Yes, e-book formats and DRM issues DO Matter—and techies should align themselves with the PUBLIC interest
For e-books to take off, they need to be audio-CD-simple—without today’s Tower of eBabel of clashing formats.
So I was delighted that after writing Why supported formats don’t matter to me (very much), MobileRead’s Bob Russell stressed he was truly serious about the “me” qualification. Also check out RJH’s arguments against eBabel and DRM. As tempting as it is for technical people to learn to tolerate the current format mess, the real future is in more visionary approaches without vendor lock-ins.
Toward the true public interest
Such approaches will benefit everyone: readers, writers, publishers, software companies and even the e-book enthusiasts who today are proud of their skills as format jockeys. The more popular e-books become, through standards like ePub, the lower will be the prices of dedicated hardware. Furthermore, a standard format like ePub will expedite the development of e-reading programs to run on cellphones and regular computers or interact with non-e-book apps such as Web browsers. On top of that, shouldn’t software houses compete with each other to come up with the best interfaces and other truly valuable features—rather than fritter away money on format wars?
With that in mind, I’d certainly agree with Bob’s on “two huge reasons” why “I care a lot about a universal reflowable e-book format. Number one, I want to eliminate every concern about conversions entirely. If, for example, everyone creates and supports all e-books in ePub, then we all win in terms of reduced complexity and improved compatibility. Ideally, it would be like .txt or .html files, but with more features. Just the way HTML improves on text files, but retains the universality, so might a standard format like ePub if everyone uses it.”
The DRM question
As for DRM, it’s impossible for shoppers to avoid if they care about best-sellers, but it needn’t be with us forever, as Pan Macmillan has demonstrated through its efforts to wean itself off this sales toxin. For now, consumers can complain to e-bookstores, publishers and writers about the value DRM subtracts from their purchases. And if anything, the genuine techies will most appreciate the additional complexities that DRM can introduce—even a so-called standardized variety. And I don’t just mean technical complications as technology evolves. Like it or not, if you live in the United States and many other countries, you’re generally a criminal in the eyes of the law if you bypass DRM even for innocent purposes such as format conversions.
November 29th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I think what kills me the most about DRM is that the formats they are selling look like crap and there is no tool within the existing DRM scheme for either Mobipocket or LRX to modify the file to increase font size, change font type, or change margins.
And yes if it takes over 1000 words to explain to friends what all the different formats mean and which one goes with which device I have a hard time seeing ebooks taking off. Most people don’t have the patience or time to learn all this.