Quote:
Originally Posted by iandix
jocampo are you saying I can not buy books from Sony or Borders and about a hundred other places as well as borrow books from public libraries with a nook or nookcolor??
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What jocampo is saying is that you cannot read BN books on a Sony or a Kobo because BN uses its own DRM, just like Amazon.
I believe his point is that Amazon gets a bad rap for using a different ebook format and propriatary DRM and "locking" people into a specific stores when BN uses much the same practices. The BN DRM does not allow people to read BN on devices other then Nooks unless they strip the DRM, just like Amazon.
The short version, the format differences mean little to nothing since Amazon has the largest EBook store. People usings EPub devices seem to be shopping at Amazon and stripping the DRM since they can find the books they want there and not at their stores. The EPub bookstores still use DRM. BN uses a proprietary DRM that means that Sony and Kobo users cannot nativly read BN books on their devices. ie the Format wars are stupid and highly overrated. Get the device that you are most comfortable with, buy the books you like, and get over this supposed "huge" difference which really isn't huge.
The long version.
The Nook Color is a locked device to try and force people to buy from BN. An unlocked Nook Color would allow people to download android apps, like the Kindle App, or download and read books from Google. People have to choose to root their Nook Color in order to get the full benefit from the device.
Essentially, BN is using the same type of policies and procedures that Amazon uses but people are willing to overlook it because they use EPUB. A proprietary EPub that can only be read on BN devices unless the DRM is stripped, but EPUB.
And BN choose EPUB well after the Kindle was out and Amazon was dominating the US based ebook market. Why is this important to note? Because the Nook is not an international reader so it is unlikely that BN was looking to Europe and going "But they like EPUB" when making its formating decision. More likely, BN decided they didn't want their "open" device to use Mobi because they were afraid people would buy books from Amazon. The Kobo had yet to be released, so BN would not have known about that compitition, and the Sony bookstore has always been poor, so BN was not worried about that competition. Why not allow Nook users to shop at Sony? They could safely assume that most Nook users would shop at BN since the store was better.
And the ADE DRM is still a propritary DRM that is added to books bought from Sony and Kobo. To make matters worse, it is not owned and operated by those companies but by Adobe. From the little that I have read, support for ADE is poor, there have been issues with people having multiple devices on one account, and there have been issues with library books. So "YAY" for this great DRM scheme that has been technologically difficult for many folks to use and prevented some Sony n00 users from using the library.