ebooks formats, US and the rest of the world now really apart ?

EowynCarter · 09-01-2009, 10:07 AM

I recently went on books on board. And had the sad confirmation of someting i thought might happen.

I went looking for ePubs. And noting there.

Then i saw a small image : Not a us customers, visit our UK site. On the UK site, we have ePub, but no mobi.

Where are we going, really ?

It's really time someone ends this madness !

poohbear_nc · 09-01-2009, 10:13 AM

This is so (sadly) reminiscent of the operating system wars waged on PCs - when Macs couldn't talk to Windows, Windows couldn't talk with Linux or Unix, etc.
It's so counterproductive for all parties to divide consumers into isolated camps.
Heartingly though, in these advanced electronic times, consumers are finally smart/crafty/intelligent/fed up enough to be able to circumvent most of these attempts to force choices upon the buyer. I look forward to when tools are available to make these silly DRM/format wars if not a thing of the past, at least not a serious challenger to the informed consumer.

Abecedary · 09-01-2009, 10:20 AM

I've bought plenty of ePubs from Books on Board (and I'm in the US). It's true that not everything is available as an ePub, but they certainly do have them.

EowynCarter · 09-01-2009, 10:24 AM

Well, they DID have them for sure. But that seams no longer true anymore.

Edit : Actually they still have some epub. Still the same book (Eragon), is available on the UK site as ePub, but not for US.
It's actually the same website with some preference.

Abecedary · 09-01-2009, 10:27 AM

Nope. Still true. Not sure what you're seeing, but they still have plenty of ePubs available to me. For instance, on their front page, only 4 out of the 16 books shown aren't available as ePubs.

wallcraft · 09-01-2009, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Well, they DID have them for sure. But that seams no longer true anymore.

Are you registered with BoB as a UK customer? If so, they may be blocking all the US-only titles.

The country-specific store concept is the next phase in the implementation of e-book regional controls. Previously, you could see the ebook but you could not buy it. Now you are in a country-specific store and you only see the ebooks available in that country. Note that the Kindle Store is a US-only store, and I think the Sony Store has US-only and Canada-only views.

EowynCarter · 09-01-2009, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Are you registered with BoB as a UK customer? If so, they may be blocking all the US-only titles.

Weirder that that. Same book, differents formats..

Having regional restrictions on books is already annoying, now we also have regional format restrictions. How lame is that !

JSWolf · 09-01-2009, 10:40 AM

This is one thing that annoys me. Not all shops carry all formats for a given book.

pdurrant · 09-01-2009, 10:47 AM

I suspect that the different versions are from different publishers - the US publisher and the UK publisher.

UK publishers seem to be only doing ePub.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Weirder that that. Same book, differents formats..

Having regional restrictions on books is already annoying, now we also have regional format restrictions. How lame is that !

wallcraft · 09-01-2009, 11:06 AM

It would be interesting to know how many "single format" DRMed ebooks there are out there. Practically all TOPAZ ebooks in the Kindle Store would be one large set. There are quite a few MOBI-only ebooks in the US (actually MOBI + Kindle, and now probably more prevalent because of the Kindle store). There used to be a lot of PDF-only (Adobe ebook), but there seem to be fewer new ebooks in this category. In the UK, there are many ePub-only ebooks.

Terisa de morgan · 09-01-2009, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Are you registered with BoB as a UK customer? If so, they may be blocking all the US-only titles.

The country-specific store concept is the next phase in the implementation of e-book regional controls. Previously, you could see the ebook but you could not buy it. Now you are in a country-specific store and you only see the ebooks available in that country. Note that the Kindle Store is a US-only store, and I think the Sony Store has US-only and Canada-only views.

F....! So, that's the reason I'm watching some books only like ePubs at BooksOnBoard! Well, time to travel

Phogg · 09-01-2009, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallcraft

It would be interesting to know how many "single format" DRMed ebooks there are out there. Practically all TOPAZ ebooks in the Kindle Store would be one large set. There are quite a few MOBI-only ebooks in the US (actually MOBI + Kindle, and now probably more prevalent because of the Kindle store). There used to be a lot of PDF-only (Adobe ebook), but there seem to be fewer new ebooks in this category. In the UK, there are many ePub-only ebooks.

I know there are still some .pdb only and .lit only books out there. Though they aren't DRM crippled it is still annoying

fugazied · 09-01-2009, 08:15 PM

This is why we need all publishers to agree on a single open standard. PDF is no good because technically it's proprietary. We need some flexible so the crappy publishers can have their DRM integrated if they insist.

