Classic New B&N eReader $259 & will allow sharing

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Well for a commercial unDRM'd ebook to get out to the pirate sources someone had to buy it once. :shrugs:

Or STEAL one.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by rocket

Editable metadata seems like a great idea! I would post that here:
http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/...-p/401597#M115

Feel free to suggest it; I'm not filling out another online registration with a password I'll forget to suggest something their own software techs should've come up with if they were actually paying attention to the market for the devices.

I'd be happy if they implemented it, and happy if a comment got them to consider it. But I'm not going out of my way to tell manufacturers what they're not paying attention to.

After all, it's not like Mobileread is an obscure, back-corner, hard-to-google website. Nor are we shy about useful suggestions in the line of "things that would make me buy this reader are A, B, C; things that would make my tech-phobic sister buy it are B, D, and E."

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Or STEAL one.

Can you "steal" an ebook? Without stealing the hardware it's stored on? Even copy-and-delete isn't theft; it's "copyright infringement" plus "destruction of private property."

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Can you "steal" an ebook? Without stealing the hardware it's stored on? Even copy-and-delete isn't theft; it's "copyright infringement" plus "destruction of private property."

Copyright is a quaint notion with regard to intellectual and electronic property. If you take property that is not yours to take, that is theft. I'm not one to quibble meanings of words.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Well for a commercial unDRM'd ebook to get out to the pirate sources someone had to buy it once. :shrugs:

Or get it for free from the library.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Or get it for free from the library.

That's true I suppose, at least for some books. I always forget about the library since mine only does Audiobook, Music and Video, no eBooks.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by tompe

Concerning credit card DRM. What stops you from requesting a new card with a new number and then distribute all the books you have bought with the old number?

The credit card number was, in the eye of the law, once associated with you. The seller of the copyrighted content knows the name, billing address and expiry date that was associated with the card at the time that purchase is made.

And that itself is the major problem with this credit card number protection scheme. ANY ID, randomly assigned to your account, can be used to do an inverse lookup into the database of the customers. But content provider DOES NOT want to use just any sequence of bits.

The deviousness of the scheme is to make files "hot" and dangerous to the customer itself. Protect these files, or else...

No. It is not my business to protect their intellectual property (it is my obligation not to violate their copyrights) and I will not accept any risk pushed to me, however infinitesimally small. For what? For a privilege to buy a book from them?

[kenmark]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But will eBook shops differentiate the ePub DRM so we don't go and buy the wrong one? I don't see all the readers getting updates overnight for this new DRM and we'll need to know which is which when buying eBooks. A lot of them have alread made a mess of PDF by calling it Adobe Digital Editions.

This is Adobe's official list of ADE Supported eBook devices which use Adobe Reader® Mobile 9 software development kit (SDK). (I'm not sure if it is up-to-date or not.)

How are all these readers, plus any new ones being released, going to synchronize a new firmware update for a new version of ADE DRM?

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by GJN

The lockout period on lent books sort of implies that you won't be able to keep a backup copy of your book on your computer. Or does your nook have to check each time you load or open a book on it whether it's been lent out?

I keep backup copies of everything I buy on my computer in calibre; it's the only way to deal with significant numbers of books until some folder system comes along. If I can't keep backups for B&N books, it's pretty much a deal-breaker for me on an otherwise attractive reader.

The statement that "you always get it back" implies to me that you never actually transfer *your* copy of the ebook so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to keep a backup copy.

I think it's more likely that the Nook does one of two things-either they 'annotate' the file with a lockout date or they keep a database listing which books they've loaned & when. In either case, once the 'return' date passes you'd once more be able to read the book. (If I were implementing this I'd do it by annotating the file. That way the 'lockout' would remain when you backed up the file, transferred it to another device, etc. But that might be easily defeated by changing the system date on the reader.)

But given the unreliability of people 'returning' the ebook they've borrowed (ask any librarian) I can't see B&N making such a statement unless they somehow simply 'lock' your ebook when you loan it, and automatically unlock it when the lending period expires. Doing that shouldn't prevent you from keeping a backup copy.

Besides, you can (should be able to) back it up before you lend it-which is an argument for storing the lending information in a database on the device. Then, even if you restored the 'unlent' copy it'd still know that you loaned it out. So I don't know how they've implemented this-there are pros & cons to every method I can think of.

[GJN]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

The statement that "you always get it back" implies to me that you never actually transfer *your* copy of the ebook so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to keep a backup copy.

I think it's more likely that the Nook does one of two things-either they 'annotate' the file with a lockout date or they keep a database listing which books they've loaned & when. In either case, once the 'return' date passes you'd once more be able to read the book. (If I were implementing this I'd do it by annotating the file. That way the 'lockout' would remain when you backed up the file, transferred it to another device, etc. But that might be easily defeated by changing the system date on the reader.)

