Quote:
Originally Posted by tommy still
Another problem I am not quite clear about is buying books with DRM, if I dont use the Mobipocket windows software for instance how do I download a protected book to a Mac ? I know about each device having its own unique ID number, can I enter this number on the website somewhere along the purchase path to allow the book to be read, or do I have to resort to Windows again ? After I have read the book will there be any problem in copying it back to the reader at a later date to re-read?
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The way secure MOBI works is that there can be up to 4 PIDs in the file. These are the devices that can read the file. So, you first register your PID with the seller of the e-book (type it into a web page) and then download the e-book. At this point you have an e-book file that will always be readable on your device. It is just a file, and can be handled like other files. The important point is that it has the appropriate PID in the file.
This means that the only time you have to interact with an e-book seller for your existing e-books is when you want to add a new device PID. If you do this, you have to download the files again for them to work on the new device. Note that with most sellers the new file will also work with the old PIDs, unless you go over the 4 device limit (some sites have a lower device limit). Once over the device limit there are extra hoops to jump through - but in any case if you keep the old files they will always work with the old devices.
The Windows MobiPocket Reader handles registering new device PIDs and re-downloading the files for you (at least for some sites). But this is simple to do manually - with the advantage that you can more easily make backup copies of the files in case you ever need to drop an old PID because of the number of devices limit (the archived files will still work on the dropped device).