Quote:
Originally Posted by jkeranen
I don't think that anyone thinks that DRM is a good thing for the ebook buyer. The fact of the matter remains that most ebook publishers only sell content through DRM systems. If you play by the rules set by the publishers and by current law mobipocket is the DRM format with the widest compatibility. Even though .lit DRM is cracked wide open I think there is still some benefit in supporting a format that at least tries to have compatibility with a wide variety of devices.
Of course if mobipocket goes under permanently I will probably start working on a method to OCR screen captures so I can continue to read the books that I have purchased.
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The DRM on Mobipocket files is not difficult to remove, it's just that so far no-one has made tools available and so only those capable of writing their own tools will have done so.
I imagine if Mobipocket seriously withdrew from the market and left consumers screwed, such tools would be available very quickly, and hacks like extracting text from the screen or running OCR would not be necessary at all. Until such time though, I for one have no intention of getting myself into trouble by distributing such a hack.
A tip for those worried about transferring betweens PCs at least (this was posted on another thread, but might have been overlooked) is that the Mobipocket PID on PC is based on the HDD's Volume Serial Number - and this can be edited. So if you reformat your drive, you can restore a previous VSN and your PID will be the same. I would not recommend changing this number on a whim, as other software also users this for authentication, including XP. But in an emergency it would enable files to be read.
For that reason I'd also recommend backing up your PRC files and making a note of both your PID and HDD's number for future reference.
(a valid PID is all that is required to decrypt a PRC file anyway, but the Mobipocket software won't let you do so other than on the correct device).