WHSmith withdrawing access to Mobipocket and Reader ebooks

[Storm27]

My appologies if someone has already posted this but if you have ever bought mobipocket or MSreader books from WHSmith then you will permamently lose access to them next week as part of their site move.

I've had no email from them about this (unless it was deleted as spam) and only found the following on their site by accident.

If you have Mobipocket or Microsoft Reader eBooks in your Bookshelf please download and archive these eBooks by 22nd September as from then on they will no longer be available to access

The bit about 22 September is new - over the weekend it said 15 September, in which case it would have been up less than a week when the books went down.

Of course archiving copies of DRM Mobipocket books isn't actually very helpful if you ever plan to buy a new computer or reader.

I feel mildly annoyed as I bought quite a lot from them during their recent sale and 5 or 6 books were in mobi format (plus a few older purchases too). I am quite careful about always having multiple copies of everything I buy anyway, but I would certainly have gone for epub only if I had known this would happen less than two weeks later.

[fjf]

That only teaches us not to purchase DRMed ebooks. The sellers are the best advertisers of piracy. Shame on them!.

[HarryT]

No, it teaches us to remove DRM from books as soon as we buy them. You never know what the future will bring.

[poohbear_nc]

Can this be the wave of the future? One store/retailer only selling/supporting one format?
Not good!

[geertm]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Can this be the wave of the future? One store/retailer only selling/supporting one format?
Not good!

Amazon has killed the Mobipocket format here in Europe by not allowing Mobipocket DRM and Epub DRM together on a reader. As most European bookstores just sell the Epub format readers have to support that one. Because of this readers. that used to support Mobipocket DRM have all switched to Epub DRM. This means that there is not much demand for Mobipocket format anymore.

[Pookeysgirl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it teaches us to remove DRM from books as soon as we buy them. You never know what the future will bring.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it teaches us to remove DRM from books as soon as we buy them. You never know what the future will bring.

I second that

[SensualPoet]

The writing is on the wall: three formats -- Adobe DRM for ePub/PDF; Amazon DRM for azw (a format formerly known as mobi); and non-DRM publications. Any other DRM formats should be allowed to die gracefully. Ideally, WHSmith (and other vendors in the same situation) will keep the abandoned titles in your account file and allow you to download a DRM ePub version, if available from the same original publisher. Even better: an upload/download tool which would allow you to send your old DRM files to WHSmith and they automatically convert and download back to you as DRM ePub.

[arcadata]

Oh, that's a pain. At least, when the Sony ebook store changed formats, they allowed you re-download the old books you purchased in the ePub format. I appreciated that.

[astra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it teaches us to remove DRM from books as soon as we buy them. You never know what the future will bring.

Am I dreaming?
Astra!

I think I am awake...

I never though I am going to live to hear this from You!

[omk3]

I got the email from WHSmith. What I found even more disconcerting is this:

If your credit card billing address(es) is outside the UK we're afraid we will not be able to sell you eBooks from WHSmith.co.uk/eBooks. This is due to taxation and contractual issues. We hope to serve you again in the future.

So no publishers' geographic restrictions any more. The bookstore itself is placing stricter restrictions. With Waterstones' service having left me unimpressed, to say the least, and WHSmith refusing to sell to me anymore, I do wonder where I will get my ebooks from now on...

[lene1949]

Originally Posted by omk3

I got the email from WHSmith. What I found even more disconcerting is this:

So no publishers' geographic restrictions any more. The bookstore itself is placing stricter restrictions. With Waterstones' service having left me unimpressed, to say the least, and WHSmith refusing to sell to me anymore, I do wonder where I will get my ebooks from now on...

Yep... I just tried to order some books by Wilbur Smith, I'm missing... no go... I was happy to pay tax to the English Government, if I could only get the ebooks.

[geertm]

Originally Posted by omk3

I got the email from WHSmith. What I found even more disconcerting is this:

So no publishers' geographic restrictions any more. The bookstore itself is placing stricter restrictions. With Waterstones' service having left me unimpressed, to say the least, and WHSmith refusing to sell to me anymore, I do wonder where I will get my ebooks from now on...

Last saturday I was able to buy books from the new WH Smith store by registering my account with an UK address, and using that same address as billing address for my Dutch credit card. At that time the billing address was not verified with the credit card company, and this worked fine.
I do not know if this still works, but you could give it a try.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by astra

Am I dreaming?
Astra!

I think I am awake...

I never though I am going to live to hear this from You!

I really don't know why you are surprised. I am vehemently opposed to illegal downloading of ebooks, but I have nothing at all against removing DRM from the books that you have legitimately bought; it's common sense to do so.

[omk3]

Originally Posted by geertm

Last saturday I was able to buy books from the new WH Smith store by registering my account with an UK address, and using that same address as billing address for my Dutch credit card. At that time the billing address was not verified with the credit card company, and this worked fine.
I do not know if this still works, but you could give it a try.

I will try, and I do in fact have a legitimate UK address (though not a UK billing address), but I hate having to resort to duplicity, however inconsequential, for such a simple transaction as buying books. Does anyone know what those "taxation and contractual issues" are supposed to be? Will all UK ebook stores be enforcing this?

In the time of paper books, one could buy books from abroad no problem. In the time of digital products, will we have to only read local produce? That's beyond ridiculous...