TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Adobe’ Category

By David Rothman

News release from Adobe follows. Please note the quotes in the headline. DRMed ePub is not "open." And now the big question: Will Amazon do ePub soon, now that B&N has moved forward? And with Adobe DRM or an Amazon flavor?  For info on the Nook e-reader from B&N, see the basics plus Paul Biba’s report from the press conference announcing the product. – D.R.

SAN JOSE, Calif. and NEW YORK — Oct. 20, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced further advancements for eBook distribution by joining forces to standardize the open EPUB and PDF eBook formats and collaborating on a content protection standard based on Adobe and Barnes & Noble technology.

The collaboration makes Barnes & Noble the most portable and compatible eBookstore, and provides customers of nook, the new Barnes & Noble eBook reader and other compatible devices, as well as users of Barnes & Noble eReader software for iPhone, PCs, BlackBerry and other smartphones the ability to access digital content from thousands of content providers that is protected with Adobe technology. In addition, customers with devices that use the Adobe Reader Mobile software development kit (SDK) will soon be able to purchase and read content from BN.com, the world’s largest eBookstore.

(more…)

By David Rothman

The Los Angeles Public Library won’t buy e-books in a format for Adobe Digital Editions until ADE software supports text to speech, according to Library Journal.

OverDrive, supplying ADE-format books for the library, hopes that a solution can be worked out, but if not, it will be “working on other avenues” beyond Adobe.

The controversy has all kind of ramifications for disabled and nondisabled users alike. I applaud the Los Angeles library and OverDrive for their concern and hope that it sends a strong message to publishers, especially those who’ve used the Kindle’s DRM to switch off synthesized speech for many best-sellers. Should Amazon go after the library e-book market, libraries should not only insist on the use of the ePub standard but also on TTS capabilities for all Amazon-supplied books.

(more…)

By Paul Biba

There are a whole series of postings on the Adobe Digital Editions forums about people being unable to download protected files to their Sony Readers. Here is one of them:

I’m having the exact same problem. A week ago I downloaded 5 EPUBs with DRM from San Francisco public library. They transfered to the PRS505 and read fine. Today I downloaded 2 more books. They open fine in the ADE software. They will not open in the Sony Library (”This computer is not authorized to read these files”). They do not open on the Sony Reader (”Protected Page”).

It used to work, now it doesn’t. The reader and ADE are both authorized.

I have trouble tickets in with Sony and Adobe but I’m not optimistic.

This is incredibly frustrating. ADE is the buggiest piece of software I’ve encountered in a long time, and we’re held hostage to it because of DRM.

Is anyone else having similar problems? Thanks to Terrance Teoh for the link.

By Joe Wikert

My apologies for not following-up on the promise I made in this earlier post to provide more information in a subsequent post. I got distracted on a few other things but I finally managed to spend some time with the detailed results spreadsheet. Here’s what I found…

Which ebook format do you prefer?

PDF rules the day. It wins out for a variety of reasons including portability, how it renders and even the fact that it’s so mature. Epub was probably second on this list, but it was a distant second at best. And out of the 2K+ responses I only noticed a few references to “Kindle” or “mobi”.

(more…)

By David Rothman

Barnes & Noble has filed with the FCC, as reported by Engadget, though it isn’t clear if if the Plastic Logic reader is the gizmo under consideration.

What’s your guess?

I suspect that it’s the same device for which B&N will power the bookstore.

Furthermore, though this is almost surely outside the FCC’s turf, the reader will most likely use ePub, among other formats—with DRM provided by Fictionwise, now a branch of B&N.

Speaking of DRM—and not just in a B&N context: I’d love for the New York Times to explore, in depth, how proprietary DRM lessens the usefulness of ePub as a standard.

Right now it looks as if we’re headed for B&N-DRMed ePub, Adobe-DRMed ePub and maybe even Kindle-DRMed ePub in time. A piece on social DRM, which Adobe exec Bill McCoy has talked up in the past, would also be a nice gift from the Times to its readers, some of whom just happen to be big New York publishers. Likewise a detailed look at geo-bans and DRM[related factors would be nice, with quotes from affected readers such as Ficbot.

