Adobe Digital Editions 3.0 released

[oj829]

Originally Posted by Garry Lancaster

I wonder how many of the independent ePub retailers will actually switch to ACS5?

I can't really see what's in it for them, given that if they do this then a large proportion of their existing customer base will be unable to read purchased books on their current ereaders (come July).

Sounds like a customer support nightmare to me.

I watched that entire Datalogics videoconference, and part of what was being touted in RMSDK10 was epub3 support and the improved support for some Asian languages. There may be demands in substantial international markets for Just Better from Adobe. So they're moving on.

I agree that old e-readers might not be high on Adobe's priorities list.

But I also don't see how Adobe is going to hit that hard target of going dark on RMSDK9-type DRM on ACS5 by July. (The conference host insisted that Adobe was going to disable the customers' option of configuring ACS5 to fulfill with RMSDK9-compatible downloads come July. Nice to know that Big Customers get pushed around by Adobe just like us little guys.).

Anyway, I haven't seen any notices from B&N, Kobo, etc. And at my local library, while they've gone to linking to an ADE 3.0 download, ADE 2.0 still works there, and they also haven't given any heads-up on a near-future roadmap. I do note that the library offers many titles as Kindle .AZW (downloadable to device or desktop client app) or OverdriveRead (web-based, if you are on a desktop) in addition to Adobe ePub.

Maybe public-facing institutions are getting readierer than we think.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by oj829

Maybe public-facing institutions are getting readierer than we think.

I think you are being optimistic.

I think it's going to be a big mess. People who never really noticed or cared about DRM are suddenly going to find that newly bought books won't work on their ebook readers.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by oj829

(The conference host insisted that Adobe was going to disable the customers' option of configuring ACS5 to fulfill with RMSDK9-compatible downloads come July. Nice to know that Big Customers get pushed around by Adobe just like us little guys.).

So Adobe, a company that basically has NOTHING to do with ebooks, is the main controlling entity of EPUB and its DRM. They also control PDF for documents and DNG for photographs.

It's just another example that is telling us that Adobe is becoming way too big and out of control. The fact that they can move an entire de-facto industry standard application suite into a subscription model because customers have nowhere else to go (there are alternatives to Adobe programs, but face it, they are just not as powerful, or at the very least, work very differently), should have set off a lot of alarms.

Since then, I actively tend to avoid Adobe software, but with regard to Flash, Adobe Reader and Digital Editions, I can't. Without Flash, half the internet stops working, I need Adobe Reader for work, and there is no alternative for Digtial Editions. Maybe Sony Reader, but I've never tested that and don't know if Alf can handle that software.

Someone should start taking a serious look at Adobe, just the way it was done at Microsoft, Apple, and (now, almost) Google.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think you are being optimistic.

I think it's going to be a big mess. People who never really noticed or cared about DRM are suddenly going to find that newly bought books won't work on their ebook readers.

Precisely. I have replaced my entire paper library with ebooks already, and apart from the Forgotten Realms books, all of my series are complete, from the start up until 2014. I have a TBR-list of about 500 books now, excluding classics, which means I can be reading for another 8-10 years at my current pace. If I can't de-DRM books, it may be a VERY long time before I buy new stuff again.

[oj829]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think you are being optimistic.

I'm certainly optimistic that there will be enough FAIL in February and March that Adobe is going to be forced to backpedal on that July deadline.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

[sarcasm]I'm sure Sony will be delighted to spend the resources producing a firmware update for your PRS-950s so that you can read books with the new DRM on them.[/sarcasm]

Especially since I only ever bought two or three books from them.

[tubemonkey]

I heart my Kindle - no ePub for me

[whitearrow]

You know, whatever you think of Amazon, I am willing to bet that if they introduced a major DRM change for some unholy reason, they'd offer firmware updates right back to the Kindle 1 to make sure all of their customers could still read their books on the devices they'd purchased.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

You know, whatever you think of Amazon, I am willing to bet that if they introduced a major DRM change for some unholy reason, they'd offer firmware updates right back to the Kindle 1 to make sure all of their customers could still read their books on the devices they'd purchased.

Yup. Amazon knows how to make money -- it's by making the customers happy. They might even occasionally mess up (cloud collections, anybody?) but they will never KNOWINGLY screw their customers.

I ♥ Kindle!

