DRM experiment

[joblack]

Originally Posted by sanders

I don't even put the name on every page - just on the title page. I realize that this is really easy to strip out, but I don't want to engage in an "arms race" with pirates.

I have bought a lot of e-books in the past. Mainly DRM-free e-books. On the other side I strongly oppose any kind of personalization in my books For instance in some audiobooks there are hidden water marks.

I don´t buy them for that reason (I don´t send it elsewhere). The same is with my name in the book.

I want an original book (that looks like the original 'offline book' and not some book with my personal information in it).

So I almost bought your e-book. But as I don´t like some defacement of an 'offline-book' and I don´t like messing around with the e-book version.

Despite that it´s okay to try new ways.

[sanders]

A PDF with three sample chapters is now online, so you can verify whether this layout works for 6" devices. The sample contains the title page, with registration to a hypothetical user called "Sample Excerpt". That way, you can also decide whether this constitutes a "defacement" of the book.

[Ramen]

First off, I'm very pleased that you took the time for proper ebook-reader formatting. The mobi version of Linux Kernel Development is horrible.

However, as others have stated, I would never buy a book with current social DRM ideas. From a privacy perspective, all of the schemes I've seen are pretty much horrible.

I'm a paying customer, I do not wish to be treated as a criminal (especially since it's a civil offense). Same argument goes to movie DVDs with the non-skipable logos, intros, pirates-are-as-bad-as-pedophiles clips, etc

[Halk]

Hmm. I've got the sample on my Cybook now, and it's quite readable at "fit page" which puts it to 171% zoom, however the very edges aren't. Anyone know if I can decrease the zoom by 10% or so?

If I switch it to landscape (this reduces the zoom to 140%) it's still readable. So the size of the text isn't too much of an issue, it's just when it's almost touching the edge of the screen.

I've never edited a PDF, perhaps it's possible to stick a margin in? If that's the case then it should be pretty simple for me to stick a margin in after I've bought the book.

[Halk]

Originally Posted by Ramen

I'm a paying customer, I do not wish to be treated as a criminal (especially since it's a civil offense). Same argument goes to movie DVDs with the non-skipable logos, intros, pirates-are-as-bad-as-pedophiles clips, etc

For me they're entirely different things.

I can't think of any reason why someone else would ever see the file, and as long as it just contains my name, or a serial number or something along those lines (i.e. not my credit card details) then I'm fine with it.

I detest the unskippable adverts at the start of DVDs, regardless if they're telling me that pirates eat babies, or here's our latest blockbuster.

[Ramen]

Originally Posted by Halk

I can't think of any reason why someone else would ever see the file, and as long as it just contains my name, or a serial number or something along those lines (i.e. not my credit card details) then I'm fine with it.

For seeing a file: Joe Average's computer security is... bad. A simple and very common problem.

For the actual info: We are talking about social DRM. This means you embed significant personal information in a clearly visible way. Serials and the like aren't really different from normal DRM, other than the keys/serials being centrally stored/processed/associated.

[sanders]

Originally Posted by Halk

Hmm. I've got the sample on my Cybook now, and it's quite readable at "fit page" which puts it to 171% zoom, however the very edges aren't. Anyone know if I can decrease the zoom by 10% or so?

If I switch it to landscape (this reduces the zoom to 140%) it's still readable. So the size of the text isn't too much of an issue, it's just when it's almost touching the edge of the screen.

I've never edited a PDF, perhaps it's possible to stick a margin in? If that's the case then it should be pretty simple for me to stick a margin in after I've bought the book.

I can reformat the book with slightly larger margins, but that will take a while (I'll have to check all the page breaks). I wonder why the Cybook says it needs to zoom, though. I would expect it to shrink to fit the page, seeing as the page should be about 33% too big for its 6" screen size...

[Halk]

Hmm, no I wouldn't do that. I'd just stick a left and right margin on, making the page larger. That'll mean blank space all around the page on the Cybook since it'll have to zoom out a little. I'd have thought I could do it myself if I had a PDF editor. I have no idea why it's saying 171% zoom though, I'd have expected 70% zoom.

[=X=]

Hi Sanders,
Personally I really like the social DRM idea. It's a great compromise between both parties (Publisher/Author and Consumer) as it gives the consumer the freedom to read this product on any of their given devices PC/eReaderX and the Publisher peace of mind the consumer will not blatantly distribute their IP out on the net. So long as the data is not sensitive material this should not get too many complaints from your consumers.


As for the format of the book it looks great on the SONY reader (PRS-505). The fonts are nice and small (8pts) and the format looks great. I really like the fact that you did not put much of a border. The one slight issue is the font color because this book is a PDF the fonts tend to be more gray thank black, except where you used bold and titles. This makes the book hard on the eyes

I wish you success in this pilot program and I would certainly buy books using this DRM over any existing DRM employed today.


=X=

[sanders]

I have reformatted the book with slightly larger margins. The sample PDF is also updated to reflect these changes.

Regarding the "grayness" of the text: This is unfortunately beyond my control, as this is caused by your particular PDF renderer. I carefully picked the font of my book for it to look good on the so-so quality of print-on-demand (but was positively surprised), but it would be quite a job to pick a font which looks good on all PDF renderers at all zoom factors...

[JSWolf]

Larger margins? Can you undo that?

[sanders]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Larger margins? Can you undo that?

Why..? I went from 1mm to 2mm (on an 8" screen), to make sure that text didn't "disappear" into the frame of the reader when scaling down for a 6" screen. If your reader has some kind of "fit to bounding box of text", it would remove those margins anyway.

Do the larger margins really pose a problem for you?

Thanks,
Sander

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by sanders

I wonder why the Cybook says it needs to zoom, though. I would expect it to shrink to fit the page, seeing as the page should be about 33% too big for its 6" screen size...

I've checked that it seems the Cybook thinks it is like A4 size, while it is obviously not. I format my PDFs with a 9x12cm page size, which is almost exactly the real screen size of the Cybook; however, when I open them in the Cybook, at "fit page" zoom, the status bar says it's 235%, and 21/9=2.33=233% (21cm being the width of an A4 paper).