Sharing an SD card

[ltr]

I'm still a bit confused about digital rights management and what it allows.

If I purchase a book from Kobo, and download the acsm file, and create the epub file (through ADE), then load that DRM protected epub file on an SD card, can I lend that card to someone else to read the book on their Kobo?

My daughter and I both own a Kobo. We both have our own computers and our own Kobo accounts in our separate homes, and I wonder if we are allowed to share books on an SD card, then return the card when finished? Just like we've done for years with paper books.

ltr

[taming]

Originally Posted by ltr

My daughter and I both own a Kobo. We both have our own computers and our own Kobo accounts in our separate homes, and I wonder if we are allowed to share books on an SD card, then return the card when finished? Just like we've done for years with paper books.
ltr

Sorta no, unless you only want access to your daughter's book/books for awhile. Adobe DRM "marks" your books with your ADE account information. On the Kobo, you can only have one ADE account active at a time. Content added using the original ADE account will be locked. So, for example, if I normally use my own account and then add a book my son obtained through his account, all of my own books will be locked and unreadable. Now, I can read my son's book, and then delete it, and I believe, all will be well, again. The account on the last book added to the reader controls what the reader will show as unlocked.

I have not tried this with an SD card, so one issue might be the dates on the files and which book is seen as "last" when you have main memory books and SD card books. Maybe someone else can comment on that part.

[zoran]

Originally Posted by ltr

If I purchase a book from Kobo, and download the acsm file, and create the epub file (through ADE), then load that DRM protected epub file on an SD card, can I lend that card to someone else to read the book on their Kobo?
ltr

I think you got the correct answer in a previous post. Just wonna
add that this kind of books should cost no more than $3-4, since
you cannot use them as people use books regularly. Common
sense fails to explain this situation, at least for me.

[taming]

One thing I am not clear on--and I should probably ask Adobe or Kobo about--is the relationship between the email address on the book site and the email address on the ADE account. I know that initially, my email account on the Sony bookstore was different from the one I used on Kobo and for my ADE account. I was not able to successfully add the books bought from Sony into that ADE for transfer onto Kobo. When I set up a second Sony account with the same email address I used for Kobo and ADE, all was well..

My husband and I use the same Kobo account and the same ADE account--we have no problems. I don't know if we had two different Kobo accounts--with two different email addresses--if we could share on ADE. I suspect the answer is that we could not. ADE attaches even when we download ePUB formatted books with Calibre, rather than ADE. I suspect that ADE incorporates the email address of the Kobo account (or into the Sony account) and builds it into the DRM in much the same way as B&N builds credit card info into its version of ADE.

Does anyone here know more about this? I'm reading about password based ADE and I am even more confused.

[ltr]

Originally Posted by zoran

Just wonna add that this kind of books should cost no more than $3-4, since you cannot use them as people use books regularly.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

I am aware of the standard limitations mentioned in all the excellent responses above, but specifically, the question was whether I could load an SD card with one of my Kobo purchased DRM epubs onto another persons e-reader that has no connection to my accounts.

As zoran states above, if not, then we have taken a step backward in the legacy use of paper books. Sharing a book has always been encouraged. Seems a shame the capability has been digitized out.

I fully support safeguards to protect the book industry against the destruction that has befallen the music industry, but it would be nice to lend a book to a family member after I've finished reading it. There must be some digital jiggery-pokey that can be devised to restrict the digital book being read by its owner until the loaned copy is returned?

Anyway, I was thinking of purchasing an SD card to try it, but before doing so I wanted to check this forum for someone who would tell me it won't work - why waste the money. I'm surprised I haven't elicited a single confirmed no.

ltr

[zoran]

Originally Posted by ltr

the question was whether I could load an SD card with one of my Kobo purchased DRM epubs onto another persons e-reader that has no connection to my accounts.

I think you could. Just don't sync or connect to computer.

[taming]

And don't expect to use both the borrowed SD card and your own ADE account books at the same time.

[ltr]

And don't expect to use both the borrowed SD card and your own ADE account books at the same time

Well, I guess you can only read one thing at a time, so removing the SD card would facilitate using your reader normally when you weren't reading the borrowed SD book?

ltr

[taming]

This is where my lack of knowledge becomes (even more) apparent--ADE seems to consider the last book (by date and time I think) loaded sorta kinda primary in terms of what ADE account will work at any given time. If you have an SD card of books bought in, say, September and you have an October book on your Kobo, then the SD account books may be locked out until later books are no longer there.

Test it and see! You won't harm your Kobo reader and you will advance the knowledge of Kobo users all over the world.

[ltr]

Test it and see!

I suppose I'll have to as no one else seems to have tried it. I hesitate to waste money on a memory card that I have no other use for, so I will likely wait until we both run out of the books we have in our own libraries first.

That may be a while since this is a new toy for both of us. I've purchased several books, plus the two free books for pre-order, and the classics. She's likely bought a few books since I gave her the Kobo too. This is just something I thought about yesterday as a way to share some of our books as we've always done

ltr

[taming]

Well, it's a DRM thing, so if there was an easy work-a-round I would be sorta surprised. The goal is to make sure that books are read by only those who have paid for them. Book lending--now that Amazon wants it, may become easier and less, urmmm, problematic over time--Publishers will ultimately be the big players in that step of development.

As for the date thing, the date that may be most important could be the date the books interact with the Db, in which case the file dates would not matter.

[dmacmart]

I would guess that files on an inserted SD card would be the same as ePub files on the Kobo virtual drive. I would expect the decryption mechanism would prevent reading them. But no I haven't tried it.