Rant: Kobo, B&N, disappearing downloads, and backlit devices

[Genre fan]

I just had the same frustrating problem as several other annoyed Kobo customers lately: unable to download a book because there is no download option once the book is in My Library (see several other recent threads about this problem). Since the Sony Reader store closed about 8 months ago, I've purchased about 70 books from Kobo without having encountered the Kobo kepub DRM nightmare. For 2 of the books that I bought less than 24 hours ago, there was no download option once the books were in my library. I contacted Kobo after signing out and signing back in again (as stated in the FAQs as the solution to such a problem), got a ticket number and an email telling me that I had to call Kobo to deal with it.

So this afternoon I called Kobo at the number they gave me in the email and in the webpage response to my "contact us" query. As I called and waited on hold, I logged on to my account via my computer browser to see if an option for downloading the book had magically appeared --- and found that the Price Had Dropped $4 overnight!! for one of the books (Michael Connelly's The Burning Room --- and still no download option for any of the affected books.

Then I have to deal with the guy telling me that I should have known (HOW was I supposed to know this???) that I can only get books for my Sony e-reader if the details page has a logo showing that the book can be read on Blackberry devices, and hey, no trouble, I can just read it on my computer with the Kobo app (while trying to instruct me in downloading the silly program that I already have and hate as much as I hated the Sony reader app). Not only that, the customer rep also insists that I have to send him a screenshot to prove that the website now says the price for the book I bought 12 hours ago is $10.99 instead of $14.99 so I can get credit (not a refund?) for the $4 plus tax that I was (over)charged yesterday. By the end of the phone call, he hadn't received my response email with the screenshot, he insisted that I should use the Kobo app to open the book to see if I could use it, I still had neither of the books, no download options, and no money back.

Grrrrrr! The whole point of having an e-reader is ease-of-portability and for my eyes not to be tortured by backlighting! The last thing I want to do is try to read an entire book on my computer! A short story, I can deal with, but I don't like it. A whole book? I don't care if the book works in their stupid app! I don't care if the book works on an iPhone, iPad or android device! I don't want to read books on backlit devices!!! I want to read them on my e-ink readers that I've used every single day for the last several years! I want to download my books so that I can back them up and never lose them! I want to actually own the copy of the books I've purchased!

I looked at all the other 700+ books that I purchased from Sony and Kobo and found that there is one other book that I bought from Sony without a download option. Fortunately, I have that one backed up on my computer and my 2 e-readers. But still...

I hate that the technology has changed enough that the e-book stores are moving to wireless-only and cloud-storage interaction rather than download and side-loading. It looks like they're working even harder to make sure that the books will only work with their proprietary devices. My perfectly wonderful Sony Daily Edition prs-950 and Pocket Edition prs-350 can't work with any of the vendors if they all eliminate the download options (as B&N just did; thankfully I only had 6 books and 1 magazine there). Who cares if the books are still in my account library, supposedly forever, if I can't use them?

What is all this Cr@p of moving to all backlit devices anyway? Arghh!!! Am I the only one left in the world who doesn't want to spend my time looking at a backlit screen? I read about 1 book per day, buy about 300 books per year or more, plus I read library books, of which about 2 per month are downloaded ebooks. I am a Really Good Customer and will continue to be one if they will just quit with the restrictive tagging and code wrapping. I started buying ebooks because the ~10,000 books I have in paper have filled up my house and I have no more room. My husband was agitating to get rid of the physical books, but now I can't possibly see that as an option unless I go blind or we have no choice because they are destroyed by fire or flood.

Another rant: if the books I want to read were all actually available from the public library, I wouldn't need to collect them in the first place! I like to read series of my favorite authors over and over, mostly genre books. I like to read all of the books in order, not numbers 2, 3, 7, 10, and 11 that are the only ones of a 13 book series that the local library has purchased. What good is it to have any of the books if you can't get the remainder of the series to get the whole story? It's even worse with ebooks because the library has fewer of them.

sigh. And I know the batteries in my beloved e-readers are going to die sooner than I'd like, which will force me to deal with getting a new device and the only options available to me in the USA are readers that are locked into a particular vendor.

