How eReader’s DRM punished me for buying my books legally
By Ficbot
Most readers of this blog are opposed to DRM. But publishers continue to be enamored of it, and continue to say that if you really are a legitimate customer, doing nothing wrong, you shouldn’t even notice it, so why should you care?
Well, publishers have it wrong. They clearly have no understanding of how the average customer’s computer set-up, and life, works.
My latest headache, from one of the gentler forms of DRM, is proof of this.
eReader system explained
The background: I do not support overly restrictive DRM formats, but I have in the past (and more so recently, since my iPod Touch purchase) tolerated secure eReader files, because it’s the only way to read many new releases. Iit seemed to the least intrusive of the options.
eReader DRM uses a scrambled version of your credit card number as the encryption key—you technically can share the book if you want to, but you’d have to share your credit card number, too, so its use as the unlock code is for nearly all customers an effective deterrent against sharing. The software for the iPod Touch even stores the code for you so you don’t have to reenter it every time you download a new book.
Sounds great, right? Until you have a problem with your credit card.
When credit cards get compromised…
I found out last week that my credit card had been compromised. These things happen. I get excellent customer service from Mastercard, and when the company noticed suspicious activity on my account, it froze my card and notified me. Mastercard will be sending out a new one and all is well. But what about all my ebooks?
Some poking around on eReader FAQ pages and MobileRead boards (time spent: 30 minutes) offered a few solutions. I can continue to buy books with the new card, and keep the old card number handy to unlock the older titles. But I can only have three credit card numbers on file with eReader, so that might not be the safest way to preserve my purchases.
Or, when I get the new card, I can notify eReader and have them convert all my past purchases over to the new code—but then I have to re-download all my past purchases again and re-unlock them (time spent: who knows, given we’re looking at more than 40 books here).
DRM as a Time-waster
How is all this time that I, a paying customer, am spending on all of this nonsense contributing to the noble cause of promoting reading and promoting legitimate purchases?
It’s actually deterring purchases, because the more I buy, the more work I have to go to in terms of re-downloading and re-unlocking when the new card arrives. How is subjecting paying customers to all of this manual labor serving any purpose other than annoying the very people who, by purchasing in the first place, are proving that they are not the problem as far as piracy goes?
Reward for playing by the rules: A massive headache
For many new releases, I simply don’t have a choice if I want to read them. It’s eReader, or something worse. But I’m thinking I may need to do some more investigating as to author websites, Baen Webscriptions or other places where DRM-free options might be available. or, perhaps, to investigate ways to hack my eReader files so unlocking them in this way is not necessary, even if such hacking is technically not permitted.
I am not a pirate, or a criminal, or a person who wants to deprive the author of their due. But all my “playing by the rules” has gotten me so far is a massive headache and daunting, tedious manual labor looming over my head when my new card arrives.
These things happen, with credit cards. If it happens again in another few years, I may have a hundred books by then. How long would it take to re-download that amount? I shudder to contemplate.
Publishers, please wake up to the reality that your paying, purchasing customers are not the problem. Let them buy DRM-free books that they can use and enjoy without all of these shenanigans.
Moderator’s note: The eReader screenshot is from me, not Ficbot, though I think she might enjoy Scoop, the book shown. Meanwhile Ficbot’s misery serves as a reminder to the IDPF that it’ll be playing with fire if it tightly couples ePub with DRM. Think revenue, as opposed to ideology. DRM is a sales toxin. The good folks at eReader would be the first to acknowledge customers’ hatred of it—they offer DRM only because certain publishers demand it. – D.R.
November 30th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Now, to be fair, for most (all?) eReader clients that I know of, you only ever have to unlock one book with the new credit card number. Then it will remember that number and automatically unlock any other book you open that’s locked with the same number.
I’ll agree that re-downloading all your books might be a hardship (since there doesn’t seem to be any way to download them other than one-at-a-time or the-contents-of-one-order-at-a-time). But on the other hand, if you’re reading with your iPhone, you can just re-download the updated book into the client directly from eReader’s website if and as you want to re-read it.
I’ll be the first to agree that DRM on e-books is pointless now that cracks for all formats (including eReader) can easily be found on the Internet. But I think eReader’s isn’t quite as bad as you make out.
November 30th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
But isn’t any hassle too much for a seller to expect a buyer to put up with? I’ve had similar hassles with activations for MS Reader and Mobipocket when I’ve changed computers or hard drives. Before I figured out how to make a backup copy of the activation, I used to have constant problems with MS Reader when my PDA needed a hard reboot. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent figuring out how to fix problems these kinds of problems so that I don’t lose access to my books.
And what happens when you want to change software or reading devices? I bought quite a few MS Reader format DRM’ed books before I realized it wasn’t the best reader out there and switched to Mobipocket.
