numbers of cinema ticket sales were falling. They had always refused to put their back calalogue onto DVD or VHS because they were afraid of piracy. However, after some new-thinking they decided to release one or two titles on media available for consumers' home viewing. They were astounded by the excellent response. Well, after this they never looked backed and their fortunes turned around completely. I understand that these days most of their back catalogue has been released.

What I am saying is, why don't book publishers do the same?

Barnes & Noble estimates there are more than 1 million copyrighted titles out of print, with 90,000 titles disappearing each year.

There would be no need to hear the words "out of print" ever again if only they would convert their back catalogue titles to ebooks. A fair and low price for these would bring in more than having them sitting in the archives earning nothing. And what would it cost? Zero paper costs, zero printing costs and zero transport costs etc.

I wish some bright new business entrepreneur would realise the golden opportunity awaiting to be grasped and buy up loads of these out of print copyright works.

I wish some bright new business entrepreneur would realise the golden opportunity awaiting to be grasped and buy up loads of these out of print copyright works.
I suspect the publishers holding the works wouldn't sell. They don't know what to do with their backlist, but that doesn't mean they want anyone else doing anything with it. :rolleyes:

You mean "wouldn't sell at the same level as the ones they are currently pushing", don't you? But I do agree that they seem to have a "It's ours and you can't have any" attitude they've inherited from the 1600's.

If I could change only one part of the copyright law, it would be that copyright would fall into public domain automatically IF the originator no longer was in a position to benefit from said works AND the works in question where unavailable at a considerate price from the current holder for more than a year.

Cripes, that little change right there would guarantee digital support since you know they would neither print enough copies of older or more esoteric volumes to satisfy the restriction nor would they want to give up their claim to it.

You mean "wouldn't sell at the same level as the ones they are currently pushing", don't you?
I meant the publishers would probably not sell the rights to their backlists. I agree that shortening the copyright expiration process would be a big help. Maybe we should get together a political lobby in each of our respective countries.

Now that's a petition I'd sign! http://www.sims99.com/forum/images/smilies/protest.gif

A year, is perhaps too short to get through, but maybe 5 years or something?

That'd probably lead to small print runs every few years or some such foolishness, but even that would be an improvement over the current situation. :shrug:

What I am saying is, why don't book publishers do the same?

Barnes & Noble estimates there are more than 1 million copyrighted titles out of print, with 90,000 titles disappearing each year.

You answered your own question. If the out of print (but still in copyright) books were made available as eBooks, too many people would be asking embarassing questions like:

Why is this 80 year old book still under copyright?
Why is this book, where the author has been dead for 50 years, still under copyright?

They don't want to answer those questions because the only answer is:
Because copyright is way too long.

Which will make the millions of constituents yell to get copyright reduced to something reasonable - something the Content Cartel wants to avoid at all costs.

There would be no need to hear the words "out of print" ever again if only they would convert their back catalogue titles to ebooks. A fair and low price for these would bring in more than having them sitting in the archives earning nothing. And what would it cost? Zero paper costs, zero printing costs and zero transport costs etc.

But, as I pointed out today about eReader.com, an eReader eBook with DRM costs MORE than the hardcover pBook from Amazon.com.

Publishers want to change the same price for an eBook as they get for a hardcover pBook - and consumers don't want that.

... there were 3 alternatives (that I could see):
1. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but trust your customers, dump DRM, and use Copyright law to protect the content.
2. Stay with the current capitalistic market - but treat your customers as criminals, use DRM and lose alot to piracy.
3. Move to a communistic market type (like my idea).


I think there are more options. We're discussing some of them here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=53599) . For example, downloads could be tracked if the right kind of protocol were developed, and fees could be paid to creators by a copyright collective (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective) (a.k.a. collection agency or collection socieity), which could be funded by a fee per download using a new protocol designed to support legal file sharing, or an internet tax, etc.

I think there are more options. We're discussing some of them here . For example, downloads could be tracked if the right kind of protocol were developed, and fees could be paid to creators by a copyright collective (a.k.a. collection agency or collection socieity), which could be funded by a fee per download using a new protocol designed to support legal file sharing, or an internet tax, etc.

