Adobe Digital Editions 3.0 released

[Katsunami]

LOL.

"Please redownload all your purchased EPUBs to continue to read them. And... Oh.... Yeah.... Upgrade your reader also, while you're at it."

Eh... No.

I have epubs that I don't even remember where I got them (I don't keep pdurrant-like records), and I have some that come from stores now gone.

Adobe will *never* get rid of the current version of their DRM with regard to books already sold. They have to support it indefinitely, or render all books sold between 2007-2013 unreadable.

The only thing that could happen, in 5 years time or so, is requiring publishers and stores to use the new DRM on new releases, if all newer readers support it and most of the current ones are phased out.

[Barcey]

It doesn't make sense to me that they would force a change of DRM on the ebook stores. It would be a whole lot of hurt, confusion and anger for paying customers. It would only drive more customers to Amazon.

Pure speculation on my part but after seeing on The Digital Reader that Simon & Schuster announced a new library ebook pilot with Overdrive http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20.../#.UuFngnn0CX0 the scenario that makes sense to me is that they are stipulating that Overdrive has to use the new "secure DRM" to lend the ebooks. The publishers are big on introducing "friction" into library lending so they wouldn't be concerned if there is a whole lot of hurt, confusion and frustration for the library loans.

We'll see if I guessed right.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Barcey

The publishers are big on introducing "friction" into library lending so they wouldn't be concerned if there is a whole lot of hurt, confusion and frustration for the library loans.

We'll see if I guessed right.

If a the new DRM scheme was only used on Library books, I doubt that anyone would bother reverse engineering it

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If a the new DRM scheme was only used on Library books, I doubt that anyone would bother reverse engineering it

Yes, that's my thinking as well.

[colinsky]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If a the new DRM scheme was only used on Library books, I doubt that anyone would bother reverse engineering it

Even if the change prevented library books from being read on existing epub-reader devices?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by colinsky

Even if the change prevented library books from being read on existing epub-reader devices?

Even then. We don't own the book, so why should anyone, for the sake of fair use, create a circumvention method?

Currently, you cannot read them on an e-ink Kindle, but the plugin-makers would never create it for the purpose of circumventing the OverDrive-EPUB-on-Kindles problem. Granted, now the tool exists, it can be used for that, but it is not grounds on its own.

[TheSFReader]

Yes, the plugin-makers explicitely refuse to have it crack the library-specific parts of the DRM.

[Apache]

I Alf'ed all of my old eoub books as soon as I got them. If the new DRM does not allow me to Alf new epub purchases I will not be buying them. In that scenario it looks like Amazon would win all of my business.
Apache

[shanghaichica]

I don't often buy ePub books and this will make me hold off for a bit because I'd ultimately want them on my kindle even though I have ePub devices. Alf has taken care of all my previous ePub purchases.

[GoSharks]

The idea that the publishers would go to the time , energy and expense to develop a new (stronger) DRM scheme, then not eventually apply it to all of their books is naive. They will certainly roll it out in the venues they care least about, like Overdrive/libraries, but if it works it will end up being used everywhere. Forever having multiple protection schemes depending on where a product is distributed would be a logistical headache no business would intentionally inflict upon itself.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

The idea that the publishers would go to the time , energy and expense to develop a new (stronger) DRM scheme, then not eventually apply it to all of their books is naive. They will certainly roll it out in the venues they care least about, like Overdrive/libraries, but if it works it will end up being used everywhere. Forever having multiple protection schemes depending on where a product is distributed would be a logistical headache no business would intentionally inflict upon itself.

Adobe has spent the time and money, presumably at publishers' insistence, but possibly to try to pretect their revenue stream from ADE ($0.22 per book bought, remember). But I'm hopeful that more publishers will realise that DRM is just costing them money before too long.

US monthly ebook sales are at least $100 million. Let's say that only 25% are DRMed ePubs. That's $25million/month. Let's say average book price is $3 (a low estimate, but about what I pay). That's about 8 million ADE ePubs a month. That's $1.76 million dollars income for Adobe per month, just from US sales. Then there's library lending, and foreign sales.

So having ePubs sold with DRM gets Adobe at least $20 million/year. And that's rounding down, taking low estimates, and ignoring lots of foreign sales. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that Adobe gets more than $50 million per year from ADE DRM on book sales and loans.

Are you surprised that they're willing to spend some money to protect that revenue?

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Are you surprised that they're willing to spend some money to protect that revenue?

Not at all...in fact, I'm actually surprised they are so slow in their protective innovation. What would surprise (flabbergast) me is if they restricted this new protection scheme singularly to library books and no where else.

[oj829]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Even then. We don't own the book, so why should anyone, for the sake of fair use, create a circumvention method?

Any system which repeatedly phones home when you open and read a book (and this seems implied by Adobe's vague "morphing key re-creation" language) deprives the reader of more than just fair use.

The current "protocol" commonly in use (break-once-read-many) lets the library (and its corporate overlords) know that I borrowed a book and returned it. Anything more than that is intrusive, and in fact libraries don't even want to keep that much information handy. (but 9/11!)

If more draconian DRM is ONLY on library books going forward because tech support for DRM-created problems in the free marketplace is too onerous for retailers, then you're going to have a drastic digital divide between those who are surveilled and those who can pay $14.95 a pop not to be.

[oj829]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

Not at all...in fact, I'm actually surprised they are so slow in their protective innovation. What would surprise (flabbergast) me is if they restricted this new protection scheme singularly to library books and no where else.

Wouldn't surprise me. Libraries are apparently powerless before publishers.

OTOH, introduce enough "friction" with new DRM in the free marketplace, and IF retailers decide that the support costs per book are putting them in the red, they will revolt, and they will NOT get a middle finger from the publishers like nerdy librarians do.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by oj829

OTOH, introduce enough "friction" with new DRM in the free marketplace, and IF retailers decide that the support costs per book are putting them in the red, they will revolt, and they will NOT get a middle finger from the publishers like nerdy librarians do.

Libraries are important to publishers as a public forum. If not economically, certainly as advertising for their product. If this were untrue, they would not offer their books through them. Simple economics. This does not mean they need to play nice (hence the 'middle finger').

If you were a publisher looking to make changes to your protection scheme that would require changes to e-readers or e-reader software, what better place to start than libraries. The companies that produce e-readers want to be able to advertise that they are compatible with libraries, so let the public do the work for you. In the mean time, you are not annoying the retailers. When products have adapted, then make the DRM scheme universal and the retailers will thank you for it.