By Paul Biba

Adobe’s Digital Editions blog announced this guide today. Here’s what they had to say:

Today, we’re posting a how-to guide that explains how to convert eBooks authored using Adobe InDesign for compatibility with the Amazon Kindle and the Kindle Store. Because Amazon uses their proprietary AZW format, the Kindle doesn’t natively support the open EPUB standard. However, with a bit of open source software, it’s fairly easy to convert the EPUB files exported with InDesign into the Amazon-compatible MOBI format.
Converting InDesign documents for Kindle compatibility requires the following steps:

1. Export InDesign document to EPUB
2. Convert EPUB to Amazon-compatible MOBI format
3. Preview on Kindle device (optional)
4. Upload to Amazon store

For complete details, check out the Adobe InDesign to Amazon Kindle Store white paper.

Update by Chris Meadows: Also, author Henry Melton (whom TeleRead has mentioned a few times in the past) has blogged his process of converting his newest book from InDesign to a Kindle-readable format.

Technorati Tags:
Amazon, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, EPUB, Kindle, Paul Biba, TeleRead, Adobe

By martinkochanski

ePub is the magic that will rescue us from the crumbling Tower of eBabel and give us e-books that Just Work.

Or not.

Here is the experience of a simple-minded publisher who believed what he was told about ePub. Perhaps there are some morals to be drawn. But if I’m not simple-minded, just simple— please correct me gently!

(more…)

By Paul Biba

This is a major problem if Chamber Four is correct. Sony proudly announced a Mac version of its library software at its press conference last week and many of us were delighted. Since I no longer have a working Sony Reader I downloaded the software to my Mac but I haven’t tried it out yet. Now, Chamber Four is reporting a major problem. If Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t work on the Mac. then all us Mac users are left out of a lot of the new stuff Sony announced. Here is the report from Chamber Four. Mac users should read the full report because Chamber Four had other major problems as well:

… In the 8 months between then and now, I’ve switched to a Mac laptop, and Sony’s had plenty of time to improve their software and finally, finally make a Mac version. So my first question is this: is it better? My second, more realistic question: is it even usable?

The short answers are no, and not really. Even worse, Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t recognize the Reader, so Sony’s newly hyped library ebooks won’t work on Macs. The long and the short of it is that Mac users should think long and hard about getting a Reader.

Let’s get into the details.

Library eBook support: F- Does not work on Macs

Adobe Digital Editions, which enables the DRM on PDF and ePub library ebooks, doesn’t recognize the Reader at all. This isn’t a bug, or an oversight; this is a known issue, as Adobe said when I started a support thread on it.

This is slightly shocking, seeing as library ebook support was the issue of the day at Sony’s big announcement Tuesday. You’d think they’d at least mention somewhere that it won’t be available on Macs.

It also means that Sony’s vaunted content “relationships” are unavailable for Mac users. Without ADE, you can’t buy books from any store but Sony’s.

Can any of our readers help clarify this situation?

By David Rothman

Downloading an e-mailed ePub—or any other e-book format—should be a snap. In fact, I don’t recall having problems doing this with a mix of Firefox and Gmail.

But today I received the following note from someone in Europe trying to get a press copy of my novel in ePub: “It downloaded as a folder, not as a single file, and even when I tried to compress it, I got an error message from Adobe Digital Editions” (Adobe-originated screenshot).

What’s going on here? The email recipient himself is apparently using Gmail, and when I tried Opera with it rather than Firefox, sure enough I had a problem. Opera apparently wanted to treat the ePub as just a bunch of zipped files and use a decompression tool associated with that. The circumstances were not quite the same as with the recipient in Europe. But we were in the same territory. Although I came up with a possible workaround for him, I shouldn’t have had to bother. Read on.

(more…)

By David Rothman

So says a MobileRead post. Isn’t DRM great? People doing upgrades on other brands, not just the BeBook, will probably experience similar ecstasy. No more access to Mobi books.

Don’t you love the way DRM enhances the quality of life? To hell with the future. Let’s treat books like driftwood.

At least in the past and perhaps even now, Mobipocket has frowned on competing DRM-capable readers being simultaneously present on the same devices that display holy Mobi. Nothing like the benevolence of Amazon lawyers. Amazon, of course, owns Mobipocket and, perhaps to help the Kindle, won’t even release a reader for the iPhone/Touch that can display Mobi.

With so many people excited about the spread of Adobe firmware—despite the accompanying proprietary DRM—it can’t hurt to remind consumers of the perils of “protection” no matter which companies are involved. There’s always a gotcha. Best for publishers and others either to drop DRM, my choice, or if need rely on social DRM.