That's effectively the Communist Market solution - just funded in a different way.

The problem with statutory fees is that they treat all content as equal. A popular song, for example, would be priced the same as a bad one. That goes counter to a capitalistic system.

It worked well for music on the radio, because it simplified the fee structure and the music companies made their money elsewhere in the market.

The problem with statutory fees is that they treat all content as equal. A popular song, for example, would be priced the same as a bad one. That goes counter to a capitalistic system.
I disagree. A popular song may be priced the same as a bad one, but we have the same situation in retail. The difference is that a popular song (or printed book) sells more copies and generates more revenue.

Just a thought ... this thread is like quite off-topic by now. Maybe we should come back to why, or why else you think iLiad will fail. We all know DRM is a *potential* show-stopper, so what else?

On DRM & piracy, think of piracy as marketing fund. Today's businesses spend a good chunk of their money on marketing. Without marketing, the product will function just fine, except that the mass market may not get to know this product and hence not get a chance to be enticed into buying it.

Piracy does that in a sense. Shareware does that too. So does the radio and TV. They all allow you to get a trial of the product, be it music, video or apps in some cases, and if you are happy with the product, you can choose to buy it. I know that many people just use winzip in trial mode and don't bother paying for it. They are still in business. The potential profit loss due to perpetual shareware users is offset by the wide-spread usage and familiarity of it, which in turn leads to corporations and some users purchasing the product.

It's a fine line between "piracy as marketing" vs "content should be free". The former acknowledges that content should be paid for, but one chooses to try it out, and potentially purchase the goods if it is worth the money. The latter assumes that one should not need to pay for it.

Just a thought ... this thread is like quite off-topic by now. Maybe we should come back to why, or why else you think iLiad will fail. We all know DRM is a *potential* show-stopper, so what else?
Mainly I think the price is too high, especially for existing functionality. But I don't regard the iLiad as a failure-- just as a prototype, not a successful production model.

At some point iRex will need to decide if they want to pursue the eBook reader market, the "info pad (http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2006/05/desperately-seeking-info-pad.html)" market, the tablet market, the linux geek hobbyist market, or *only* the vertical B2B market, and adjust pricing (and hardware costs) accordingly. Right now they're charging full laptop prices for a relatively weak eBook reader and interesting (though frustrating) hobbyist toy. Presumably the pilots using it for FlyBook are getting better value for the money than the eBook customers. But I think there are a lot more potential eBook customers than pilots. iRex needs to decide which customers they want to try to serve, and consider if they need alternate hardware models (and potentially, software services) to be successful.

All I know is that because of my increasingly flakey page flip bar I put my latest John Ringo ARC A Deeper Blue onto my Sony Reader and though the screen is smaller I'm loving the instant on and off.

I'll probably be retiring my iLiad soon due to the page bar. I really can't face iRex customer service (and the UPS back billing) for the 4th time. Too many things go wrong and everything moves at a glacial pace. Heck I haven't even gotten the deluxe iRex case for it and I'll be retiring it. I think that really says it all right there.

Funny you should say that, i was just looking at the sony reader and thinking exactly the same.

The page bar thing is also very annoying and getting on my nerves, not sure if its a hardware or software thing but its driving me nuts when it happens.

The biggest killer though is lack of instant on, i mean every time i think about reading for 10-20 minutes i have to boot the thing up wait for it... i know its only twenty seconds or so, but its the whole process that just seems wrong.

Plus the faffing about with formats that i have to do, which i got working on windows last night with wordpad rather than word and pdf creator, the whole process just feels slow slow slow.

I really want the Illiad to be a success, but i have seen so many technologies come and go that i am over 70% confident that Irex will not be doing this in a years time unless a major change of direction is taken.

Mark

Scotty looking at the amount of work that you have done for the Illiad already it would be a bit of a loss to the Illiad community for you to jump ship to the sony ereader :(

Mark

Why I think the iLiad may fail: because Scotty1024 is giving up on it. :(

(Not trying to say he's the only developer, just that he's done the most hacking into the guts of the thing, and if he gives up, I think it's going to have a pretty serious impact on the iLiad community.)

