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Here’s how I see it:
Off the bat we need standards, SD’s cards are a good start for the books; I think tying them to a physical card is crucial. On the file side we need a standard e-book format or set of formats that every reader can read. Finally commercial cards need to locked by software AND hardware...let me explain.
Make commercial e-book SD cards (EBSD’s) slightly physically different then regular SD cards so that an e-book reader can read both but a regular SD card reader can only read regular SD cards. (The EBSD’s can have a bulge where they are inserted like this:
( ] instead of [ ]. The EBSD reader would have a corresponding concave bulge to accept it.)
Oh and the bulge would contain some circuits so if you tried the floppy hack it wouldn’t work. Now if the reader is DRM protected then it would be limited to just reading and not copying. This entire scheme however would depend upon cooperation of hardware makers not to make EBSD readers (or USB converters) outside of DRM protected e-book readers. This can be hacked but it would involve a bit of cutting and soldering so most people won’t do it.
The best part would be the EBSD cards can be created easily with a special machine and then would be able to run on any compliant reader.
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