Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
We must agree to differ about that, I'm afraid. I feel personally that MobiPocket's DRM system is fair - you can have up to 5 devices registered, and it's easy to add or remove them at any time - and unobjectionable; it doesn't "get in the way" of reading the book in any way at all. That's why I'm now "standardising" on devices which will read MoibPocket.
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Which relates to what I see as a larger issue: the lack of a standard format for ebooks.
DRM aside, I want to download content once, and read it on whatever I happen to have. Standardising on devices which can handle a particular format is an imposition I don't care for. What if a reader for that format doesn't happen to exist for a device I want to use?
Granted, Mobi is about the best of the lot in that sense - they support the most devices, and their format is probably closest to a default standard because of it. I have Mobi installed on my PDA to handle content in Mobi format, but the reader has a couple of really annoying bugs under Palm OS.
If we get a standard format that everyone will support, we are likely to see readers for all devices reasonably soon in consequence. If there is a less-than-draconian DRM system in place to get the files, it will be livable.
I still object to DRM, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to go away. Meanwhile, I side-step the issue. I don't buy DRMed content. There is more stuff that I
want to read, freely available without DRM, than I have time for now. I'm not missing anything, as I can get a paper edition, and still happily buy paper books. I see ebooks as an adjunct to standard paper publishing, not a replacement.
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Dennis