For those helpful folks who are going to suggest that I use certain not-to-be-named DRM-manipulating applications to import the files from the Kobo app library folder to calibre: I have a Mac and see no way to use the plug-in that was suggested (and deleted from) several other posts in various threads. I've spent the entire evening trying to figure out how to do it and I have no answer yet.
Any Mac users out there with a solution?

[meeera]

I have a Mac, in case you're interested - and yep, the third-party plugin for Calibre works on my computer and allows me to then manipulate a kepub file from Kobo into a standard epub. You do need to download the book to your Kobo Desktop app first. However it is not the 'standard' Calibre plugin, it is an additional one, which again shall not be named but is kobo backwards. And I'm pretty sure that's all I can say publicly about that.

[crich70]

Yep. In depth talk about DRM is a taboo subject on the MR boards.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Genre fan

I hate that the technology has changed enough that the e-book stores are moving to wireless-only and cloud-storage interaction rather than download and side-loading. It looks like they're working even harder to make sure that the books will only work with their proprietary devices. My perfectly wonderful Sony Daily Edition prs-950 and Pocket Edition prs-350 can't work with any of the vendors if they all eliminate the download options (as B&N just did; thankfully I only had 6 books and 1 magazine there). Who cares if the books are still in my account library, supposedly forever, if I can't use them?

Some Kobo books don't have an epub download option, but I don't think this is a sign that Kobo is moving to do away with the epub download option. My reason for optimism is that they are rolling out a new online preview feature, and it only works with books that do have an epub download option. I don't think they would be investing the time to develop a new feature that only works with the type of books they intend to stop selling.

The cause of the lack of epub download option seems to be that some publishers are starting to supply new ebooks in epub3 format, even when they don't employ any epub3 features, and Kobo has never provided an epub download option for epub3 books for some unknown reason.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Genre fan

I still had neither of the books, no download options, and no money back.

The magic word is "chargeback." Try it some time, and see how cooperative they get. Credit card companies don't like merchants who get a lot of transactions challenged for fraud. They cancel merchant accounts over that.

Mind you, they'll probably never take your credit card again after that, but if enough people do that, they'll either learn, or go deservedly out of business.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by taustin

The magic word is "chargeback." Try it some time, and see how cooperative they get. Credit card companies don't like merchants who get a lot of transactions challenged for fraud. They cancel merchant accounts over that.

Mind you, they'll probably never take your credit card again after that, but if enough people do that, they'll either learn, or go deservedly out of business.

I have to agree, if you do not get any satisfaction from Kobo, contact your credit card company and ask them to refund your money. It may can take up to 60 days to receive it because Kobo will have 30 days from receipt of the notice to produce any documents in the matter.
Apache

[John F]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

...

The cause of the lack of epub download option seems to be that some publishers are starting to supply new ebooks in epub3 format, even when they don't employ any epub3 features, and Kobo has never provided an epub download option for epub3 books for some unknown reason.

This seems like a rather weak excuse/reason by Kobo. B&N gets a epub(2) don't they? Doesn't Google Books get an EPub(2)? The libraries get an epub(2) don't they? (I just got The Burning Room from the library).

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by John F

This seems like a rather weak excuse/reason by Kobo. B&N gets a epub(2) don't they? Doesn't Google Books get an EPub(2)? The libraries get an epub(2) don't they? (I just got The Burning Room from the library).

It isn't an excuse, Kobo haven't offered it as a reason that I know of, I'm just saying that that seems to be the cause for some books having a download option and others not. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say there is a correlation between the book being in epub3 format and there not being an epub download option.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by John F

This seems like a rather weak excuse/reason by Kobo. B&N gets a epub(2) don't they? Doesn't Google Books get an EPub(2)? The libraries get an epub(2) don't they? (I just got The Burning Room from the library).

