U.S. Justice Dept. to Sue Publishers, Apple, for Price Collusion?

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I beleive that B&N's ePub scheme uses the same server software from Adobe, and the licensing cost is the same.

I don't think that's true. The DRM in B&N's ePub's is based on the user's name and the credit card assigned to the account at the time the book was downloaded. (Normally the one at the time of purchase, but a user could update their credit card and redownload the books with the new information).

It's basically the old eReader (Palm Digital Media/Peanut Press) DRM wrapped around the ePub.

It's always been my preferred method of DRM because it DOESN'T require access to Adobe's servers to activate.

The book could be opened on any computer - without that computer having to be "authorized" or limited to Adobe authorization limits - as long as the user knew the name and credit card number.

If my computer crashed every month for 5 years and had to be reloaded from scratch, I wouldn't have to deal with reauthorizing the software and redownloading all my books - they would still open because I still know my own name and internet credit card number!

If the DRM tools ever disappeared and stopped working, I'd go back to only buying ebooks from B&N because it's closer to owning my books "forever" than the other models. It's why most of my early book purchases were in the eReader format - and those books can still be read on my old PDA, if desired. (I don't remember if any of the current version of eReaders can read that format - at one point Aztak was going to, but I think it fell through because that was about the time B&N bought Fictionwise/eReader).

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I don't think that's true. The DRM in B&N's ePub's is based on the user's name and the credit card assigned to the account at the time the book was downloaded. (Normally the one at the time of purchase, but a user could update their credit card and redownload the books with the new information).

It's basically the old eReader (Palm Digital Media/Peanut Press) DRM wrapped around the ePub.

B&N's DRM is still a variant of Adobe's ADEPT encryption and as such, uses Adobe's encryption server software. It just "activates" the DRM behind the scenes when you download from B&N. They pay a fee to Adobe to license their encryption like everybody else does (almost everybody else... for all those sticklers for detail waiting to pounce ).

The eReader (pdb) DRM is different... kinda. B&N was still delivering epubs in pdb containers to Mac users (with the different DRM) up until very recently (at least I'm assuming they still don't do that, anyway).

[bcdad182]

Has anyone noticed if you sign on to Amazon with a US address, the books are 10-50% cheaper than using an outside address even though the prices are all denominated in USD. I really wonder about this.

Amazon you used to be my friend. Kobo is rapidly becoming my new eBFF

How can the publishers justify this obvious money grab? Electrons cost more North of the 49th?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by bcdad182

Has anyone noticed if you sign on to Amazon with a US address, the books are 10-50% cheaper than using an outside address even though the prices are all denominated in USD. I really wonder about this.

Amazon you used to be my friend. Kobo is rapidly becoming my new eBFF

How can the publishers justify this obvious money grab? Electrons cost more North of the 49th?

Not really. Check Amazon UK prices. Quite often they are cheaper than Amazon US. Also, for some areas Amazon adds a USD 2.- surcharge for wireless delivery (which may be the difference you are seeing.

[plib]

Originally Posted by bcdad182

Has anyone noticed if you sign on to Amazon with a US address, the books are 10-50% cheaper than using an outside address even though the prices are all denominated in USD. I really wonder about this.

Amazon you used to be my friend. Kobo is rapidly becoming my new eBFF

How can the publishers justify this obvious money grab? Electrons cost more North of the 49th?

Amazon has been accused of differential pricing before. In addition to the cookie related items noted in the link I believe they've also been accused of differential pricing based on customers postal addresses, i.e. high rent address equals high Amazon price.

There's an interesting article about internet pricing, with specific references to Amazon here.