Is "Universal DRM" coming?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by twobits

Mapped to ebooks, the kindle app would check the rights locker for the books, and once granted download the content it could use, and the nook would do likewise. You don't worry about conversions because the right to the material is mapped to the proper format for you.

You have no chance of Amazon giving up control. They won't go for this. No way. Apple won't go for it. Besides, I don't want to give up my control as well. If I find I don't like how an eBook is formatted, I can fix it to suit me. With this new system, I'll lose that control with some format that's worthless. Given how some eBooks need fixing because of how poorly they are made, I'm not going for this at all.

[twobits]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You have no chance of Amazon giving up control. They won't go for this. No way. Apple won't go for it. Besides, I don't want to give up my control as well. If I find I don't like how an eBook is formatted, I can fix it to suit me. With this new system, I'll lose that control with some format that's worthless. Given how some eBooks need fixing because of how poorly they are made, I'm not going for this at all.

Really it would need Adobe on board to make it work quickly and well enough with the existing ePub readers. At that point, it would seem to be a way to Sony, Nook, Books on Board, Kobo etc. to combine their mass to better against Amazon. Amazon would resist unless/until enough consumers considered device vendor lock out/in to be a bad thing. I doubt B&N would like it much either really. However both they and Amazon have committed to Ultraviolet already.

[cromag]

It's sounding more and more like someone is thinking of $10 worth of DRM to "protect" a $5 book.

Seriously, how expensive will this "universal" DRM be?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I think the only DRM on the market right now that hasn't been cracked is Apple's iBooks--and that's because iThings are a closed platform; you can't manipulate code and data on them. (And maybe I heard those had been cracked. I don't remember.)

With the appropriate tool and the right version of iTunes, the iBooks DRM can be removed. But for details, of course, you'll need to look elsewhere.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by cromag

It's sounding more and more like someone is thinking of $10 worth of DRM to "protect" a $5 book.

Seriously, how expensive will this "universal" DRM be?

It's astonishing how expensive Adobe's existing DRM scheme is. $0.22 per book sold! (plus capital cost of $10,000 and yearly maintenance cost of $1,500)

$0.22 on a $0.99 ebook or even on a $1.99 ebook is a hefty percentage.


DRM: Just say no.

[Skillganon]

Oh for a DRM free universe, not going to happen though.

[simplyparticular]

Thanks for everyone's thoughts - I haven't had a lot of time to follow the DRM stuff recently, but I didn't think I had missed that big of a change.

She's delusional, and what kills me is she's wasting grant money trying to sell us the beta to vaporware, and according to her, she's had 3 takers in our industry. Only 1 has turned her down (well, now 2, including us).

[Hellmark]

Universal DRM is laughable. Trying to get competing companies to share tech? Not likely. It isn't in their best interest. Like others have said, the closest we'll get is if one form of DRM completely crushes the competition and the others basically disappear, or if you count streaming. Streaming really is a bit of a misnomer, because they all use different forms of DRM, just the end user doesn't really notice.

And I don't think she's delusional, just really a salesperson. I work with them all day long at my job, and they will lie their ass off to make a sale. Anything that needs to be said to make sure the sale goes through will be said. I frequently see orders come in that promise delivery for product that we do not have in stock, and have to be shipped before we're even expecting to receive it (not to mention, all the work we have to do on it when it comes in).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Universal DRM is laughable. Trying to get competing companies to share tech?

The problems of that shrink into insignificance besides the practical problems of getting a single DRM standard adopted throughout the universe. Consider the difficulties of agreeing a standard with someone a billion lightyears away!

[PurpleStar]

Whatever happened to watermarking? JK Rowling had it right!

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

Whatever happened to watermarking? JK Rowling had it right!

Watermarking is out there.
Polish publishers use it and AFAIR some said Dutch too.

[TheSFReader]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Watermarking is out there.
Polish publishers use it and AFAIR some said Dutch too.

In France too, a great many small publishers (and a few middle ones) did switch to Watermarks.

Trouble is : None of the big retailers DO manage watermarks, and thus need to "upgrade" the ebook's protection to full encryption based DRM to be in compliance with the Publisher's expressed need of "copyright protection".

But most smaller e-retailers DO manage Watermarks, with success.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by simplyparticular

She's delusional, and what kills me is she's wasting grant money trying to sell us the beta to vaporware, and according to her, she's had 3 takers in our industry. Only 1 has turned her down (well, now 2, including us).

Or so she claims. Any bets on whether or not she'd give you their contact info as references? Cuz any (legitimate) business should be ready to give current customers as references.

[Jack Tingle]

I suspect it will eventually happen, probably about the time DRM-free books tend to dominate and the cost of DRM becomes too much to bother with. It will probably be when both major formats (Adobe & Amazon) successors (KF9 & EPUB4?) are getting ready for replacement. At that point, the publishers and vendors can do something like the cell-phone CDMA/GSM sunset with LTE as the replacement. One format/DRM to rule them all! But only after no one cares anymore. Call it 15-20 years from now.

Most people have too short a horizon on questions like this. Big systems move very slowly. CDMA was one of the first cell-phone multiplexing schemes. My 1-year-old phone still uses it. Since all of my phones have been New England Telephone, etc., all of them have been CDMA. That's 15 years.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I think the only DRM on the market right now that hasn't been cracked is Apple's iBooks--and that's because iThings are a closed platform; you can't manipulate code and data on them. (And maybe I heard those had been cracked. I don't remember.)

Apple's DRM has been cracked but it requires an older version of iTunes.