Macs, PCs, Linux can all talk to each other now... kinda. Windows still has proprietary systems which it uses to exclude other platforms - it's a marketing decision to 'lock' people in to windows ( so they can open their old files etc)

JSWolf · 09-01-2009, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fugazied

This is why we need all publishers to agree on a single open standard. PDF is no good because technically it's proprietary. We need some flexible so the crappy publishers can have their DRM integrated if they insist.

Macs, PCs, Linux can all talk to each other now... kinda. Windows still has proprietary systems which it uses to exclude other platforms - it's a marketing decision to 'lock' people in to windows ( so they can open their old files etc)

The problem for PDF is that PDF won't do for the different screen sizes so that is out.

There isn't any format that can be used with DRM on Windows, OS X, & Linux. But the best one currently is ePub as that does work on Windows & OS X as well as most dedicated readers.

bill_mchale · 09-01-2009, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There isn't any format that can be used with DRM on Windows, OS X, & Linux. But the best one currently is ePub as that does work on Windows & OS X as well as most dedicated readers.

Actually, lets be a little more precise... no commercial DRM currently supports Linux on the desktop (as far as I know). Certainly since DRM works on Apple (which is a version of Unix these days), and a number of dedicated readers that use Linux as the basis of their OS, there is no reason why any of the DRM schemes could not be ported. The only issue is that currently, none of them do.

--
Bill

09-01-2009, 10:07 AM	#1
EowynCarter Wizard Posts: 4,337 Karma: 4000000 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Paris Device: Cybooks; Sony PRS-T1	ebooks formats, US and the rest of the world now really apart ? I recently went on books on board. And had the sad confirmation of someting i thought might happen. I went looking for ePubs. And noting there. Then i saw a small image : Not a us customers, visit our UK site. On the UK site, we have ePub, but no mobi. Where are we going, really ? It's really time someone ends this madness ! Last edited by EowynCarter; 09-01-2009 at 10:11 AM.

09-01-2009, 10:24 AM	#4
EowynCarter Wizard Posts: 4,337 Karma: 4000000 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Paris Device: Cybooks; Sony PRS-T1	Well, they DID have them for sure. But that seams no longer true anymore. Edit : Actually they still have some epub. Still the same book (Eragon), is available on the UK site as ePub, but not for US. It's actually the same website with some preference. Last edited by EowynCarter; 09-01-2009 at 10:31 AM.

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09-01-2009, 10:13 AM	#2
poohbear_nc Bah! Humbug! Posts: 62,873 Karma: 135239851 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Durham, NC Device: Every Kindle Ever Made & To Be Made!	This is so (sadly) reminiscent of the operating system wars waged on PCs - when Macs couldn't talk to Windows, Windows couldn't talk with Linux or Unix, etc. It's so counterproductive for all parties to divide consumers into isolated camps. Heartingly though, in these advanced electronic times, consumers are finally smart/crafty/intelligent/fed up enough to be able to circumvent most of these attempts to force choices upon the buyer. I look forward to when tools are available to make these silly DRM/format wars if not a thing of the past, at least not a serious challenger to the informed consumer.

09-01-2009, 10:20 AM	#3
Abecedary Exwyzeeologist Posts: 535 Karma: 3261 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: :PRS-505::iPod touch:	I've bought plenty of ePubs from Books on Board (and I'm in the US). It's true that not everything is available as an ePub, but they certainly do have them.

09-01-2009, 10:27 AM	#5
Abecedary Exwyzeeologist Posts: 535 Karma: 3261 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: :PRS-505::iPod touch:	Nope. Still true. Not sure what you're seeing, but they still have plenty of ePubs available to me. For instance, on their front page, only 4 out of the 16 books shown aren't available as ePubs.

09-01-2009, 10:40 AM	#8
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,247 Karma: 145488788 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	This is one thing that annoys me. Not all shops carry all formats for a given book.

09-01-2009, 11:06 AM	#10
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,977 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	It would be interesting to know how many "single format" DRMed ebooks there are out there. Practically all TOPAZ ebooks in the Kindle Store would be one large set. There are quite a few MOBI-only ebooks in the US (actually MOBI + Kindle, and now probably more prevalent because of the Kindle store). There used to be a lot of PDF-only (Adobe ebook), but there seem to be fewer new ebooks in this category. In the UK, there are many ePub-only ebooks.

09-01-2009, 08:15 PM	#13
fugazied Wizard Posts: 1,305 Karma: 1958 Join Date: Jan 2009 Device: iPod Touch	This is why we need all publishers to agree on a single open standard. PDF is no good because technically it's proprietary. We need some flexible so the crappy publishers can have their DRM integrated if they insist. Macs, PCs, Linux can all talk to each other now... kinda. Windows still has proprietary systems which it uses to exclude other platforms - it's a marketing decision to 'lock' people in to windows ( so they can open their old files etc)

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