Classic The nook is bad for eBooks

[JSWolf]

Because B&N has decided to have their own DRM for ePub, they are taking what was to be a standard format for eBooks with DRM and making it an absolute mess. We don't need or want this mess. And to be honest, all the people who have bought the nook or have one on order are helping B&N to make this mess. Everyone with a nook or an order for one needs to return the nook or cancel the order. Also tell B&N you won't have anything to do with them until they do away with social DRM on ePub. We need to hit B&N in the wallet in order to try to get rid of this new DRM. We don't need it, we don't want it and B&N needs to be told we won't stand for it. Do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?

[jaxx6166]

What's with their DRM?

Maybe I haven't been as good a boyscout as I'd like to have been over the past week or two. Isn't ePub ePub?

[gulo]

DRM is bad. period. doesn't matter who's doing it. Nobody will brain will pay almost the same price for ebook as they would pay for paper book when they know it will not work just few years from now due to DRM changes....

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

What's with their DRM?

Maybe I haven't been as good a boyscout as I'd like to have been over the past week or two. Isn't ePub ePub?

B&N is selling ePub that will not work with any reader other than a nook. They've adapted the eReader DRm for use with ePub and now ePub has two different DRM schemes.

[jaxx6166]

Well... ... that makes sense.

Take a perfectly good, functioning system and pervert it.

So much for an "open format." Have the new Sony ePubs been able to work with B/N? Wouldn't that be a swift kick in the pants if they did.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Well... ... that makes sense.

Take a perfectly good, functioning system and pervert it.

So much for an "open format." Have the new Sony ePubs been able to work with B/N? Wouldn't that be a swift kick in the pants if they did.

The nook will handle the original ePub DRM and the new "social" DRM. It's the only reader that will handle both. So you can purchase ePub from Sony and use it on the nook. But you cannot purchase ePub from B&N and use it on a Sony.

[Trubu]

It's not B&N's "own" DRM for ePub - any ADE licensee will be able to use it, as I understand.

It's the same DRM concept that's been in use for years for Peanut Press/Palm Reader/eReader and it's a lot less onerous to the consumer than almost any other DRM format we could be saddled with. Current implementations of ADE are fine when they work, but when they don't, they're opaque, consumer-unfriendly, and incredibly frustrating. Social DRM is much easier and friendlier - I can share books with anyone whom I'm comfortable giving my CC # to.

I don't really understand the hair-on-fire nature of your post (especially considering we've known about the additions to ADE's DRM for quite a while now).

[Trubu]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But you cannot purchase ePub from B&N and use it on a Sony.

You can't yet, but there's nothing stopping Sony from issuing a firmware update to enable the new DRM.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Trubu

It's not B&N's "own" DRM for ePub - any ADE licensee will be able to use it, as I understand.

It's the same DRM concept that's been in use for years for Peanut Press/Palm Reader/eReader and it's a lot less onerous to the consumer than almost any other DRM format we could be saddled with. Current implementations of ADE are fine when they work, but when they don't, they're opaque, consumer-unfriendly, and incredibly frustrating. Social DRM is much easier and friendlier - I can share books with anyone whom I'm comfortable giving my CC # to.

I don't really understand the hair-on-fire nature of your post (especially considering we've known about the additions to ADE's DRM for quite a while now).

Yes, we know of them. But most people don't. And B&N are selling ePub without telling you so. And they are using this new DRM without telling you so. So, if you go to B&N and get a sample and see that it's ePub, you might think, great B&N are supporting ePub and buy the book only to find out it's useless to you because the reader you own doesn't support this DRM. And from what we know, the SDK for this new DRM is not even available until sometime 2010 and then it'll take time for the companies to implement it if they even are. So for right now, B&N is just making a mess of things that used to work.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Trubu

You can't yet, but there's nothing stopping Sony from issuing a firmware update to enable the new DRM.

Yes there is. No SDK until sometime 2010 and even then, we don't know how long it would take to implement.

[jaxx6166]

That bothers me.

And I've been an iTunes sheep for years and years and years.

And as of late I'm a lemming for Amazon by repurchasing some of my Sony LRX's for my Kindle as I migrate away from it (Sony)

But this was my stupidity prior to finding out that Sony was killing the LRX format and going for "open" ePub. Hopefully everyone else will get the same SDK so we all can play nice with each other again.

I'm getting tired of bashing my credit card against my head...and I was so looking forward to the Nook too.

[Trubu]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So, if you go to B&N and get a sample and see that it's ePub, you might think, great B&N are supporting ePub and buy the book only to find out it's useless to you because the reader you own doesn't support this DRM.

Someone who's smart enough to figure out that a sample is in epub is probably also smart enough to double-check that their device is supported before they buy the full book. And aren't the samples wrapped in the same DRM anyway?

Sorry, I just don't see the issue. Yeah, it might be annoying to people who own older devices that they won't have access to the B&N catalog while nook owners can pick and choose from a variety of stores - but they didn't have access to the B&N catalog before, so what are they really out? I really don't buy the scenario that this is going to lead to mass confusion.

Going forward, B&N switching to epub will be a good thing - the more sellers who standardize on epub, the better.

[Lilly]

Originally Posted by Trubu

Someone who's smart enough to figure out that a sample is in epub is probably also smart enough to double-check that their device is supported before they buy the full book. And aren't the samples wrapped in the same DRM anyway?

Sorry, I just don't see the issue. Yeah, it might be annoying to people who own older devices that they won't have access to the B&N catalog while nook owners can pick and choose from a variety of stores - but they didn't have access to the B&N catalog before, so what are they really out? I really don't buy the scenario that this is going to lead to mass confusion.

Going forward, B&N switching to epub will be a good thing - the more sellers who standardize on epub, the better.

It is a big deal, it might not be now but believe later it will. Learn from jaxx6166 and me who use to buy from the Sony store. I bought my Sony reader in December of 2007 and February of 2009 I bought a Kindle 2. I could not read them on my K2 and the LRX Sony format has not been cracked. At least I did not have to repurchase my books since I still have my Sony PRS-505 like jaxx6166 did. But if you buy books from B&N and that new DRM scheme is not crackable, you will not be able to move your books to another ebook reader say 18 months down the line if you choose so. I have not bought anything from Sony since October 2008, after I learned better but I already amassed quite a few books since I owned the PRS-505 since December of 2007 and purchased 100% of my books from Sony the 1st 6 months. I've been enjoying liberating my books since Sony moved from LRX and I'm back purchasing from them; in fact I made my 1st purchase in over a year yesterday!

[Diedrupo]

Give me a break. this DRM is a non-issue, because like others pointed out, its a DRM standard, not a B&N only standard. Besides, the majority of people who are going to buy an ebook from B&N intend to use it on their Nook or B&N eReader software, and not a 3rd party reader like the Sony, so big deal?

How is this any different than legal digital downloads in other media? Movies, video games, music, etc. they all have some kind of DRM that makes them exclusive to the hardware you purchase them for.

If you want free ebooks you know how to find them. But trying to demand that B&N only sell open ebooks on its store is silly.

[Ema]

Buying the nook does not mean supporting DRM; buying the DRM'ed content will mean supporting DRM. Buy the nook if you want it, but don't buy the DRM'ed books.