Quote:
Originally Posted by wallcraft
I am not a fan of the legal dispute theory, but if there is a legal dispute the issue is whether Bookeen can provide "separate but equal" firmwares for MOBI and Adobe. Irex and Jinke say no, and so they provide the old MOBI DRM firmware but all new firmware is (or will be) Adobe DRM only. Bookeen says yes, but they have not actually delivered an updated MOBI firmware that is equivalent to an Adobe firmware yet.
I'm not sure dropping MOBI is entirely a legal issue for the other vendors, a single firmware supporting two DRM formats increases total sales more and probably requires less technical support than separate firmwares for each DRM scheme. The separate but equal approach may not be worth doing technically or financially, even if Amazon allows it. Note that both iRex and Jinke (for Astak in the US market) are willing to provide both Adobe and eReader DRM in a single firmware. I'm sure they would add MOBI if they could in a single firmware.
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That mobi and ePub DRM cannot be on the same device is not a dispute, it's in the terms of use for the development kit. While there is no publicly available document (due to Amazon's secretive ways), it's become clear in the last 2 years from various sources and also from competitors of Bookeen.
The fact that you are bound to the legal terms you've accepted when you made a deal with some company can not be the reason for delaying a firmware for ages. They knew beforehand that they would not be allowed to do that and while it may not hurt to ask and bargain with Amazon it is certainly no excuse for delaying a firmware update for until the dawn of time.
The whole legal dispute theory has no basis because they handed out a preview of their firmware at a Paris meeting and we have it from users who have that firmware that there is no mobi AND ePub DRM on that one.
If the delay (it was scheduled for 1st quarter 2009) was due to legal problems how could they give that firmware to users months after the deadline? Even if they did, legally they would be required to ask the users to revert back to the original firmware (even though they cannot enforce it they at least have to try or they would be at fault).
Last but not least, there was nothing in that beta firmware which would give any basis for legal trouble. No dual-DRM, no changes in mobipocket support, just folder view and a few minor convenience changes.