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alehel · 01-03-2009, 07:16 PM

I'm quite confused as to who is allowed to support the DRM used in ePub files. When I buy books from waterstones they are in epub and drm protected. As far as I've understood they can only be read by Adobe Digital Editions and Sony's recent ebook readers. Recently though, can't remember where I read this, I discovered that the Sony 505 is running some kind of version of DE. This is giving me the impression that the only program that supports this DRM is DE.

Recently I've been trying to find an ePub reader for Palm. I have an old Palm Zire 71 which I thought I would take advantage of untill I aquire my 505 in a few months time, but it seems that reading DRM files are impossible. ePub is supposed to be much more open, but as soon as this DRM is attached, surely it's no more open than any other ebook format out there? At least mobi files can be read on most kinds of devices.

Are software makes able to pay licence fees to support the ePub DRM, or is it only Adobe who can support it? To be frank I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with that, but Colin Dexter's novels don't seem to be available in anything other than ePub DRM'ed ebooks.

01-03-2009, 07:16 PM	#1
alehel Zealot Posts: 112 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Norway Device: Kobo Clara HD	Who is allowed to use ePub DRM? I'm quite confused as to who is allowed to support the DRM used in ePub files. When I buy books from waterstones they are in epub and drm protected. As far as I've understood they can only be read by Adobe Digital Editions and Sony's recent ebook readers. Recently though, can't remember where I read this, I discovered that the Sony 505 is running some kind of version of DE. This is giving me the impression that the only program that supports this DRM is DE. Recently I've been trying to find an ePub reader for Palm. I have an old Palm Zire 71 which I thought I would take advantage of untill I aquire my 505 in a few months time, but it seems that reading DRM files are impossible. ePub is supposed to be much more open, but as soon as this DRM is attached, surely it's no more open than any other ebook format out there? At least mobi files can be read on most kinds of devices. Are software makes able to pay licence fees to support the ePub DRM, or is it only Adobe who can support it? To be frank I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with that, but Colin Dexter's novels don't seem to be available in anything other than ePub DRM'ed ebooks.