[BlueMonkey]

Originally Posted by Birte

I'm Birte from txtr.

Welcome to MR Birte Nice to see you here as well!

Originally Posted by Birte

Now we postet a "How To" in our Blog

There is one Problem for Americans: The txtr-iPhone app right now needs one book from the txtr Store to be activated for DRM

Even though the above mentioned regional licenses seem to be obstacles I made a English translation of the instructions - maybe it is of some help if you somehow get a this "German authentification"

Here's what I wrote in my blog:

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The new version version 2.0 of the free txtr iPhone app recently released boasts with the ability to display Adobe DRM protected EPUBs. A really nice feature if there wasn’t a catch: it only seems to work smoothly with eBooks you purchased via the txtr Store.

Regional licenses as obstacles

For foreign users this is the obstacle – I quote Joscha’s (txtr staff) commentary on this topic on teleread.org:

As some of you know, I am working at txtr. You know what? We can not sell our books to you, no matter how much we want to. – Because books come with regional licenses, and even though they are just a bunch of bytes floating through the intarwebs, the current rights situation limits where we are allowed to let them flow to. So, no txtr Store in the US of A for now. Until we have acquired American licenses, and implemented a process to separate our platform into different regions.

On the other hand, it is technically possible to import Adobe DRM files that you have bought elsewhere into the txtr application. But at the moment that would require a working DRM pairing between your Adobe ID and txtr, which at the moment won’t work without a German authentication (usually via credit card). This is not a legal, but only a technical problem, however, and we will build a solution for it soon.

Translation of the official workaround

Until future versions of txtr.com will support the upload of “.asm” files from other eBook shops, for German txtr has provided a work around which enables you to read any Adobe DRM-protected EPUB in the txtr iPhone app users. Even though it seems not to work for non-German users I made a complete translation of the original German post by Birte (txtr staff) in the official txtr blog which gives the instructions – maybe it’s of some use to you if you somehow happen to get this German authentication (use at your own risk!):

Here the promised instructions on how to read EPUBs on your iPhone that not have been purchased from the txtr Store

If you buy a DRM protected EPUB not at txtr Store but elswhere (e.g. libreka.de) you will get a file with the extension “.acsm”. This file type is not yet supported by txtr.com which means that you won’t be able to get the eBook into your txtr iPhone app. But there exists a workaround:

1) To trigger the DRM activation of your iPhone, you need to buy a book from txtr Store. If you don’t want to spend much money on the activation, you coul buy this one for example
http://txtr.com/text/bsycz9
1,25 € (1,85 $) really won’t make you poor

2) Now download the EPUB on your iPhone. The iPhone will then ask you for your Adobe ID — if you already got one, you can use it here, else you will have to create a new one at Adobe. As soon as the EBPUB works you purchased at our store, all other EPUBs that are connected to the same Adobe ID will work. That was the trick. It is important that you use the same Adobe ID for your Adobe Digital Editions installation on your desktop and our iPhone App. Anyone who has not activated his Digital Editions on the first start will have to reinstall it and activate it using a valid Adobe ID!

3) Now simply open the non-txtr .acsm file (that’s what we want in the end) in Adobe Digital Editions on your desktop computer (in Adobe slang that’s called “fullfilling”)

4) Digital Editions will now create a EPUB file in the local file system. On a mac you will find this in ~/Documents/Digital Editions/ — the home folder of the user. There you will find a (DRM-protected) EPUB which you can upload to txtr.com.

5) On txtr.com you won’t be able to read it – as it is encrypted and our servers therefore are not able to open it.

6) But you can download it to your iPhone — if everything worked fine you should now be able to read it there.

This is really annoying, but all this DRM stuff really is complicated and one should excuse us that we have ensured an easy use for our own shop first. One of the next versions of txtr.com will support the direct upload of non-txtr .acsm files and then make everything a lot easier.

As I don’t own an iPhone or iPod touch I can’t test this workaround even here in Germany – Johannes from lesen.net has proven that it works, though. Good luck trying around – but at your own risk.
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