[Katsunami]

I think they'll just encrypt the book for the device you are sending it to. If you send it to an old Kindle, it'll have old DRM. AFAIK, they already do so with many books with regard to file format. If you send it to a Kindle that supports AZW3 you get the book as such, otherwise you get a MOBI-version.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Yup. Amazon knows how to make money -- it's by making the customers happy. They might even occasionally mess up (cloud collections, anybody?) but they will never KNOWINGLY screw their customers.

I agree about Amazon: trustworthy (not too many are.) But I love my Kobo Auras. I've been buying eBooks for more than seven years and can't afford to dump them.

It occurs to me that there are add-ins for calibre than make ePubs into kePubs, or at least, that make the Kobo engine render them without loosing a great lot. It looks like I have to get busy and convert everything to kePub format in the hope it will shield my library from the barbarians.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So Adobe, a company that basically has NOTHING to do with ebooks, is the main controlling entity of EPUB and its DRM.

.

Yes.
Is this new to you?

I thought it was common knowledge since 2009 that "epub is what adobe says it is". That is the main reason epub3 has gotten nowhere so far. Everybody is waiting for the adobe santioned implementation.

Back in 2008-2009 there were a few skirmishes over epub3 implementation because different developers were interpretting the vagaries in the spec in different ways. Since Sony surrendered their platform to Adobe and dismantled their ecosystem in favor of Adept all the second tier vendors followed suit and started shipping thinly (if at all) disguised versions of ADE mobile as their reader software because they expected Adept-DRM epub to become a "universal" ebook standard. The result was that any software producing epubs, even DRM-free epubs, was expected to produce adobe-compliant epubs. The way it was treated by developers was: "it doesn't matter what the spec says, if it doesn't render in Adobe it is up to you to change the file".

Adobe has never had to answer to anybody because the multinational publishers use Adobe software and they were not about to change their internal practices, which have long been geared towards producing and archiving pdfs.

So Adobe can push everybody else around at will and lately they have started pushing the publishers around with impunity. So far, nobody has stood up to them. Even Amazon and Apple kiss the ring of Don Adobe.
(Even if it is purely lip service.)

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

It occurs to me that there are add-ins for calibre than make ePubs into kePubs, or at least, that make the Kobo engine render them without loosing a great lot. It looks like I have to get busy and convert everything to kePub format in the hope it will shield my library from the barbarians.

If you're able to use calibre to convert them, that means they don't have DRM and you have nothing to worry about, hm? I haven't seen anything saying that Adobe's going to come scouring your hard drive and applying DRM where none existed...

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

I agree about Amazon: trustworthy (not too many are.) But I love my Kobo Auras. I've been buying eBooks for more than seven years and can't afford to dump them.

It occurs to me that there are add-ins for calibre than make ePubs into kePubs, or at least, that make the Kobo engine render them without loosing a great lot. It looks like I have to get busy and convert everything to kePub format in the hope it will shield my library from the barbarians.

Just Alf your e-books and keep them in Calibre, and you'll be fine; at least with the ones you already own.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

You know, whatever you think of Amazon, I am willing to bet that if they introduced a major DRM change for some unholy reason, they'd offer firmware updates right back to the Kindle 1 to make sure all of their customers could still read their books on the devices they'd purchased.

As pointed out above, Amazon has in fact updated their DRM repeatedly.
Not many notice because they don't break the readers and Alf's elves have kept up.

The same applies to their ebook formats: with few exceptions (graphic novels, fixed format, and the like) they will transparently feed a compatible version to even the oldest device or app. The last thing they want is for consumers to worry about the plumbing.
They want users to buy and read and buy some more.
It is how they make their money.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Yes.
Is this new to you?

No, it's not new to me. I intended it to be quite sarcastic (Adobe controlling EPUB and its main form of DRM, while the company itself basically does NOTHING with regard to e-books. They don't have a store, and they are not a publisher.)

Originally Posted by fjtorres

So Adobe can push everybody else around at will and lately they have started pushing the publishers around with impunity.

The European Union is so very good at looking into companies and ordering Microsoft to remove Windows Media Player from Windows, and provide a Browser Choice screen nobody wants or needs; maybe they should look into Adobe. It's ridiculous that a company that does not publish or sells e-books has so much power to control the format.

Yes, Amazon controls their format too, but they at least publish and sell e-books and readers. If you buy at Amazon, you know that they control the format, the DRM and the e-reader. If you buy at Kobo, you don't know that Adobe is the one controlling the DRM scheme and the format, unless you feel inclined to look into it.