In which e-book formats do you have books that you'd still like to be able to read?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

DRMed stuff from Sony Connect isn't all the Sony Reader can display, so not being able to use a DRM model elsewhere isn't necessarily a hold up.

That leaves us with the varying copyright and distribution systems of different countries. Based on conversations in other threads, we know that different countries handle copyright (and enforcement of copyright) differently, and I know I recall someone, somewhere in these threads, mentioning it as an issue with new books. David Monyhan and Project Gutenberg (Australia) have clued us into the differences in copyright laws in different countries regarding older works.

I'd bet that, in order to satisfy global distribution, Amazon and Sony would have to set up multiple contracts, distribution systems, agreements, etc, to satisfy many different markets. They probably decided not to bother, at least for now. With the U.S. being one of the largest single markets, not to mention being full of more consumers with deep pockets, it was the logical choice to start with, if you had to start on a limited basis.

But back on topic: Of course, a good-sized part of me hopes they both fail, or at least sell seriously below expectations, and that it can be directly attributed to their proprietary formats. Then, either the devices would have to switch formats (say, to ePub), or they would have to work out agreements with the other formats to allow them to run on their devices. As good as Sony's might be, and as large as Amazon's library may be, I think the first hardware device that will read the most popular 3-4 e-book formats will win the day.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by NatCh

That's a fair question. I was trying to focus on dedicated e-book formats (which you may agree PDF ain't), in an attempt to get a feel for what dedicated formats we might like on a multi-format supporting reading device.

PDF (the DRM'd sort) may not be a good dedicated ebook format, but the fact remains that it is one which many folks have purchased & used and probably outsells some of the other DRM formats just because folks who don't know any better are at least slightly familiar with it. Seems to me Secure PDF should have been an option. I'm sure folks that have bought this format (thank goodness I only have one book in it) would like to be able to continue using them & be able to use them on newer readers just like folks that own eReader books would. Just an opinion of course

[shousa]

I voted for .lit

I can vote now that I have bought a Sony 505.

Thanks to kovidgoyal of course - otherwise I would not have bought it but a Hanlin instead.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

PDF (the DRM'd sort) may not be a good dedicated ebook format, but the fact remains that it is one which many folks have purchased & used and probably outsells some of the other DRM formats just because folks who don't know any better are at least slightly familiar with it.

Don't forget, a lot of textbooks are in PDF, and cannot be well or properly displayed by any other e-book format. Yes, hardware needs to be optimized for it, but PDF should absolutely be in the mix, here.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Don't forget, a lot of textbooks are in PDF, and cannot be well or properly displayed by any other e-book format. Yes, hardware needs to be optimized for it, but PDF should absolutely be in the mix, here.

Yeah, I always forget about textbooks, tech books, etc. I guess when I think of ebooks it's for fiction & I tend to forget about the other possibilities.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I'd bet that, in order to satisfy global distribution, Amazon and Sony would have to set up multiple contracts, distribution systems, agreements, etc, to satisfy many different markets. They probably decided not to bother, at least for now. With the U.S. being one of the largest single markets, not to mention being full of more consumers with deep pockets, it was the logical choice to start with, if you had to start on a limited basis.

I'm not sure that's a valid argument, Steve, given that MobiPocket don't appear to have any problem selling world-wide!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not sure that's a valid argument, Steve, given that MobiPocket don't appear to have any problem selling world-wide!

MobiPocket doesn't sell physical products.

Sony and Amazon are selling devices, which requires a distribution infrastructure to do so. Sony has some of that in place, since their consumer electronics are sold all over the world. Amazon is another matter.
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Dennis

[nekokami]

The only DRM'd books I've bought were .lit, and I promptly converted them to be able to read them on my reader. Which was the eBw 1150 at the time, I think, but now I have those books on my iLiad. So I just voted for #13.

I do have quite a few books in non-DRM mobipocket format, though, and I wasn't sure if you meant for us to vote for mobipocket in that case. I use converters to move unlocked files around between formats anyway, so I don't really care that much if a new reader supports the old formats, as long as I can convert to something the new device can read. I admit that I really like having FBReader on the iLiad, though, because it can read so many formats without conversion.

That being said, I bought the iLiad specifically to be able to read (and annotate) PDF journal articles, which I couldn't readily do on the eBookwise. (Many of them are "scanned" PDF, which I'd have to OCR and fiddle with to convert to text. The PDF->jpg converter for eBw hadn't come out yet when I made my decision.) Online journals seem to have pretty much standardized on PDF, so for us academic types, PDF support will probably continue to be important.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Y'know, I just might as well retract my statements and suppositions about why Amazon and Sony don't sell their readers internationally. I just don't know, and as an outsider, I don't have enough knowledge to guess at their motives or limitations.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

MobiPocket doesn't sell physical products.

