Quote:
Originally Posted by ShellShock
Adobe says it is the publishers who are insisting that they harden their (Adobe's) DRM, to combat perceived loss of sales due to piracy. If this is the case, then will not the publishers also insist that Kobo harden the Kobo specific DRM that is used for kepubs (Kobo own epub wrapper)? Similarly for Amazon and Kindle's DRM, although Amazon is big enough to stand up to the publishers.
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If stopping piracy is all this is about then the whole thing is unnecessary. Other industries, the movie industry in particular, already solved the problem.
The publishers are publishing to a new technology and have to adapt to the needs of a "machine age". Manufacturers found they had to enforce standardization of parts in order to proceed in the "machine age" over a century ago and the movie industry applied the principles to digital content.
I've been buying movies on disk for decades. My original AIWA was replaced with a Sony and I'm now using a Samsung: the movies work fine on all of them and I never even think of touching the DRM.
If the publishers really want a solid DRM solution then they need to demand standardization from the bookstores on the rendering equipment. It's ridiculous to require people to have to match their eReader to the store they buy a book from. The rendering engine should have nothing to do with the book.
ePub is an international, tax free, open standard but what matters is that they use a standard for how files are structured and how DRM is applied. There is no collusion involved in setting industry standards so use ePub or anything else, any standard would be better than this free-for-all that benefits no one except the fear mongers.