By Paul Biba

The Wall Street Journal’s Geoffrey Fowler understands the issue of DRM, even if the New York Times’ Brad Stone doesn’t. Here’s an excerpt from the Journal’s Digit Blog entitled Format War Clouds E-Book Horizon:

Thinking about making the leap to digital books? First, you’ll need to add a jumble of new lingo to your dictionary: .epub, pdb, BeBB, and Adobe Content Server 4, just to name a few.

The burgeoning marketplace for e-books is riddled with inconsistent and incompatible formats. That means there’s often little guarantee that an e-book you buy from one online store, like the new Barnes & Noble store, will work on popular reading devices like Amazon.com’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader. …

But Sony’s Epub announcement belies another problem: publishers still want to add digital rights management, or DRM, software on top of most new books. Epub files can’t contain DRM on their own.

For DRM, Sony’s online store will turn to a service from software maker Adobe. Technically, the files are in .epub format, but they can only be opened after getting a green light from Adobe’s Content Server 4 software.

Adobe’s software for adding DRM to books is — no surprise — proprietary …

Of course, there’s an even more elegant solution for all of this format confusion: Publishers, stores and e-readers could just switch to plain-old .epub format books, and let readers do what we want with them. The recording industry eventually dropped DRM from many music stores — although, admittedly, under circumstances in which they had few other options. Apparently, book publishers aren’t yet that desperate.

By David Rothman

“Most importantly, Adobe’s current DE DRM has been cracked and once Adobe ePub is stripped of its DRM shackles, it is like any other ePub file.” – Spider Mattheson’s comment.

The TeleRead take: Hey, Spider, that’s an interesting observation—now that many e-reader-makers will be using Adobe “protection” and the Sony eBook Store will rely on it.

Now a question for knowledgeable TeleRead community members. For legal reasons, please don’t get into specifics; but in a general way, without revealing any how-to details or giving links to this information, tell us how easy you think Adobe’s DRM will be to crack. Amusingly, Microsoft .lit is a hit among some e-book techies because it is so simple to strip away the “protection”—not for piracy in most cases, but rather for the sake of convenience, such as for format conversions or backups or use on a bunch of devices.

(more…)

By David Rothman

The New York Times tech section remains my favorite among those in the daily press—because of the volume and general thoughtfulness of its coverage—and here’s another reason why.

The Times, following a friendly chat with an editor there, is  looking over its Sony eBook Store article to see if a clarifying follow-up might be in order. No promises. But I appreciate the Times’ open mind. The article failed to play up up an essential—namely that Adobe-DRMed ePub is in effect a proprietary format. Only nonDRMed ePub isn’t proprietary. Adobe controls the DRM-related technology used by the Sony store and others, and in the future it could raise or lower prices or refuse to do business with certain companies.

Related:

• Adobe-DRMed ePub isn’t open: Why the New York Times urgently needs to clarify its Sony eBook Store article.
• How the New York Times was fooled? Sony’s misleading ePub-related news release.
• At least 16 e-reader devices support or will support ePub via Adobe Digital Editions.
• DRM, Orwellian book zaps and eBabel: Will the press TRULY grasp the importance of e-book ownership?

By David Rothman

At least 16 e-readers now support or will support ePub via Adobe Digital editions, and Adobe has compiled a nice, handy list.

Besides Sony (“four devices”), the vendors include Astak (three), BeBook (two), Bookeen (at least one—see Christine’s comment), COOL-ER (one—shown here in various colors), Elonex (one), Hanlin (two), Irex (one) and Neolux (one).

On top of the Sony’s eBook Store’s  forthcoming adoption of ePub—not to mention the Sony Reader’s ability to read ePub in the first place—this is good news for standards white hats.

The only fly in the ointment is that Adobe-DRMed ePub is really a proprietary format in effect. As noted separately, I’m more than a little grouchy at the New York Times tech section for downplaying this fact. The section is generally stellar, but when it comes to e-book standards coverage, the NYT is about on par with Judy Miller reporting on “weapons of mass destruction.”

(Via Adobe’s Nick Bogaty, as well as Electric Book Works.)

By David Rothman

Over at Harvard Business Review, Rita McGrath says Amazon could lose out to Barnes and Noble’s multidevice approach.

But wait! Hasn’t Jeff Bezos himself given strong hints that Amazon will work to get Kindle books on a bunch of platforms?

