12 more free B&N classics posted - 8/6

[geertm]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Some people on the B&N forums have claimed to have successfully used this to "lend" books to their friends and families by entering the relevant info onto a device in person and later sending a copy of any future desired files on, though of course I can neither confirm/deny.

That is indeed one of the advantages of the B&N social DRM, and something I think B&N should give much more information about in their competition with other ereaders.

A lot of people know about the limited lending feature of the Nook (and complain about the limitations), but they do not know that they can share their books with anyone they trust with their credit card number and name (and as you mention above, if you enter those yourself the first time they do not even have to know your credit card number and name).

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Pagali

But which readers DO support B&N DRM, besides their own that is?

The PanDigital Novel also supports the B&N DRM. From what I've read, the latest version of the Adobe Mobile Reader supports B&N DRM, so any new devices using that software should be able to read books from the B&N bookstore. I suspect that existing readers which are nominally tied to a bookstore, like Sony and Kobo, will not get a firmware upgrade to update the Adobe software though.

For what it's worth, I've looked at the database on the Nook which contains the keys, and it only contains a hash and not the name and credit card. I haven't tried forwarding books after unlocking the first one, but it makes sense that that would work.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by geertm

That is indeed one of the advantages of the B&N social DRM, and something I think B&N should give much more information about in their competition with other ereaders.

A lot of people know about the limited lending feature of the Nook (and complain about the limitations), but they do not know that they can share their books with anyone they trust with their credit card number and name (and as you mention above, if you enter those yourself the first time they do not even have to know your credit card number and name).

On the B&N system, if you've entered your cc info on someone else's device, are they able to buy stuff? Potentially messy if so. I'd rather pay for my own books than take responsibility for someone else's credit if my device were lost or stolen.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

On the B&N system, if you've entered your cc info on someone else's device, are they able to buy stuff?

Well, I don't have a nook myself, but I rather doubt it. User Guide says a nook has to be registered with a B&N website username/password, otherwise it can only browse but not buy in the online store.

Also, it says it can store multiple unlocks for differently DRM-ed files, and that unregistering and re-registering a nook will delete all the unlock info both times.

As for the various B&N reader apps, NookStudy and B&N Reader both bring up my browser when I try the Search/Shop option, and the website always asks me to reconfirm my login every time I try to do something like accessing My Library, much less make "purchases".

Possibly the mobile apps could 1-click directly, but again, they'd need someone's specific username/password to buy under their account.

As others have mentioned above, it's not the actual Name/CC that's stored, but a hash derived from them which does not store the original entered values at all. Plus someone would have to know the expiry/security code info if they were going to enter the CC on their own account.

But it's certainly a valid concern which probably serves to reinforce the social aspect of B&N's DRM. You wouldn't share your stuff with anyone you didn't absolutely trust, which no doubt limits how much people are willing to "lend" in this fashion.