But given the unreliability of people 'returning' the ebook they've borrowed (ask any librarian) I can't see B&N making such a statement unless they somehow simply 'lock' your ebook when you loan it, and automatically unlock it when the lending period expires. Doing that shouldn't prevent you from keeping a backup copy.

Besides, you can (should be able to) back it up before you lend it-which is an argument for storing the lending information in a database on the device. Then, even if you restored the 'unlent' copy it'd still know that you loaned it out. So I don't know how they've implemented this-there are pros & cons to every method I can think of.

That makes a great deal of sense. It seems to me, though, that if I delete a book after lending it and then restore it from a backup made before lending it, I might be able to read or relend the book. They may keep a list of lent books, though, in a separate database on the reader where they'd keep track of ALL your books.

I'm curious now to see what my Kindle does when I delete a book and restore it from a local backup rather than over the Whispernet. Will it then still remain on the "Archived Books" list?

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by GJN

That makes a great deal of sense. It seems to me, though, that if I delete a book after lending it and then restore it from a backup made before lending it, I might be able to read or relend the book. They may keep a list of lent books, though, in a separate database on the reader where they'd keep track of ALL your books.

Now that's a scenario I hadn't thought of-and it shows the impracticality of copy-protection schemes. It doesn't seem likely, to me, that they'd bother keeping track of books you delete, but they might store the 'decryption' key in a separate database so, when you delete the book you'd also delete the key. I hope they don't do that unless they let you back up the database, too.

When I speak of keeping a 'backup' of ebooks I generally mean just copying the file to an off-device location. In this scenario, that wouldn't work, but if they provide a 'backup' function that will copy the file to an off-device location & also copy the key, probably to an off-device database, then it might be acceptable. Except I think it would still allow the scenario you set up.

So basically, what I think you've proven is that the only way copy protection can be 'perfect' is to so restrict it that it makes the product virtually unusable. (I.e, the user needs to remove it to make the product usable. I suppose that 'perfect' copy protection couldn't be removed, but that's a different matter. Here, I'm talking about copy protection that allows both lending & backups without maintaining a database of every book you've ever loaded onto the device.)

Hmm, thinking about maintaining a database of every book you've ever loaded, I can't see that ever being accepted by consumers. Right now devices have a limit to the number of books they can simultaneously hold-but if they implemented that database then devices would have a 'lifetime' limit to the number of books they can hold, thus making devices even more disposable than they are now.

(Assuming consumers would put up with it, I'm sure that manufacturers would be pleased to produce a book that allows you to read say 500 books-then you need to buy a new device.)

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Copyright is a quaint notion with regard to intellectual and electronic property. If you take property that is not yours to take, that is theft. I'm not one to quibble meanings of words.

'quaint'? It seems to me that copyright represents the 'title of ownership' to non-physical property. I'm not sure I regard property ownership as a quaint notion-but I definitely agree with you about it being theft. (And I may be quibbling about the meaning of words here, too. Or I might be mis-reading what you mean by 'quaint notion'. to me, it sounds like you mean that it's outdated.)

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by kenmark

This is Adobe's official list of ADE Supported eBook devices which use Adobe Reader® Mobile 9 software development kit (SDK). (I'm not sure if it is up-to-date or not.)

How are all these readers, plus any new ones being released, going to synchronize a new firmware update for a new version of ADE DRM?

Based on past experience with other electronic devices & software, they aren't. Some will, but many (particularly older or less well-known ones) probably won't. Based on past experience,that is. One can always hope the future will be better (and I do, but I don't really expect it to be).

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Copyright is a quaint notion with regard to intellectual and electronic property.

Copyrighted (and the related patent & trademark laws) are the *only* notion with regard to intellectual property; it doesn't exist outside of those laws. "Electronic property" is a bit blurrier (because it's often tied to physical devices), but inasmuch as it can be copied, it's covered by the same laws.

You can "steal" Windows 7 by breaking into Fry's and taking a box of discs out under your coat. (Well, theoretically, anyway.) That counts as petty theft in the state I'm in; potentially good for up to a year in jail, and several thousand dollars worth of fines.

You can't "steal" Windows 7 from a bittorrent network. You can potentially "violate copyright"--up to $150,000 worth of fines for a single event.

If it's "theft," why isn't it prosecuted as theft, in relation to the dollar value of what was "stolen?"

If you take property that is not yours to take, that is theft. I'm not one to quibble meanings of words.

If you make a copy, you haven't "taken" anything. Which is probably why copyright infringement is not prosecuted as "theft," even in those cases where it's a criminal, rather than civil, violation.

Part of the reason these discussions often break down is refusal to agree on a vocabulary. Some people want to use the word "theft" to mean "unauthorized use," possibly with the codicil, "to someone else's detriment," and others want to restrict it to the legal definition.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

...

If it's "theft," why isn't it prosecuted as theft, in relation to the dollar value of what was "stolen?"

Because the law is behind the times. As I said, "quaint."