Some of us, on the other hand, have been waiting for scotty to give the Reader equal time for quite a while now. :laugh4:

Lets get this in perspective here, for us to be discussing the Illiad and the Sony ereader in the same paragraph shows what a way Irex has come with the Illiad,

However they need to ramp up development on device and also be honest about the hardware issues that prevent the device from having some kind of standby.

I think the only real way forward for the Illiad is to fully engage the community before other devices run past it in terms of updates and capability.

The Illiad might have better technology than the sony device , but if the pace of development remains the same for 2007 it will look like an also ran by the end of it.

Mark

All I know is that because of my increasingly flakey page flip bar I put my latest John Ringo ARC A Deeper Blue onto my Sony Reader and though the screen is smaller I'm loving the instant on and off.

I'll probably be retiring my iLiad soon due to the page bar. I really can't face iRex customer service (and the UPS back billing) for the 4th time. Too many things go wrong and everything moves at a glacial pace. Heck I haven't even gotten the deluxe iRex case for it and I'll be retiring it. I think that really says it all right there.

Sorry to hear that.
I hope iRex will send you a second iLiad to encourage you to stay. :scholar:

However they need to ramp up development on device and also be honest about the hardware issues that prevent the device from having some kind of standby.

I think the only real way forward for the Illiad is to fully engage the community before other devices run past it in terms of updates and capability.

Both of these have already happened and Irex have been very upfront about the capabilities of the hardware... And I don't see anyone from Sony taking as much interest in the community as Irex has...

The Illiad might have better technology than the sony device , but if the pace of development remains the same for 2007 it will look like an also ran by the end of it.

If the pace of development is the same I would expect the Iliad to be more of a match for the Reader in about two months. (Unless there is a firmware update for the Reader to fully support pdfs...)

And hopefully the next verion of Sony's device will support annotations. Then I might consider it...! :D

@Scotty1024

If you really retire your Iliad, I'm afraid that will be one huge step back for the Iliad Community here since you were one of the most active software developers here and I had hopes you might give us a way to jump off the iRex Update snail...

Jaed, not just an update but a new Sony Reader by all accounts. My point was that Irex needed to grab share quickly, now Iriver, Amazon & Sony are entering this market they need an outstanding device, with outstanding capabilities + the software to support it.

Mark

Irex has wasted the lead time it had in a new field.
The reasons are understandable, most everything had to be created from scratch. But followers are still on their heels with an intent on the real plusses or a reader. Drastic investments are needed in software and marketing. The first throw has'nt reached far enough and an other shot is too far away...

I suspect another competitor is about to enter the market - According to the Yahoo Fictionwise Group the makers of the famous eBookwise have a new reading device in the pipeline. Apparently a non-disclosure agreement prevents them from making any public announcement on timeframe or specifications at this time.

But does it matter if either the Iliad or the Reader "fail"...? And what do we mean by fail. Dunno about others, but at least now we have choice. This time last year there were no e-ink readers around. At least the consumer has "won" in that regard.

And are Irex interested in "winning"...? From the beginning they've said this is a b2b product... I think they still see the consumer market as an extended beta-test. And I think that is working... So far we've seen some important data points come out, eg, the importance of zoom/pan for pdf, and fast booting times.

Perhaps when Phillips bring out a consumer e-reader it will use this research...?

I'd only be really concerned if I had purchased DRM'd books for the reader I've got. Because then the value of the books I had bought would depend on having a compatible reader...!

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter at this point what any of us thinks about DRM. I tried to propose non-DRM PDF as a distribution method to my publisher (for a non-fiction book on language learning games -- formatting matters, so PDF is appropriate for this book). They declined. As things stand, there will be only a printed version of the book, which schools will probably only buy one of and then photocopy, or, worse (from my point of view), keep in some central area so teachers won't be able to access it easily. But the publisher has the marketing engine and presence, and I don't. I'm not in a good position to do without a publisher, if I want this book to be distributed widely enough to do any good.

