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Originally Posted by bhartman36
Not exactly. I'm saying that DRM-free music is available in music stores because consumer interest in MP3 players, and the associated software, reached a point where it was relatively easy to buy a song or album and download it seemlessly to your player. MP3 tagging had something to do with that, of course.
My point is, the ebook market doesn't have the same kind of sophistication at this point, and it doesn't enjoy anything near the saturation that MP3 players enjoy.
Think back to before the iPod made it big. MP3 players existed before then, but they didn't represent a big market, and the idea of putting music into MP3 format for consumers would've been a non-starter. If people wanted to carry around their music, they could do so with CD players or even cassette Walkmen. Computers had CD-ROM drives that could play audio CDs, so there wasn't really the need (from a vender point of view) to produce digital music files. The MP3 player changed that, and the impetus to the MP3 player was obviously the MP3 format.
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Alright, I don't quite follow your logic as originally iTunes sold music with DRM (was it the AAC format?). You claim the iPod made MP3's popular, but the iPod handled both DRM-Free and DRM'ed music.
If you are saying that the iPod led to a greater demand for generic MP3 players then I understand your point. If that's the case then we might see something like that for eBooks fairly soon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
DRM isn't really your problem, though. Your problem is platform-dependency. If a secure format worked on any reader, that would solve your problem. Secure doesn't have to mean a file can't be cross-platform.
Think about the other kinds of DRM there are in the computer world. A product key (as many software packages include now) doesn't prevent you from using the product on any coputer with a compatible OS. There are also watermarks, that don't prevent you from copying the file anywhere, but discourage you from distributing it.
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I don't see how you can get away from platform dependency and still have DRM. DRM is different than regular encryption as there is only really one trusted party. There will never be an actual DRM standard. As soon as you publish a DRM standard anyone who duplicates it has violated the DMCA.