Antitrust suit against Amazon and publishers dismissed...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by shalym

So Barnes and Noble is using regular ADE now? If true, that sucks--I don't use ADE and have no interest in starting to, so that cuts out Barnes and Noble as a possible source of DRM'd books. Looks like I'm down to Amazon exclusively.

Shari

I've seen no official notice.
Last I saw in the ADE 3 thread, B&N DRM is still supported.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...231939&page=54

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by auspex

You seem not to have noticed the actually important part. I download from Amazon even though I don't have a Kindle, because I have the ability to strip the DRM AND convert the book format. That's not legal in the US. As for kindle software being available on "tons of hardware", none of that hardware is other dedicated e-readers, while nothing ties your B&N or Kobo download to their hardware.

And it is not legal to do that on an ADE book, in order to put it on the greater number of Kindles.

This is besides the fact that, as DiapDealer pointed out, Kobo has been increasingly putting up books with only KEPUB (Oh. Em. Gee. A Kobo-hardware-only format) and no ADE DRM download.
B&N isn't doing that (yet, but who knows?) so yes, there is still one retailer that only restricts you to ADE-compatible devices.
But it sure isn't *just* an Amazon thing, so I truly admire your excellent research skillz.

Also, since when did anyone care about the legality of DeDRMing ebooks? I am pretty sure the general position on it ranges from "huh " to "screw that", so anyone who actually wants to read Kindle books on a Kobo will also know how to do it and not have any qualms about doing so. In other words, what a pointlessly theoretical complaint.

On the other hand, good luck reading a KEPUB on a Kindle.


All hail B&N, the only bastion of Adobe strength left in the defense against Overlord Amazon.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And it is not legal to do that on an ADE book, in order to put it on the greater number of Kindles.

This is besides the fact that, as DiapDealer pointed out, Kobo has been increasingly putting up books with only KEPUB (Oh. Em. Gee. A Kobo-hardware-only format) and no ADE DRM download.
B&N isn't doing that (yet, but who knows?) so yes, there is still one retailer that only restricts you to ADE-compatible devices.
But it sure isn't *just* an Amazon thing, so I truly admire your excellent research skillz.

Also, since when did anyone care about the legality of DeDRMing ebooks? I am pretty sure the general position on it ranges from "huh " to "screw that", so anyone who actually wants to read Kindle books on a Kobo will also know how to do it and not have any qualms about doing so. In other words, what a pointlessly theoretical complaint.

On the other hand, good luck reading a KEPUB on a Kindle.


All hail B&N, the only bastion of Adobe strength left in the defense against Overlord Amazon.

Again, I'll ask...Since when does Barnes and Noble use regular Adobe DRM for the Nook books? As far as I know, they use their own DRM that is tied to a credit card.

Shari

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by shalym

Again, I'll ask...Since when does Barnes and Noble use regular Adobe DRM for the Nook books? As far as I know, they use their own DRM that is tied to a credit card.

Shari

They only sell with eReader DRM but Nooks support Adept... and ADE supports B&N DRM. That is why Aldiko and Bluefire, among others, can open nook books. For now...

[shalym]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They only sell with eReader DRM but Nooks support Adept... and ADE supports B&N DRM. That is why Aldiko and Bluefire, among others, can open nook books. For now...

But can you read a Nook book on a Kobo without removing DRM? What about a Pocketbook or one of the other dedicated readers? The original premise was that books from B&N could be read on other dedicated ereaders, but Kindle books can't.

Shari

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by shalym

But can you read a Nook book on a Kobo without removing DRM? What about a Pocketbook or one of the other dedicated readers?

Nope. The RMSDK will allow for it, but none of those companies, AFAIK, have enabled the ability (Kobo hasn't for sure).

EDIT: Actually if by dedicated reader the Onyx T68 eInk reader (and other Android Onyx stuff) counts then you can read B&N books on that as it runs Android apps.

[eschwartz]

Yep. So, once again, it is actually true that B&N books are interoperable, although Kobo manages to lock them down anyway.

How that helps when most devices, STILL, are Kindles, I do not know. In any event, there are only 10 ebooks published with DRM of any sort* which are interoperable. They are published by Pottermore, and guess how they solved it...


* Edit: I mean encryption style, not watermarking DRM.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by shalym

But can you read a Nook book on a Kobo without removing DRM? What about a Pocketbook or one of the other dedicated readers? The original premise was that books from B&N could be read on other dedicated ereaders, but Kindle books can't.

Shari

B&N's intent was that their ebooks would be readable on other readers, which is why the B&N DRM is supported by the Adobe RMSDK. Adobe didn't make support mandatory, so it's not B&N's fault that the Kobo or Sony readers can't read B&N ebooks. That's quite different from Amazon's decision to not sell their reader software to any other ereader manufacturer. Some early dedicated readers not associated with any ebook retailer did support the B&N DRM natively (for example, PanDigital).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

B&N's intent was that their ebooks would be readable on other readers, which is why the B&N DRM is supported by the Adobe RMSDK. Adobe didn't make support mandatory, so it's not B&N's fault that the Kobo or Sony readers can't read B&N ebooks. That's quite different from Amazon's decision to not sell their reader software to any other ereader manufacturer. Some early dedicated readers not associated with any ebook retailer did support the B&N DRM natively (for example, PanDigital).

In fact, Amazon did offer. No one took them up on it.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

B&N's intent was that their ebooks would be readable on other readers, which is why the B&N DRM is supported by the Adobe RMSDK. Adobe didn't make support mandatory, so it's not B&N's fault that the Kobo or Sony readers can't read B&N ebooks. That's quite different from Amazon's decision to not sell their reader software to any other ereader manufacturer. Some early dedicated readers not associated with any ebook retailer did support the B&N DRM natively (for example, PanDigital).

Uh, Amazon offered to license their software to other hardware vendors early on.
The only requirement was they had to support whispernet.
Nobody took Bezos up on the offer because, of course!, epub was going to rule.
Then the conspiracy kicked in, Nook moved to near-cost pricing, and Kindle followed and there was no money to be made in Kindle-compatible readers.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Uh, Amazon offered to license their software to other hardware vendors early on.
The only requirement was they had to support whispernet.
Nobody took Bezos up on the offer because, of course!, epub was going to rule.
Then the conspiracy kicked in, Nook moved to near-cost pricing, and Kindle followed and there was no money to be made in Kindle-compatible readers.

I didn't realize that, thanks for the correction. I had the impression that after Amazon bought Mobipocket they forced everyone to drop support of the format.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I didn't realize that, thanks for the correction. I had the impression that after Amazon bought Mobipocket they forced everyone to drop support of the format.

No. They were licensing mobipocket DRM well into 2011 or so.
What they did, around 2009, was change the Mobipocket licensing terms so that any reader licensed for Mobi DRM could not carry other DRM.
Again, most everybody put their eggs in the Adobe basket.

But some vendors (Bookeen, for one) kept selling Mobipocket DRM versions of their readers side by side with ADEPT versions. And the Hanlin readers (my BeBook, for one) could be hacked to run a combined firmware that supported both.

Early on, you could even extract a mobi key for Kindles and open Mobipocket DRM ebooks from Libraries and other vendors.