The mainstream publishers are the ones who need convincing, both to publish eBooks at all and to forego DRM. The question is, what's the best way to do that? iLiad users represent a very small market at this point, so saying none of us are going to buy DRM isn't likely to impress anyone-- certainly not enough to decide to unlock titles that are already available, but DRM'd. Those who think DRM is a fine idea can continue to work to try to get DRM support on their device of choice, and get more ebooks published, albeit in DRM format. For those of us who think DRM is bad for both readers and authors, what's the best approach? We might find that we have common cause with the DRM folks, in the short term-- or we might not. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to discuss strategies for getting from here to a DRM-free, ebook-rich world. Arguing amongst ourselves here isn't likely to change anything. I don't, personally, think a boycott of DRM books is going to change anything, either-- if it is noticed at all, it may just make the market for ebooks look smaller. What are our other options?

Here's an idea for the brave. A cracker breaks DRM and sells the book at the same price as the DRM'd book. Then pays the standard royalty/fee to the publisher. (Better yet, someone convinces a publisher to get daring and try the author in both DRM and nonDRM formats on subsequent works to see which sells better and if DRM really 'protects' them from anything other than extra revenue).

But does it matter if either the Iliad or the Reader "fail"...? And what do we mean by fail. Dunno about others, but at least now we have choice. This time last year there were no e-ink readers around. At least the consumer has "won" in that regard.

And are Irex interested in "winning"...? From the beginning they've said this is a b2b product... I think they still see the consumer market as an extended beta-test. And I think that is working... So far we've seen some important data points come out, eg, the importance of zoom/pan for pdf, and fast booting times.

Perhaps when Phillips bring out a consumer e-reader it will use this research...?

I'd only be really concerned if I had purchased DRM'd books for the reader I've got. Because then the value of the books I had bought would depend on having a compatible reader...!
The prime reason for the existence of a company is to make money. Does anyone think Irex is? Sony on the other hand proves that they're in the book selling market.

The latest quarterly report, http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/06q2_sony.pdf, shows that Sony made less than 0.1%. So selling (which they did a lot of) doesn't equal profit. My guess, and only a guess, is that at the price iRex is making an operating profit, but has losses during development that aren't paid for yet.

Yeah, they ate a lot of costs cleaning up that battery mess.

The real reason the iliad will die will be the OLPC. Nice engineering particularly as regards power management and displays.

http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2007010902326NWHWEV

If not the OLPC itself, I'm sure some clever duck will take the ideas and apply them to a useful product.

My company has an iliad on order (I'll be stuck with it) but looks like it isn't going to impress a soul given what I've been reading here. In fact, I'm trying to get the order cancelled but the only thing slower than Irex is the reaction time of our procurement people.

The real reason the iliad will die will be the OLPC. Nice engineering particularly as regards power management and displays.

And how readable is the display in bright sunshine...?

My company has an iliad on order (I'll be stuck with it) but looks like it isn't going to impress a soul given what I've been reading here. In fact, I'm trying to get the order cancelled but the only thing slower than Irex is the reaction time of our procurement people.

Well... Its always best to base your impressions on a real device, rather than writings on a web board... If I were you I'd stick with it and actually see for yourself...

My company has an iliad on order (I'll be stuck with it) but looks like it isn't going to impress a soul given what I've been reading here. In fact, I'm trying to get the order cancelled but the only thing slower than Irex is the reaction time of our procurement people.

I think you should wait and see how you like it. I happen to disagree with almost everyone on the board, as to the state of the iLiad. I received mine about a month ago, and short of a few "would be nice to have" features, I don't have a single complaint. The battery lasts an entire day for me at work (I turn it off when I go to lunch), and I can still use it at home. I have no problems reading almost any PDF thanks to zoom and continuous page mode. I didn't expect to be able to get on the internet very well, or have DRM/retail store support. The speed of the device is fast enough that it doesn't get in my way.

I love this device! If I had to do it all over again, I would do it in a heartbeat. I can finally go about my day without printing off useless papers, or carrying around a notepad. I guess it all comes down to what your expectations are coming in. Mine were certainly lower than what I got, so I was not disappointed.

