It's time for a unified ebook format and the end of DRM

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by jmaejr

...DRM...it is no different than a software license. If you ACTUALLY read the EULA for the software...

Where can I find the EULA for my ebooks?

[jmaejr]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

Where can I find the EULA for my ebooks?

If you are getting your ebooks from Sony... http://ebookstore.sony.com/termsofservice.html

Amazon... http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...06200&#content

[QuantumIguana]

I paid for the books, I will read them where I want.

[calibrated]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I paid for the books, I will read them where I want.

Exactly.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

I have plenty of software that doesn't say anything of the sort. So that is utter rubbish.

Originally Posted by jmaejr

So you buy Adobe's Photoshop and nowhere in the EULA is says you can install it on every computer you own? I would venture a guess you never read the EULA and simply check the 'I agree' box and continue on your merry way...besides I didn't say ALL software...

I suspect Blue Tyson is referring to open source software. All the software on my home computers and my work computer is open source. The licence of every one of those programs allows me to install the software on as many computers as I wish. It even allows me to make copies and distribute them (under certain conditions, the conditions varying according to the licence).

An example that many users here will be familiar with is Calibre. It's released under the GNU General Public License, v3. The licence states that it is "designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies" of the software.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by avantman42

I suspect Blue Tyson is referring to open source software. All the software on my home computers and my work computer is open source. The licence of every one of those programs allows me to install the software on as many computers as I wish. It even allows me to make copies and distribute them (under certain conditions, the conditions varying according to the licence).

I don't think that it is limited to open source. I think that you can install the software for printers, scanners, various USB toys on multiple computers.

[Elfwreck]

"Unified ebook format" is a nice idea; it's not going to happen. I believe that ePub will eventually drive mobi out of the market--but PDF is here to stay. Some publications do well with reflowable formats (most novels, especially), but some really need fixed page layouts--children's books, art books, certain reference works. And PDF has a convenience far beyond its use for "books;" the ability to make consistently-printable business docs is going to keep it active.

We may see a new ebook format show up in the future, like HTML or RTF, that's easily editable to allow notes. That, too, has pros and cons; novelists won't have much use for it, but schools might, especially if edits & notes are somehow clearly marked.

The problems with DRM are different; those are likely to go away (or be diminished) as the "sell used MP3s" ruling ripples through other media arenas. DRM makes a stronger, not weaker, case for the ability to sell or trade used digital works--after all, if someone makes an app that removes a book from your Kindle library and transfers it to someone else's, that's just like handing off a paperback, right?

I think the EULAs won't hold up to the basic logic of first-sale rights, once there's an easy way to say "I no longer have it; now this other person does." And I suspect that both Amazon and the publishers will object to that, but counterpoints may include the fact that they work very hard to convince people that they're just "buying books" in different formats, not choosing between "buy this pbook" or "license the right to access this content in ebook form." Refusing to allow first-sale rights on ebooks may require them to relabel sales sites to make it clear that an ebook is not a "sale."

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

"Unified ebook format" is a nice idea; it's not going to happen. I believe that ePub will eventually drive mobi out of the market--but PDF is here to stay. Some publications do well with reflowable formats (most novels, especially), but some really need fixed page layouts--children's books, art books, certain reference works. And PDF has a convenience far beyond its use for "books;" the ability to make consistently-printable business docs is going to keep it active.

I'm not sure that pdf is here to stay. Last year's report from O’Reilly:


They should have the numbers for 2011 soon, but if it follows the trend, pdf is going down.

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The problems with DRM are different; those are likely to go away (or be diminished) as the "sell used MP3s" ruling ripples through other media arenas.

The judge didn't rule that selling used MP3s is legal or illegal. His ruling denied Capitol Record's irreparable harm claim to immediately shutdown the site that is selling used MP3s before the site has its day in court.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I'm not sure that pdf is here to stay. Last year's report from O’Reilly:

They should have the numbers for 2011 soon, but if it follows the trend, pdf is going down.

PDF as a commercial ebook format for novels and linear nonfic is going down. (And it should; PDF sucks for novels.) PDF as a business document format and as an archive format, is not going anywhere--and that means ebook readers will still need to support it. As a magazine, journal and textbook format, it's still on top; it'll be a long time before publishers accept that the print version & the e-version can look *entirely different.* (Also, it means adding a lot to the layout time if they have to take the PDF-ready content and reformat it for *good* epub.)

If CBR ever figures out how to support searchable text (I can imagine some ways; having txt file or files & a load file to relate them to the pages), it may displace PDF as an image-based format, but unless that happens, PDF is going to remain the format of choice for commercial picture-text books, like children's books.

There's less and less need for "this is an ebook! It looks just like a paper book!" But there'll always be a need for "this shows up exactly like we planned it." And right now, PDF is the best widely-available format for that.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

PDF as a commercial ebook format for novels and linear nonfic is going down. (And it should; PDF sucks for novels.) PDF as a business document format and as an archive format, is not going anywhere--and that means ebook readers will still need to support it. As a magazine, journal and textbook format, it's still on top; it'll be a long time before publishers accept that the print version & the e-version can look *entirely different.* (Also, it means adding a lot to the layout time if they have to take the PDF-ready content and reformat it for *good* epub.)

O'Reilly doesn't print novels and nonfiction and pdf sales are still going down.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

O'Reilly doesn't print novels and nonfiction and pdf sales are still going down.

"Sales will be low" is not the same as "there's no need to support this filetype." The noncommercial uses for PDFs are huge (or at least, the use of unsellable PDFs), and the combination of that, and the few markets that won't work without them, will demand that devices support them unless something else with a fixed layout replaces PDF.

I don't think the future of ebooks is going to be "there's no way to read fixed-layout content," and right now, that format is PDF much more than cbr/cbz, which don't support search at all.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I'm not sure that pdf is here to stay. Last year's report from O’Reilly:


They should have the numbers for 2011 soon, but if it follows the trend, pdf is going down.

I'm not exactly sure how to interpret that chart, but it looks like each category has its sales normalized to 100% over the last three years, and it's showing the relative changes per year within that category. If so, I'm not so sure how meaningful these numbers are, because O'Reilly's EPUB offerings were not very good even two years ago. I have an O'Reilly account, and know that once you purchase a copy, you get to download it in any format you want, as often as you want. I always download both PDF and EPUB copies (at no extra cost). They really improved their EPUB books about a year and a half ago, and I can easily see more people actually downloading them again after that. PDF's, on the other hand, have been stable for a long time, and there's no reason to get another copy if you downloaded one already three years ago. So, there is probably a mix of market and technical influences in that plot.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

O'Reilly doesn't print novels and nonfiction and pdf sales are still going down.

That makes sence. PDF was mean as a format for printing, and to send documents, NOT as an e-book format.

Let pdf do what it's good at, ePub and mobi do what they're good at.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

That makes sence. PDf was mean as a format for printing, and send documents, NOT as an books format.

Let pdf do what it's good at, ePub and mobi do what they're good at.

Precisely. PDF is superb at the job it was created to do - to be an electronic reproduction of a printed page. It was never intended for use an an eBook format for hand-held devices.