I'm not buying the "publisher only supplies it in epub3" excuse (as the only reason) either. Even though I have occasionally received epub3 books from B&N, the fact that Google and others usually have the same book in epub2 format implies that the publisher is prepared to supply either epub2 or epub3. I believe that epub3 is only an ancillary effect of the real purpose for kepub-only Kobo books.

The publishers (and sometimes the authors) are under the impression that the device-specific DRM provided by kepub-only ebooks provides "more security" than the standard user-specific, ADEPT, side-loadable DRM scheme does. They've (publishers/authors) discovered that they can force this "extra security" by only providing Kobo with an epub3 of their product.

Although with Amazon's Kindlegen/KDP process being perfectly capable of accepting epub3s as input and Kobo and B&N both being able accept epub3 submissions (iBooks has had ePub3 for a long time), I can foresee a point where no one's going to bother preparing two or three different submission formats for their ebooks. Unfortunately, it seems that rather than being used to "improve" the reader experience with its expanded feature set/functionality, ePub3 is mainly going to be used to lock readers into a vendor's proprietary ebook format/DRM-scheme that's been based upon it.

[crossi]

Don't buy any more books from Kobo. Just buy from Amazon and convert. I wouldn't buy from any vendor that treated me that way. Amazon at least doesn't argue about refunds and returns for the few times they can't fix the download. And get your money back from the credit card company.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by crossi

Don't buy any more books from Kobo. Just buy from Amazon and convert. I wouldn't buy from any vendor that treated me that way. Amazon at least doesn't argue about refunds and returns for the few times they can't fix the download.

On the other hand, Kobo sometimes has discount codes that make books much cheaper than Amazon, and it is much easier to "travel" at a whim with Kobo when there are geo-restricted books. The new plugin makes it trivial to convert, so what's left as a reason to switch is only principle, not any practical individual reason.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

...

The publishers (and sometimes the authors) are under the impression that the device-specific DRM provided by kepub-only ebooks provides "more security" than the standard user-specific, ADEPT, side-loadable DRM scheme does. They've (publishers/authors) discovered that they can force this "extra security" by only providing Kobo with an epub3 of their product.
...

By using their own DRM, and not providing an ePub download (protected with more 'portable' Adobe DRM), Kobo (or indirectly, the publisher) avoids having to pay royalties to Adobe. Same reason B&N stopped letting people download ePub (except in apps they have not yet updated), and why Nook devices always used a hidden partition for wireless downloads. It's about maximizing profit, and reducing costs associated with customer support. 'Download' option is going to result in customer support calls as well as royalties, given the relative complexity DRM introduces.

If there's a correlation with ePub3, it may be just because they apply this policy going forward with new ebooks and grandfather ePub download for books purchased earlier.

Of course none of this has anything to do with customer preferences or convenience or their 'security'.

As most people probably never bother to stray outside the boundaries of the walled gardens (or just travel between them to visit their various 'libraries'), this is unlikely to have many implications for ebook adoption rates, or the adoption of ePub3 (whatever that means when nobody has access to a 'file'). But for people with a more 'traditional' approach to building a personal library by collecting books or files thereof, it is a disaster in the making.

As long as publishers/authors insist on DRM, perhaps what is needed is some sort of independent brokerage where customer purchases would be automatically registered, and thereafter the content could be accessed from whatever (participating) ecosystem they wanted to use, without having to purchase them again or touch a DRM infested file. The ecosystems would not necessarily even need to sell ebooks but could offer services (reading apps and devices as well as cloud services) on subscription or ad-supported basis.

But I see no signs that publishers or retailers are interested in solving these kinds of issues, or at least the cooperation that would involve is impossible to achieve. Obviously the simplest solution for everyone would be to abandon DRM.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by tomsem

By using their own DRM, and not providing an ePub download (protected with more 'portable' Adobe DRM), Kobo (or indirectly, the publisher) avoids having to pay royalties to Adobe. Same reason B&N stopped letting people download ePub (except in apps they have not yet updated), and why Nook devices always used a hidden partition for wireless downloads. It's about maximizing profit, and reducing costs associated with customer support. 'Download' option is going to result in customer support calls as well as royalties, given the relative complexity DRM introduces.