Sony and Amazon are selling devices, which requires a distribution infrastructure to do so. Sony has some of that in place, since their consumer electronics are sold all over the world. Amazon is another matter.
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Dennis

Amazon has subsidiaries all over too (.uk, .fr, .de and so on); My opinion is that it is too much trouble to sell electronics from the US store overseas (laws, warranties, voltage) and too much trouble for the subsidiaries to go sell the product since it's too marginal right now.

A small company like Bookeen is forced to try and sell anywhere it can and the potential loss is not big (small company goes under; happens all the time); Amazon and Sony are too big and stand to lose too much for a very marginal product if things go bad. If Amazon would sell Kindles in numbers like Ipods or Sony would sell the PRS in numbers like Play Station I would bet they would immediately start selling the readers anywhere too.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Amazon has subsidiaries all over too (.uk, .fr, .de and so on);

It does, but it doesn't have the global reach of Sony. (Is there an Amazon HK, for example?)

My opinion is that it is too much trouble to sell electronics from the US store overseas (laws, warranties, voltage) and too much trouble for the subsidiaries to go sell the product since it's too marginal right now.

I think you're exactly right. At the moment, they are gauging the market. The first roll-out is in the US. If it takes off here, we'll start to see it become available elsewhere, with the required adjustments for the stuff you mentioned.

A small company like Bookeen is forced to try and sell anywhere it can and the potential loss is not big (small company goes under; happens all the time);

Sure. And Bookeen will survive by rigid cost control and careful planning. They'll make sure there's a market before they build. They probably don't have the resources to survive a flop.

Amazon and Sony are too big and stand to lose too much for a very marginal product if things go bad. If Amazon would sell Kindles in numbers like Ipods or Sony would sell the PRS in numbers like Play Station I would bet they would immediately start selling the readers anywhere too.

True enough. An Amazon and Sony are dipping their toes into this particular water.

Sony has to sell a lot of them to make it worth their while. I'd call what they've done so far a pilot project to see if there is a big enough market that they can profitably address.

Amazon is in a similar position, with the additional wrinkle that they are selling their own branded hardware as well as content, which is a new business for them. Supplies of Kindles are tight because they didn't make that many in the initial production run.

Forecasting demand for a new product is always a crap shoot, and companies introducing new products will be conservative in how many they build till they get a feel for the market. They can always make more to meet demand, but what they do with product for which there isn't a demand is another matter.
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Dennis

[vivaldirules]

I haven't read the whole thread so I apologize if I'm duplicating comments by others. I saw PDFs listed in #13 with non-DRM'd formats but wondered if anyone thinks that Digital Editions will become a DRM'd format that ebook readers would support directly. I've assumed Sony, for example, would just provide a means to convert to LRF retaining the DE DRM. But I think others here thought Sony's implementation might be different from that and that DE might become an ebook format supported on its own. If that were possible, whether Sony implements it or not, we would want to see Adobe DE supported by the proposed multiformat reader, correct? I have several such ebooks but of course can't read them anywhere except on my PC for now.

[kovidgoyal]

You can convert non DRMed epub files into LRF and read them on your SONY now using libprs500.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

... I think others here thought Sony's implementation might be different from that and that DE might become an ebook format supported on its own. If that were possible, whether Sony implements it or not, we would want to see Adobe DE supported by the proposed multiformat reader, correct?

I'm pretty sure that Sony plans to support DE/.epub directly -- I don't know it, but reading between the lines.

Ideally, I'd want to see reading devices that support .epub (assuming it ends up being the "standard" format -- I think it's got a great shot at it), and probably not much else (I think we'd always want TXT, DOC, RTF, HTML, etc.), but with all the existing titles either being offered for download to previous purchasers in .epub, or with some sort of conversion apps appearing to convert the existing stuff to .epub. At that point, with a truly standard format, the need to support a bunch of other formats would dwindle and disappear.

However, since you seem to be asking why I didn't include .epub in the poll (a fair question), the reason is that it isn't an "old" format, and I was focusing more on those, that's all.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Ideally, I'd want to see reading devices that support .epub (assuming it ends up being the "standard" format -- I think it's got a great shot at it), and probably not much else (I think we'd always want TXT, DOC, RTF, HTML, etc.), but with all the existing titles either being offered for download to previous purchasers in .epub, or with some sort of conversion apps appearing to convert the existing stuff to .epub. At that point, with a truly standard format, the need to support a bunch of other formats would dwindle and disappear.

An any format-to-ePub converter would be GREAT... no question. Then any new devices could simply run ePub, and you could convert your entire existing library to it.

Assuming, of course, any existing DRM on your file allowed you to do the conversion...