|
I posted this explanation of B&N DRM on The Digital Reader website as a reply to the same article:
There are a lot of misunderstandings about B&N’s DRM. I will try to explain why B&N’s DRM is the least restrictive DRM available.
- At the moment you download an ebook from B&N, the ebook gets encrypted. The credit card name and number of the credit card from your B&N account are used to create an encryption key. This is a one way process. No credit card information is stored in the ebook or on the ereader device. Is it not possible to use the ebook to generate your credit card information.
The moment you download an ebook is the only moment you will ever need a credit card in your B&N account, and a connection with B&N’s DRM server.
- The encryption is complety enclosed within the ebooks file. To access the ebook you need to know the credit card number and name the book was encrypted with. The ebook is not tied to the hardware of your ereader (Kindle) or to a software ID (Adobe DRM).
This means that you can copy the ebook file to as many ereaders as you want to, as many times as you like. This makes it easy to share the ebook with anyone you trust with your credit card number and name (that is how this social DRM limits the sharing of the ebook, there are no technical restrictions against sharing).
- Because the encryption is completely enclosed within the ebooks file, after dowloading the ebook file you do not need B&N or an DRM server anymore. Even if B&N and the credit card would no longer exist you will still be able to read the ebook on any device or program supporting the DRM.
- So if you want to remove your credit card from your B&N account, which basically means you do not want to use B&N’s e-book cloud anymore, make a backup copy of your ebooks with for example Nook for PC (which you should do anyway) before removing the credit card. Those copies will be yours forever. You can copy them to any device or program supporting the DRM and with all those devices and programs you will be able to read those ebooks. No DRM-server, software-ID or Internet connection is needed.
|