What’s going to happen to all those Kindle fans when they realize that forever-and-ever they’re ’stuck’ with the Kindle to read their Kindle-format DRM ebooks, even if someone else comes out with a better device? Or even if they just want a second, smaller device?
Is it any wonder that some people turn to stripping the DRM to ensure future access to what can be a sizable investment? I really don’t understand why the book publishers and retailers aren’t learning from the experience of the music industry, which had a lot more to lose, since more people listen to music than read.
November 30th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Ouch.
And this is exactly why ebooks won’t catch on for a few years (maybe, but hopefully not, more).
I know I’m not going to purchase an ebook that I can’t take with me anywhere, read on any machine. I’d rather buy a paperback, which CAN be taken anywhere, CAN be read anywhere. And many others out there feel the same way. At this point, reading digitally is risky, unless you’re talking pdf files (EVERYONE has Adobe Reader!).
Don’t get me wrong; I love ebooks. I just am discouraged that the book industry is not looking at the bigger picture.
November 30th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Please don’t suggest that PDF should become the eBook standard
It is a pain to read on smaller screens, and you can’t adjust font size or re-flow the text. It is the least flexible option currently possible. I hate PDF and would never, ever buy one. If it became the standard, I would stop reading.
November 30th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Your post also assumes that redownloading is an option. I’ve had companies go out of business or be bought out (at least one of those tracked my purchases under the new company and I was able to redownload on my iphone). In these cases, you need to keep track of that old CC number for forever (and probably both on your computer and on paper, in case of hard drive failure, new system, theft, etc, along with your backups of your books).
The only other solution, as you’ve said, is to strip out the DRM and store backups of your books in a format that is easily converted to any other format (html for now, probably epub very soon now) or in a drm-free proprietary format for which there are lots of free conversion tools (mobi works well, but ereader does not, as the conversion tools for ereader only work if it has DRM, not on DRM free versions).
November 30th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
My post was not meant to talk about the problem of DRM in general; it was a response to ficbot’s specific current situation. For eReader, redownloading certainly is an option at the moment. I can still download the books I bought even as far back as August, 1999. And with eReader, you don’t need to keep track of old credit card numbers forever; there’s a very simple option to change them (as ficbot pointed out in her post).
Of course, these are dependent upon the company remaining solvent. But given that they belong to Fictionwise—probably the biggest non-Amazon vendor of e-books—there seems to be very little danger of that changing in the short term. And in the long term, she’ll have time to re-download the books if she wants to.
November 30th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I do not agree with stealing anything, and I understand the reason why publishers feel they need DRM. People are stealing the books anyway, even with the DRM and the mentality seems to be that it’s ok. I don’t understand that, and I understand the frustration of trying to keep your work from being stolen.
I don’t know the solution.
But I agree that “playing by the rules” has it’s problems. I have bought very few DRM ebooks. I have some micropay dollars left at Fictionwise and I think when they’re gone, I’m done.
Every time I buy I remember that I am totally dependent on Fictionwise for these books I HAVE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. If I change readers I have to get them to enter a new PID so I can read the books on the new reader. I notice that there are only a few PIDs allowed, and they don’t allow you to delete any!
If Fictionwise goes out of business, or simply refuses to add a new PID (please raise your hand if you know of anyone with good customer service these days!), or their system fails, etc. . . all the books I’ve bought will be lost to me.
I just can’t see spending a lot of money on books that I may or may not be able to read in the future. Perhaps if the price of ebooks were much much lower I’d be more comfortable spending the money for a one time read. When I buy a pbook I have something I can read forever, or give away. Or sell even. And they’re asking as much for ebooks as for pbooks. I’m just not buying it the way it is. Something has to change before I will invest any more in DRM’d ebooks.
November 30th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I’m rather ambivalent towards DRM. Since 2002 I’ve purchased and read Microsoft, Mobipocket, and Kindle copy protected ebooks successfully. All are still accessible, though I’ll never go back to the Microsoft format again, so they are effectively locked up out unless I want to remove the DRM. Do I know how to do it? Yes. Have I ever unlocked the DRM and read a book in a different format from the purchased edition? No. Will I ever need to? Well, maybe; who knows for sure. The fact is I can read the books I want to on the device I want to right now. In the future maybe that will change and I’ll find myself locked out of books that I’ve bought.
Would I be upset if I couldn’t read my ebooks in five or ten years? Of course. I bought the unabridged audio cassettes of “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov in 1997; then, in 2007, I wanted to listen to the book again, but I’d gotten rid of all my cassette players over the last ten years and couldn’t hear them unless I got a new player and spent time digitalizing them for my iPod. Too much trouble, those cassettes. I used one of my yearly credits on Audible.com for a digital audio file of a book I own already. Not the best scenario, but it is what it is. The same holds true for ebooks: there is some risk involved in buying product with DRM, I’m stilling going to do it. To hell with the maybe future of inaccessiblity.
