Quote:
Originally Posted by wallcraft
It would presumably be easy to change the USB information, e.g from Gen3 to Gen3e (or whatever change is necessary to stop MobiPocket Reader from recognizing the device). This is certainly controlled by firmware.
I don't entirely blame Bookeen for not doing this, since I am sure they hope that Amazon will change its mind and allow DRM co-existence. If Amazon ever gets declared a monopoly (they are a long way off yet, but don't forget Mobipocket counts as Amazon so they are closer in ebooks distribution than in paper books) then tactics like requiring exclusivity will get looked at in an entirely new light.
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I wouldn't put my money on the courts to solve that. Not many companies have to fear the courts for creating and exploiting a monopoly. Even Microsoft which has been sentenced to pay a huge fine like 2 years ago in Europe is still appealing and hasn't paid yet (and more importantly hasn't changed much)
Much more important is the decision of publishers to support a different format like ePub. If enough publishers support that format the device manufacturers will *have* to support it and if it means that they can no longer support mobi than they will do that (actually they'll not even be too angry about it because if they change to ePub then the Kindle is no longer a competitor to them). Once there are significantly more device without mobi support than with mobi Amazon will have to change or lose a huge chunck of the market.