MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Solid State E-Books

pdam · 09-21-2006, 06:46 AM

The original idea in this thread seems good, keeping the physical ownership token is well understood, but as with all DRM, it'll be annoying to buyers, who don't want any and will be limited by it.

Some commercial software reader vendors offer a similar service ... however it gets complicated because I want to read the same thing on my PC and my PDA (or in future eBook), the solutions I have seen have a complicated software solution that allows me to install 2 copies on already on my SD card and I can transfer one onto a HD of my PC....while I have network connectivity.

I then change my PC ... have to re-initialise all the books I had, and go off the whole idea ...

Also - When I leave my paperback lying around it's big enough to find again with a bit of hunting, with an SD card or similar I'd have to be a lot more organised! (I usually have 2-3 books on the go at once ...

I'm not sure the physical token, although intuitive, is the way to go - a universal online personal library would work for me. The idea is that books I own are registered with the librabry. I have a book on a device and it gets authenticated for say 3 months, if I own the book it simply get re-authenticated every 3 months (in a similar way to DHCP). I can put it on another device as I wish (say a max of 3 copies which is reasonable). I can sell the book second hand (as I could with a paper book, it simply gets taken off of my personal list). The cost of the library is built into the cost of the book.

So this would mean I don't HAVE to be online to read my books, I can shift them around easily enough with occational access, I can sell them and the DRM is universal - I don't have lot's of different kinds ...

...well you can always dream ...

09-21-2006, 06:46 AM	#16
pdam Groupie Posts: 199 Karma: 100 Join Date: Aug 2006 Device: iLiad, iPaq, Psion5&7, Blackberry	The original idea in this thread seems good, keeping the physical ownership token is well understood, but as with all DRM, it'll be annoying to buyers, who don't want any and will be limited by it. Some commercial software reader vendors offer a similar service ... however it gets complicated because I want to read the same thing on my PC and my PDA (or in future eBook), the solutions I have seen have a complicated software solution that allows me to install 2 copies on already on my SD card and I can transfer one onto a HD of my PC....while I have network connectivity. I then change my PC ... have to re-initialise all the books I had, and go off the whole idea ... Also - When I leave my paperback lying around it's big enough to find again with a bit of hunting, with an SD card or similar I'd have to be a lot more organised! (I usually have 2-3 books on the go at once ... I'm not sure the physical token, although intuitive, is the way to go - a universal online personal library would work for me. The idea is that books I own are registered with the librabry. I have a book on a device and it gets authenticated for say 3 months, if I own the book it simply get re-authenticated every 3 months (in a similar way to DHCP). I can put it on another device as I wish (say a max of 3 copies which is reasonable). I can sell the book second hand (as I could with a paper book, it simply gets taken off of my personal list). The cost of the library is built into the cost of the book. So this would mean I don't HAVE to be online to read my books, I can shift them around easily enough with occational access, I can sell them and the DRM is universal - I don't have lot's of different kinds ... ...well you can always dream ...