MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - DRM: The bigger they are, the harder they fall

rmeister0 · 01-24-2006, 09:37 AM

I don't know about you guys, but I have some credit cards I've had for decades.

I put the question to you: how to you tie a drm scheme to somebody, as opposed to something somebody has?

I guarantee nobody is giving out their credit card numbers to their friends.

eReader has wide support across OS X, Windows, PPC and Palm. IIRC only Mobipocket has similar across the board reach with secured content.

Yes, the big danger is the Gemstar scenario where eReader goes out of business. But because of how the drm model works your content will continue to work on new Palm, PPC and Windows/Mac computers, whereas under Gemstar moving your content to new devices was not possible because you needed a server to authorize you.

I suspect that if eReader did go under, we'd see a hack around the encryption to move content off. There won't be anyone around to sue you.

But more to the point, I don't buy ebooks for permenance. I buy them for convenience and typically don't keep them. If I want to keep something, I buy a paper book because I don't have to worry about crashes, platform issues, or any other such nonsense.

The bottom line: if you hate DRM, you'll hate eReader as much as anything else because you hate DRM. If you dislike DRM because of the limitations it usually imposes, you won't mind eReader because it is not as restrictive as any other.

01-24-2006, 09:37 AM	#9
rmeister0 Addict Posts: 270 Karma: 298 Join Date: Mar 2005	I don't know about you guys, but I have some credit cards I've had for decades. I put the question to you: how to you tie a drm scheme to somebody, as opposed to something somebody has? I guarantee nobody is giving out their credit card numbers to their friends. eReader has wide support across OS X, Windows, PPC and Palm. IIRC only Mobipocket has similar across the board reach with secured content. Yes, the big danger is the Gemstar scenario where eReader goes out of business. But because of how the drm model works your content will continue to work on new Palm, PPC and Windows/Mac computers, whereas under Gemstar moving your content to new devices was not possible because you needed a server to authorize you. I suspect that if eReader did go under, we'd see a hack around the encryption to move content off. There won't be anyone around to sue you. But more to the point, I don't buy ebooks for permenance. I buy them for convenience and typically don't keep them. If I want to keep something, I buy a paper book because I don't have to worry about crashes, platform issues, or any other such nonsense. The bottom line: if you hate DRM, you'll hate eReader as much as anything else because you hate DRM. If you dislike DRM because of the limitations it usually imposes, you won't mind eReader because it is not as restrictive as any other.