Quote:
Originally Posted by Phogg
The libraries world wide went with epub as a universal standard before the first Kindle was ever sold.
All limitations you have are from a private company that does not want its customers to have access to the universal format used by libraries. It is not the place of private corporations to try to make dictates to libraries.
I am fairly involved with our local library, and we have zero plans to ever shell out for some egotistical corporations private standard.
Some bigger libraries in some places might buy for Kindles, but not smaller libraries.
|
Fair enough, although I'm not that clear on the history of library decision making prior to eBooks (and I'm on the board of our local library friends).
Both ePub and mobipocket are open formats and easily interconvertible since they vary little and there is obviously freeware available for doing so. What
does vary are the DRM headers embedded into these open files. DRM of one kind or another is used by B&N, Borders (what's left of them), Books-A-Million, Amazon, iBooks and, yes, Overdrive. Amazon is just one of a very large crowd, not the only purveyor of DRM crippling. Shelling out for Overdrive's DRM scheme is no different than shelling out for individual corporate attempts to control the market. Mobipocket is a universal format and available from virtually all independent and freeware sources (i.e. Project Gutenberg, etc.). It's not a deep, dark secret.
I live in a small town with a good but cash-strapped library. We are incredibly fortunate to have had an anonymous donor pay for this year's Overdrive fees (several thousand U.S. dollars) but we still have hundreds of people who are unable to access eLending. For the average consumer, its only
after they purchase an eReader that they learn that what they bought won't work with many formats. I'm not necessarily defending Amazon here. It doesn't matter which eReader, they're all incompatible with much of the available eMaterial. Those of us who keep up have surveyed the pros and cons and made our choices, while others are dumbstruck after the fact. Some of us limit our purchases to available resources, others deal with the ethics of an end run.
Personally, I have chosen to put my money into two Kindles, having looked at the available options. I am also registered with most major vendors for eBook purchases. In the event one vendor cannot supply the book of my choice, I use another one, purchase the rights to read the book (or the pBook itself) and do what's necessary to be able to read it. Illegal is not always immoral or unethical.