If there's a correlation with ePub3, it may be just because they apply this policy going forward with new ebooks and grandfather ePub download for books purchased earlier.

Of course none of this has anything to do with customer preferences or convenience or their 'security'.

As most people probably never bother to stray outside the boundaries of the walled gardens (or just travel between them to visit their various 'libraries'), this is unlikely to have many implications for ebook adoption rates, or the adoption of ePub3 (whatever that means when nobody has access to a 'file'). But for people with a more 'traditional' approach to building a personal library by collecting books or files thereof, it is a disaster in the making.

As long as publishers/authors insist on DRM, perhaps what is needed is some sort of independent brokerage where customer purchases would be automatically registered, and thereafter the content could be accessed from whatever (participating) ecosystem they wanted to use, without having to purchase them again or touch a DRM infested file. The ecosystems would not necessarily even need to sell ebooks but could offer services (reading apps and devices as well as cloud services) on subscription or ad-supported basis.

But I see no signs that publishers or retailers are interested in solving these kinds of issues, or at least the cooperation that would involve is impossible to achieve. Obviously the simplest solution for everyone would be to abandon DRM.

B&N seems to think it was a security issue. Official B&N rep Alex Garcia(bold is mine):

Hi all,

Sorry for the confusion and any inconvenience this may cause. As you see by now, the ability to download from the NOOK® website and then sideload certain NOOK eBooks has been discontinued. This was done as part of a recent security update.

However, content that has previously been downloaded can continue to be sideloaded to NOOK devices. Also, you can continue to access all of your purchased content through the NOOK Library® on any NOOK device or Free NOOK Reading App™ as you've always been able to do.

Additionally, customers can also continue to sideload other supported file formats.

Hope this helps!

- Alex

https://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com...stream&ru=5054

[taustin]

Originally Posted by TimW

B&N seems to think it was a security issue.

No, they said it's a security issue. That is not evidence of what they think.

Also, they never said what they were trying to secure. It could be the ebooks, it could be their revenue stream. Or it could be their place in the Top Ten Stupid Ways To Go Out Of Business List.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Genre fan

What is all this Cr@p of moving to all backlit devices anyway? Arghh!!! Am I the only one left in the world who doesn't want to spend my time looking at a backlit screen?

I'm not defending Kobo. So far I've never bought anything from them as I really don't want to use (or haven't learned how to use) coupons and their prices aren't very competitive without them. I have, however, tried them out by downloading free books and have converted my small Sony library to Kobo. If it were me I would call Customer Service again and demand a refund for the books you can't read on you Sony Readers. The "check for Blackberry" thing is pure idiocy and I don't see why they would use that dodge, especially with an obviously good customer. Kobo took on Sony and Sony devices, they must specifically start indicating "yes" or "no" on Sony device support. Anything else is is just pure stupidity.

That said, there are still non-frontlit eReaders available. Kobo still sells the Touch and Amazon still sells their Kindle Basic. I know it's not the ideal situation, but for the cost of a few books, you could buy a used Kobo Touch to read the books that won't work on the Sony readers. It would also enable you to bypass the Kobo Desktop, and allow you to use Calibre and Uncle Alf to convert the books to standard ePub for your Sony readers.

And speaking of Sony readers, I think you can still find replacement batteries for your Sony Readers so, so as long as they're functional, you shouldn't have to say goodbye to them any time soon.

As other(s) have mentioned, you can also buy from Amazon and, using Calibre and Uncle Alf, convert to ePub for your Sony Readers. And there are some independent ePub sellers, plus (I think) Google has a big library of ePubs for sale. (I assume these can still be loaded on Sony Readers.)

First thing I would do is call Kobo back, demand a refund for the books that won't work -- and perhaps let them know how many books you've bought from them in the last few months. Then I would go to Google and see if the books were available in straight ePub DRM. But I would also look at my other options, especially the Calibre/Uncle Alf option. (It's fantastic to be able to read your book on whatever device you want to read it on.)