I'm pretty surprised at the level of negative opinion here too.
I use my iLiad a *lot* every day. It has improved considerably via the updates over the four months (not a long time really) I've had it. It's not perfect, but it's great for what it is designed to do - reading books and documents. I'm looking forward to more improvements.

People have different priorities. DRM protected books isn't one of mine. But if it doesn't have a feature you want, that doesn't make it a bad or failed device.

I don't see any other product on the market that can give me what I want in an e-reader - decent sized e-ink screen - annotation - and wifi connectivity.

And once iRex pull their fingers out and give us the SDK things will get even more interesting. :)

The problem about DRM is that iRex initially had it in their specs. I know it was there at the time I bought the iLiad. However, like you can see from my various posts, I have no interest in DRM. But other people have, since there are no legal sources to get DRM-free popular/mass-market ebooks. And those people don't see the "dark net" as an alternative.

Wifi connectivity on the iLiad is so far pointless. If you don't have the ability to execute .sh files, you can only use it to update the iLiad. I wouldn't call that "Wifi connectivity".

However, iRex seems to be a lot more responsive to the community than Sony.

A lot of the disapointment stems from the marketing hype - the things that the device will be able to do rather than can do have frustrated a lot of users on this board.

I agree that the device is a great piece of hardware engineering and it works really well for reading some documents ... although I like mine, I wouldn't use my own money to buy one at the current price and with the current level of support, those who would I fear are in the minority.

I agree with emkay that not having a specific features doesn't make a device a bad device ... but not selling products, for whatever reason, does make a company a failing company ...

In the early days of the microcomputer the hardware was way ahead of the software, some say that is still the case and I agree. New units and platforms came out every month and software developers jumped from one to another patching their code for the flavor of the month. With all of the new eink devices showing up on the market and those planned/announced/leaked it looks like the same situation again.

To sell to a wider market you need available content that the people want. Picking up from the prior example, the IBM PC did not catch fire and set sales records until Lotus 1-2-3 became the "must have" application. Later, MP3 players did not take off until Apple opened their iTunes store for the iPod. The same will be true here. Without a depth of offerings for the unit -- new and existing books still in copyright -- it will not sell in enough volume to establsh an on-going market for itself. In the eink area only Sony has done this that I know of. Amazon can once they get their unit to market. Those are the two I would bet on to survive at the moment.

The Illiad? An interesting piece of engineering from the early days of eink.

It may be so-so as an eBook reader, but I still think it would make a great info pad (http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2006/05/desperately-seeking-info-pad.html) if iRex could get the price down far enough. I'd have bought one already if they were about US$300-350. DRM books are not my main concern, but I can't justify spending nearly US$800 for a document reader, even though I really need one.

[QUOTE=jæd]And how readable is the [OLPC] display in bright sunshine...?

From the article:

Keeping the 377-Mhz AMD processor processor from having to sip from the battery was a key concern. When used as an eReader, a separate frame buffer keeps the LCD updated, rather than having the processor do the job. This drastically reduced the power needed to keep a page displayed while a child reads. In general, the XO uses what Bletsas calls "Extreme Suspend," going to sleep after two seconds of inactivity, but waking up within 300 milliseconds of an action.

The innovative display design serves two purposes. By overlaying a lower resolution (1024x768) color screen over a very high resolution (200 DPI, 1200x900) black and white one, then can get what to the eye appears to be a much higher color resolution. The color display is transmissive and requires a 1-watt backlight, which is provided by power-efficient LEDs. The black and white display is reflective, and actually performs better the brighter the ambient light is. This makes it ideal for rural teaching settings, where classes may be held outdoors. Switching from color to black and white is simply a matter of turning off the backlight. The ultra-high resolution black and white display is meant to make the eReader highly useable for textbooks. Bletsas notes that although the display cost only about one-third what a typical laptop LCD costs, it will have a higher resolution that 95% of the laptops on the market.

Elegant.

maybe i am doing this all wrong but the pan and zoom is really hard to use.

there are bugs which cause cutting off of text both in PDF's and HTML documents.

there is no search function within PDFS, i really need this if i want to use it for work.

format support is pretty bad, we need working and reliable rtf, txt, html & pdf support at the very least.

i need instant resume something i came to expect with the librie.