Considering the far-from-gung-ho reactions to B&N’s current e-bookstore, I wouldn’t worry that much in Jeff’s shoes, at least for now. Amazon still has more of a chance of dominating e-books. B&N so far has tuned out me and others pleading for the chain to try to ditch traditional DRM in favor of no DRM or social DRM so people can own books for real. Talk about a stubborn refusal to consider this major product differentiation!

Meanwhile, writing for the Guardian, Victor Keegan notes how power has flowed from traditional publishers to Google and Amazon and, perhaps, Apple in time.

One way for publishers to win back their lost power

But can’t publishers mitigate and perhaps even reverse the above by insisting on a standard e-book format without proprietary DRM (a major negative even with a multiplatform approach)?

Keegan talks about the possible end of book ownership. But you can have ownership if you phase out DRMed anything in favor of nonDRMed ePub, the core format on which major publishers have agreed. Let ePub be plain vanilla ePub, not Adobe-ized ePub or Sonyized ePub or B&Nized ePub or, in the future, maybe Amazonized or Googleized ePub. No 800-pound gorillas!

DRM vs. max inventory

DRM and other proprietary baggage can get in the way of readers locating what they want, even at Amazon, where, despite all those hundreds of thousands of titles, I still can’t find Saul Bellows’ masterpieces in E. Proprietary tech jacks up costs and makes books less likely to be candidates for conversion.

(more…)

By David Rothman

Big publishers are too damn cheap toward development of the ePub format for e-books.

The International Digital Publishing Forum is short of the resources it needs to keep up long term with Amazon’s Kindle team—or perhaps with Apple, if Steve Jobs and friends are about to hatch something.

Decent shared annotations, anyone? Or reliable interbook linking?

What’s more, the official ePub logo is months late, almost surely for want of resources. I’d advise the IDPF against its Scrooge-level miserliness. The more ePub lags in funding, the less leverage publishers enjoy against Amazon and perhaps Apple.

Blame Markus Dohle types if Kindle wins

If Amazon’s oh-so-locked-up Kindle does prevail, I’ll know whom to blame for not supplying the IDPF with the cash it needs to do the job. Random House. Simon and Schuster. Macmillan. Hachette.  Wiley. And Adobe and others.

But I’ll pick on Random in particular because of of the size of its parent, Bartelsmann, and because a guy with a production background is CEO. Come on, Markus Dohle. $250K a year for the IPDF isn’t gong to bankrupt you guys regardless of the book business’s depression. This is a drop of a drop of Random’s revenue and a fraction of your salary.

(more…)

By Paul Biba

Some PDF news today. Thanks to Planet PDF. First, a PDF viewer for the iPhone:

this week in PDF has also seen the launch of Readdle’s new iPhone-based PDF viewer. PDF Expert 1.0 allows users to save PDF email attachments, perform full-text document searching, navigate using PDF bookmarks and includes support for password protected documents. In addition to PDF documents, PDF Expert can also be used to view Microsoft Office files, iWork documents, HTML, TXT and image files. The built-in network file server allows users to mount PDF Expert as a shared network drive over a Wi-Fi network to any computer equipped with Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Windows XP or Windows Vista and copy documents to the iPhone using drag-and-drop or copy/paste techniques. PDF Expert is available exclusively on the Apple App Store at USD $4.99. For more on the product, visit the official Readdle website.

Now, we have another PDF exploit. In order to remain safe the article recommends “Using an alternative reader like those from Nitro PDF Software or Foxit might be a short-term solution. Or users can also disable the Flash in Adobe Reader 9 and disable Flash Player as well.”

Patrick Fitzgerald on Symantec’s blog, noted their discovery of an Adobe Acrobat PDF file that “upon opening drops and executes a malicious binary.” Fitzgerald goes on to say in the post, “It was quite clear that this PDF was exploiting some vulnerability in order to drop its payload.”

Fitzgerald also noted that upon further inspection it was a new vulnerability that they had not seen in the wild before. “What was even more surprising was that this vulnerability affects Adobe Flash — not Adobe Reader as we initially suspected.”

He writes, “The authors of the exploit have managed to take a bug and turn it into a reliable exploit using a heap spray technique.” Fitzgerald also noted that in the newly discovered exploitation the PDF exploiting the vulnerability includes multiple Flash streams. And that their testing revealed the vulnerability is exploitable on both Windows XP and Vista, but the dropped executables will not run on Vista if UAC is enabled.

Adobe posted on its site, that it was aware of the “potential vulnerability” and would update users with more information soon.