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Originally Posted by hiaig
I'm new to ebooks and still trying to get my head around DRM. I have a jetbook (no DRM support at the moment) and I am enjoying reading the epubs from Feedbooks.
Am I correct in that the ebooks purchased are locked to the device?
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Depends on the type of DRM, and the device.
EReader DRM, and Barnes & Noble's new ePub DRM, requires a credit-card password to open it. You can read those books on any computer by entering the credit card # to open the book, and any device that allows entry of the password (which is based on the device's software); this includes most PDAs & mobile phones, but not most dedicated ebook devices.
Mobipocket & Adobe Digital Editions both register the devices themselves through a corporate server; only those devices they recognize can be authorized, and a limited number of devices can be authorized at one time.
Some forms of DRM only allow viewing the content while connected to the server online; you can't read it offline at all, which means it can't be transferred to most mobile devices.
Some DRM for software (not common for ebooks) is dongle-based: you need a physical device attached to the computer to run the program.
There are other forms of DRM, and more being created; those are some of the most common. And yes, transferring your content to a new device or a computer with a reinstalled OS ranges from "a hassle" to "impossible," depending on circumstances. (If the original DRM server is gone, you can't register new devices on it.)