Quote:
Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks
But that the way the Epub format is promoted IS the problem.
Epub publishers don't tell you, "hey, you can read this on any PC you already own, just change the extension to zip and open."
Instead, "You have to use our reader/software," "Buy our device," etc. and they tremendously muddle the waters...all because they're locking up content with DRM that's incompatible between different distributors. All within an "open" format? Epub's "industry standard" and "openness" is a complete distortion of the truth because of DRM.  |
That's not a problem with ePub; it's a problem with publishers and distributors and their marketing methods. They want to say "Here is your EBOOK. It works on [SOFTWARE] or [DEVICE]. If you want more EBOOKS, buy them from us." They don't want you to think of the ebook as "a bundle of html files with an ebook-shaped wrapper;" they don't want you to think of it as "A Word doc output onto fixed letter/A4-sized pages;" they don't want you to think of it as "formatted text with hyperlink-code added for the chapter headers, with pictures shrunk to fit on a 320x320 screen."
They want you to think of it as a "book," like a physical object, that comes with a set of pre-established characteristics that the buyer can't change.
The fact that *none* of the ebook formats work like that is irrelevant. Publishers are working hard to find the format that forces end-users to treat digital content like physical content--fixed and unchangable--with the added bonus (for the publisher) of lacking the ability to transfer ownership.
Their attempts to do this with various formats (ePub and PDF head the list) is not a reflection on the usefulness of those formats.
Publishers are deliberately unclear on what ebooks are and how they work because they want to avoid facing competition (which they will, if you can buy ebooks from anyone for any device) and kill any possibility of a used ebook market. And occasionally because of ignorance. Plenty of them think an "ebook" is somehow intrinsically different from "a Word document."