[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by Fbone

This is what B&N told us when they discontinued direct downloads. Publishers required greater "security." Whether that is true or not ...

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It's gotta be B.S. The same publishers allow Google to provide direct downloads of the exact same titles using the old "inferior" security.

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

And isn't there something special security-wise about magazines (at Kobo and Amazon?) I'm not a subscriber, but I recall the thread about it and the changing security causing issues with the way some people transferred and read their magazines.

I'm guessing that there are a few different "security" issues here.

For the B&N thing, I'm guessing that the publishers don't consider ADE to be a "direct download", since it goes through another application. The technical hurdle is minor, but if the publishers are trying to draw a line in the sand to "fight piracy", that's as rational a place as any other. The NOOK application downloads the same files as the direct download, but it puts them in an application-specific directory, so it's now effectively the same as ADE. I wondered at the time why B&N didn't do more than they did to "upgrade" their security, but maybe this is the exact set of changes that was demanded: the method of key generation is no longer public knowledge and there are no direct downloads in the strict sense.

With the Kobo thing, I'm guessing that all of the following are true:

• Publishers may opt-out of ADE/DRM-free downloads, nominally for security reasons
• Some epub3 books still can't be downloaded
• Some books (epub3 or otherwise) should have a download available, but don't

Given Kobo's track record, the customer service people probably have no idea which of those is true for any given book. As long as Kobo has some books that are in the "opt-out" list, it's probably the CS rep's assumption that any book without a download is in that list. Given the state of Kobo's catalog, it also seems likely to me that there are publishers that at one time may have opted-out, but have changed policies (or been bought by other publishers) and those changes aren't reflected in the current Kobo catalog. As others have lamented, I've bought books that were undeliverable by any means. Customer service refunded my money, but those books are still for sale and, I'm assuming, still just as undeliverable.