DRM confusion

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by astra

I agree with everything except the last sentence.
There was a moment when everybody thought that mobi is de facto and where it is at the moment? Amazon is leading as far as I can see. By distributing free applications for all sort of mobile gadgets they win the market, the majority. The majority have no clue/don't give a fig about compatibility, DRM etc. All they care is convenience. If you can get a book with a few clicks of a mouse start reading a book, then come, home switch on another device that will automatically synchronize with the other one where you started to read the book and open the book on the same page where you left off....it sounds like a dream.

P.S. I would go for it if it had Sony's h/w.

But if what you sync with Kindle eBooks happens to be the same eBook that someone else on your same Amazon account happens to be reading, you are well and truly screwed.

Back when people declared Mobipocket the winner, it wasn't. MS Reader still had a heavy market share back then. But ePub has basically killed MS Reader and Amazon has basically killed Mobipocket.

ePub is the format standing where MS Reader and Mobipocket once stood. As for eReader, it's dying and won't survive. Not many people care if it exists. Amazon is not going to win. One reason is PDF. A lot of people want better PDF support then you get on a Kindle. And to do that, they go to a different dedicated reader and that reader supports ePub.

Most of the devices that run the Kindle app also run an app to handle ePub. In fact, the Bluefire Reader app has just trumped the Kindle app big time and made library ePub work on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. So that's another one up for ePub. If you ignore ePub from Apple and B&N, you have more places to buy ePub, and more devices to display ePub. Outside the USA, the question is AZwhat? Outside the USA, ePub has won and Amazon isn't going to catch up. So when you look at things world wide, Amazon is not the winner. They are second place.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by suecsi

You can

It's called Kindle4PC, Kindle4Mac, KindleforIPhone, Kindle4Android and (in the US officially, but apparently it sorta works outside), Kindle4Blackberry

ADE for Windows/Macintosh, Bluefire Reader for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch and eventually Android as well. Not for Blackberry though.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

DRM is not stopping piracy, period. Large, medium, or small scale. DRM doesn't even hinder the weekend pirate.

The only thing DRM does is annoy honest people who don't understand why they can't move an ebook they purchased to any device they want.

DRM only hurts the customer who is not out to pirate eBooks. Those that do already can strip the DRM. So it's no hardship there. The publishers don't understand this. They are just too stupid to understand. Also, a lot of the pirates sending out eBooks don't actually read them all. They just collect them so they have a good collection to serve to their customers.

[Ken Maltby]

As someone who buys ebooks, just where are all these ebook Pirates selling collections
of ebooks? All I have ever seen are those misguided fools that are giving their scanning
efforts away. I haven't seen any of a competing Pirated ebook comercial market, I
don't see a profit being made by a comercial pirate operation. Without that, what is
there that would support a conserted effort to offer pirated ebooks, on a scale that
could have any real impact on legitimate sales?

Luck;
Ken

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HPOliver

Way back in 1949 ... RCA’s “microgroove” technology drastically improved sound quality, but you had buy an RCA phonograph to hear it.

It seems likely the same thing will happen in the world of e-books, just as it did with the video tape wars in the 1970s, which incidentally were won by a division of RCA (JVC). The best product and most effective marketing will eventually prevail. In the meantime, all you have to do is jump on the right bandwagon when you buy your next e-reader.

The reason RCA was able to take over was, in great part, the expense of making the records and the difficulty of making record-players that could play multiple types of discs.

Making different formats of ebooks is easy. Making software that reads different formats of ebooks is easy. There's no easy niche for a manufacturer to take over; Amazon manages by overwhelming popularity in the pbook market, but their unwillingness to allow even mobi DRM'd ebooks from other stores gets them flak from customers, and keeps them from being able to sell Kindles to people who've already bought ebooks from other stores.

There's not going to be a single ebook format or reader for the same reason that there's not a single type of bicycle. There are substantial differences in the formats, and no one bookstore or device manufacturer is in a position to force the others out of the marketplace.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by HPOliver

... So would a choice between multiple e-reader platforms be better than expanding our choices of superior e-readers? ...

I know very little about the software required to manipulate different formats, but I would be surprised if the firmware of some of the existing devices couldn't be changed. So, I don't see why different platforms shouldn't continue to exist in the marketplace, so long as they are capable of handling the predominant format. If superior e-readers were developed, then users could upgrade painlessly later, without losing out.