While, yes, ebooks without DRM are better, theoretically, then books with DRM, and if given a choice I buy without it, but ultimately I think the tradeoffs out weighs the risks. The key, I think, to ease the fears of publishers about piracy. Just about every brick and brick-and-mortar bookstore will have some theft—ebooks will be no different—but they stay in business for the most part, despite the shrinkage. But how this can be done remains to be seen.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:36 am
Hello,
I do understand that all DRM systems have drawbacks, but after reading your post I really think you are misunderstanding the system. The total time to “fix” this problem is perhaps 2 or 3 minutes:
1) register your new card on ereader.com
2) delete your old card from ereader.com. It is not needed any longer, and doing this will not affect your old content in the slightest.
3) First time you download a new purchase type in the new card info when prompted.
4) Perhaps the next time you upgrade your hardware you would want to download the content over again using the new card. There is no pressing need to do this, it will keep working as-is.
In short, this should take you considerably less time that it took for you to post this blog article!
Most ebook fans I know of consider eReader’s DRM by far the least hassle. With other systems you have to re-download every purchase every time you upgrade your hardware, which for most people is pretty frequent. eReader books keep working without re-download, as long as you simply write down your old card numbers as they change. People who downloaded their purchases first in 1998 have reported still reading them on hardware that did not even exist at that time.
There is no need, as you suggest in this article, to ask us to convert anything. It’s all automatic. Just put in the new card, make it your default card, then delete the old card. Anything you download from that point, including old purchases, will use the new card by default.
You only have to type in the new card number twice: once when registering it on our site before making a new purchase, and once on your ipod touch after your first download.
I also do not understand your point about eReader only allowing 3 cards on our web site. That really has nothing at all to do with it. You would want to delete the defunct card from our site and enter the new one. Your old content is not affected by this at all. There is no communication between our site and your old content.
I am asking our team to review the FAQ and make sure it is clear on these points.
-Steve P.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:42 am
Because you have the old CC number, and the old books, I am not sure what the problem really is here. Of all the formats that support DRM, eReader has the lightest footprint. Even if FW were to close shop today you could still unlock your books on any platform that supports the eReader format – because it is under your control. I have a number of eReader books that are no lomger sold by Fictionwise/eReader but I have unlocked them on my iPhone without incident.
Granted, it would be better to have no DRM, but you hold all the keys to your eReader books.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Steve, thanks for your clarification. The FAQ was not at all clear on this
I did email customer support, and you got back to me, here, before they did 
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
While I agree that eReader’s DRM is the most user friendly, it is still DRM.
I’m a a avid reader and traveller, so eBooks see like a perfect solution.
The problems of Pricing, Availability and DRM however made me hesitate to buy DRM’d books unless the DRM has been cracked.
Now, I don’t want to crack the DRM to steal the books, Heck I’ve already paid for it, often more then I might have paid for a paper version. What I do want is to preserve my investment in eBooks.
Indeed, I refused to buy eReader and Mobi books until scripts to remove DRM became available. So in my experience, removing the DRM or at least having the ability to remove DRM increased the value of the eBooks for me, and made me willing to pay the high prices.
July 30th, 2009 at 8:09 am
I wrote this to Amazon the other day and ended up talking to a customer representative about it, but nothing happened.
“I have saved the money to buy a Kindle 2, but have now decided NOT to do it. Rather I will begin to look for other ebook readers to see what they have and how their system works. The reason I won’t buy a Kindle 2 has to do with how Amazon handles the ebook DRM. As I understand it you will allow me to download a book I pay for on a “few” Kindle compatible devices that are in my account, but this figure of “few” is not published and changes from book to book. Amazon will even allow me to download the book to this “few” devices as many times as I like. This approach is nothing like I am used to from buying regular books. I would think that Amazon handle the DRM as follows:
1. Allow me to download to only one machine at a time that is on my account as often as I would like. Insist that I delete the book from one machine before you allow me to download it to another. Or delete the book from the machine it is on when it is downloaded to another of my machines.
2. Delete from my machine and download the book to a friend’s machine, that is Kindle compatible, that I identify for a specific length of time.
3. Allow me to identify a new friend who has a machine, that is Kindle compatible, and download the book to that machine for a specific length of time.
4. When the time is up for my specified friends make sure the book is deleted from their machines and allow me to again download the book to one of the machines on my account.
This is a huge difference from how Amazon is handling DRM now, but it is more reasonable for something I pay for. I may not be able to find another ebook reader company that handles things this way, but Amazon is capable and I don’t want to buy a Kindle 2 the way things are now. It also has the advantages of encouraging others to buy Kindles because they must buy one in order to borrow one of the books I have paid for.”
November 5th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I purchased 13 books from fictionwise when I was in Iraq in 2005. I’ve moved, reloaded e-reader and changed banks since then. I do NOT have the old card and simply can’t afford to replace the books. After four years and 3 moves, I can’t even remember the e-mail address and password I used. I’m totally screwed by them.