Dont get me wrong i am learning to love it, but i want a device that does the above and if sony or amazon or even iriver get it all right in one useable device then irex will find themselves in trouble. So get the software right now , make a bug push and correct these and other issues that people have mentioned or get the community to help you.

None of the formats mentioned above are exotic or have to be written from scratch, searching within a PDF cannot be that hard !! And if suspend and resume will never work tell us.

Just my 2p again

Mark

[quote}there are bugs which cause cutting off of text both in PDF's and HTML documents.[/quote]

I don't use HTML, but I have not seen this with PDF. Can you give an example please?

it happens when you zoom trying zooming in a few times with a smallish font in a pdf document.

Mark

it happens when you zoom trying zooming in a few times with a smallish font in a pdf document.


Do you have an example so that a complete case can be made in Irex's bugtracker...?

Does anyone feel that the product just overall is not all that it is cracked up too be; that it doesn't really stand out from the competition? Iliad is a good product but it does have many glitches (at the very least) that need to be worked out. i think someone else mentioned that the price is a big problem because it is higher than the quality and function of the product at this time. However, I do not feel the product will completely fail.

Three factors make the iLiad stand out from the competition, in my mind: the larger screen, pen input, and the (relatively) open development environment. No other e ink device has any of these so far. I think the price is still a bit high for the market, though. A lot of that is the cost of the actual hardware (the e ink screen, the Wacom tablet, the wireless interface, and the multiple types of external memory). Hopefully the price of the e ink screen will drop. Only a hardware redesign is likely to help the other issues (if they can find a design that's more economical to build, for example). It doesn't look to me like the B2B model is working out very well, and now they're in a much more competitive market.

They need another big market differentiator to increase the value at the current cost. Full on-board handwriting recognition might do it, and wouldn't require a hardware redesign. The UI also needs an upgrade. And if they do a hardware redesign, they absolutely have to address the "sleep" mode (whatever you want to call it).

As the device sits right now it is still the "Beta Device" that many here signed a waiver or letter of understanding to purchase. Nekokami has made some valid points. What I see as hobbling this device is the painfully long start up time and the fact that pdf document navigation is rudimentary at best, specifically the ability to use native bookmarks in pdfs.

I have experimented with some of the developers programs that are available here. They initially seem to hold promise and I applaud all these people's actions. What I have found it that unless you have a software development background some of the things are of no use. The ones that I have used are slow, cumbersome and seems more to be a gee whiz kind of thing.

Overall the device appears to be pushing the limits of it's hardware, that or the software/firmware is woefully inefficient and improperly implemented. Mind you I am not an engineer or hacker type, but when I can pick up my little Palm device that starts in an instant, loads programs & documents really quickly I find it irksome that a device like the iLiad takes so long to work when what the biggest difference is simply the display technology. Does e-ink really require so much processor horsepower to refresh that it needs all that time?

I love the idea of the device, I use it everyday at work, I share it with my coworkers who are both in awe and disappointed with it. It is very expensive for what you get.

I am not impressed with iRex as a company. When can we expect the next firmware update? When will the battery/case replacement happen? By the time the iLiad will finally work as initially promised it will be bypassed by either other devices or other technologies.

I really wish that things would work out and improve - dramatically. Not too long from now I will have had this device for two years, a veritable eon in electronic devices. It is still not even close to what was initially marketed. Oh well, hope springs eternal!

Three factors make the iLiad stand out from the competition, in my mind: the larger screen, pen input, and the (relatively) open development environment. No other e ink device has any of these so far. I think the price is still a bit high for the market, though. A lot of that is the cost of the actual hardware (the e ink screen, the Wacom tablet, the wireless interface, and the multiple types of external memory). Hopefully the price of the e ink screen will drop. Only a hardware redesign is likely to help the other issues (if they can find a design that's more economical to build, for example). It doesn't look to me like the B2B model is working out very well, and now they're in a much more competitive market.

They need another big market differentiator to increase the value at the current cost. Full on-board handwriting recognition might do it, and wouldn't require a hardware redesign. The UI also needs an upgrade. And if they do a hardware redesign, they absolutely have to address the "sleep" mode (whatever you want to call it).

