Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
DRM-protected ePub such as this is no more portable than any other format. Less so at the moment, in fact; to the best of my knowledge, the Sony PRS-505 is the only eBook Reader which can read it.
That's the problem - you take an open standard like ePub and add to it the ability for anyone to add to it whatever custom DRM they want. The end result is inevitably a confusing mess of mutually-incompatible eBooks. If company "A" and company "B" each add their own DRM, inevitable some devices will be able to read company A's books, other devices will be able to read company B's books, and the poor consumer gets stuck with a mess.
That's why I'm still rather skeptical about the idea of ePub as an "end-user" format. I just don't see it as a solution to the "e-Babel" situation at all.
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ePub is not THE solution to eBabel, but it is part of the solution. Even if company A and B used ePub with different DRM, it would mean that if someone cracked those DRMs, the DRM-less file would work on both devices. Or if I decided to publish my own book in ePub without DRM, it would be compatible with both devices.
Another important aspect is that ePub is more standard than other formats, therefore it is much easier to create ePub files with existing tools, unlike formats such as LRF or Mobipocket where you need new tools to produce them.
Thanks to CSS support, SVG and various other features, ePub is also more powerful than the current crop of formats. It'll be much easier to create a good looking book using ePub as a source for these formats, than the other way around.