I think increasing the value at the current cost is likely the wrong direction. I have been researching a bit of eBook history and have found that the larger devices have always failed in the marketplace. Check my wiki article called eBooks. It is not done but the history is what I have been concentrating on with some articles about the various devices. eBooks (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EBooks)

The telling tails seem to be everyone likes the idea of a bigger screen but they don't buy it. Cost and battery life seem to be the big issues IMHO not wanting more features.

The iLiad is a dream machine for me and it is open but too technical. The openess needs to be integrated into an easy user interface to mainstream the product and the battery life needs more help (likely automatic turn off of battery hogging features and better shutdown will help).

Dale

You could be right, Dale. Maybe there's no market position for a higher-end device like the iLiad. I view it as a low-end tablet, which is why I bought one, but I bought it used at half price. I never could have justified full price.

That being said, a conference full of traveling training specialists thought it was extremely cool and not too pricey. (I must have been the lowest paid person there!) And I still think it has a lot of possibilities for graduate students and researchers. The battery life is much longer than for any tablet, and most academics don't care about video.

But nearly everyone I've shown it to is surprised that it doesn't convert handwriting to text.

You could be right, Dale. Maybe there's no market position for a higher-end device like the iLiad. I view it as a low-end tablet, which is why I bought one, but I bought it used at half price. I never could have justified full price.

That being said, a conference full of traveling training specialists thought it was extremely cool and not too pricey. (I must have been the lowest paid person there!) And I still think it has a lot of possibilities for graduate students and researchers. The battery life is much longer than for any tablet, and most academics don't care about video.

But nearly everyone I've shown it to is surprised that it doesn't convert handwriting to text.

I was under the impression that this feature is already available as an extra cost addin. Am I wrong about this?

I do believe the battery life is getting close to the minimum which I believe is about 20 to 24 hours.

Dale

I've haven't used this product yet, but iRex MyScript Notes 2.1 acts as OCR. At the steep price of $69.99, cheap it ain't.

https://www.irexshop.com/product_info.php?cPath=25_33&products_id=58&osCsid=70db5e8506ff6db58582952b63bf8ba0

When my repaired Iliad is returned to me after having spent almost 7 weeks at the repair centre, I will definitely give the 30 day trial a shot.


Vincent

IRIS OCR has handwriting recognition, as well, and runs on OSX. However, it still requires moving files around and isn't nearly as convenient as on-board HWR.

IRIS OCR has handwriting recognition, as well, and runs on OSX. However, it still requires moving files around and isn't nearly as convenient as on-board HWR.

I hadn't realized that the solution offered required moving the file to a pc but even so if it were on the HWR and the iLiad had enough horsepower to do the job it is not likely to be free and most people would not want the price of the iLiad to be increased for this feature and if it could be added with iRex swallowing the cost I would rather see them lower the price of the unit. I do not believe this technology would is the killer app for the iLiad that will suddenly make it the product leader in the market.

Dale

I wouldn't include on-board HWR in the base cost of the iLiad, I'd be willing to pay for it separately and install it after purchase. But I think if it were available it would increase the value of the iLiad.

Drawing software is another area that might be of value for the iLiad, but the slow display may make that too problematic. Better wireless backup administration would be nice.

I don't know if the iLiad can survive at this price point, but if they keep the hardware as it is, I don't see how they can lower the price that much, and if they remove the extra hardware, they might as well give the market to Bookeen.

And lets not forget for that high price tag, you can't even search on the thing.

That has got to be the dumbest low-cost item left out of the product at this point (considering what the product already does).

I use FBReader to search most of my files, but I agree that this is major missing functionality with no good excuse.

And lets not forget for that high price tag, you can't even search on the thing.

That has got to be the dumbest low-cost item left out of the product at this point (considering what the product already does).

At this point they have the worst MobiPocket implementation I am told. They really need to get it up to snuff including searching, dictionary support, zooming images, etc. The base functionality should be solid.

dale

They can pressure MobiPocket to improve the iLiad/Linux version, but I don't think they actually developed that viewer, did they?