
Adobe to Require New Epub DRM in July, Expects to Abandon Existing Users - user_666
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2014/02/03/adobe-require-new-epub-drm-july-expects-abandon-existing-users/
======
cstross
I believe those of the Big Five publishers who are committed to DRM -- other
than Macmillan, where DRM is already very optional indeed (the decision is
made on a per-book basis, with some imprints being entirely DRM-free) -- are
already revisiting the question of whether DRM buys them anything useful.

This may well be a small nail in the coffin, going forward. They may be slow
to change, but they're already clear on the point that the main driver for
ebook piracy is scarcity and inconvenience to the customer rather than malice:
this is hardly going to help sell them on DRM (especially as Adobe are _bound_
to be charging on the supply side -- demanding fees for new software and
encryption keys and requiring publishers to re-encrypt their entire backlist).

~~~
pacificmint
Funny how it took the music industry a long time to come to that conclusion
(that DRM is useless), but every other industry insists on making the same
mistakes again.

Kinda like parents and children, I suppose.

~~~
Jare
Videogames dealt with piracy and DRM way before music, movies and books, and
DRM is very much alive there. The only significant change in DRM usage in
videogames is due to the shift to service-oriented games (multiplayer,
updates, events, etc).

~~~
jdowner
One of the differences with video game piracy (at least a few years ago) is
that video games tend to have a short window after release when they make most
of their sales. Everyone in the industry knows that a game will be pirated
eventually so DRM is seen a way of delaying the availability of pirated
version of games to maximize that window of sales.

Obviously, this varies with publisher, studio, and game, but that was the
rationale I heard when I worked in the industry.

------
pwg
The Right To Read

By Richard Stallman

[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html)

~~~
ultramancool
I highly recommend reading that to anyone as an introduction to why free
software and free content are extremely important. Not to mention reverse
engineering tools like debuggers.

Just reading that makes me yearn for the days of SoftICE where you could just
hit Ctrl+D and immediately be dumped into a debugger, no matter what your
system was doing. It was such a potent feeling of control.

~~~
blueskin_
I would like this story, but it comes across as typically RMS preachy - people
should have inherent moral rights to what they own, but people also have a
moral right to sell their work instead of giving it away if they want. That is
a different issue to DRM.

~~~
drdaeman
Nothing RMS said or says is against selling digital products. IIRC, he had
himself sold copies of GNU Emacs - obviously, properly obeying GPL license
they were under, i.e. providing buyers with four essential freedoms that Free
Software is all about.

It's just that works are usually not sold, but only licensed, because giving
users rights to do whatever they want with their copies conflicts with current
idea that people have _exclusive_ rights to their works (actually, not usually
their, but the ones they brought from original creator).

Wonder what difference it would cause if someone to regulate that market and
force sellers to use proper wording in their offers, so you won't see calls to
"buy a book" (unless you really buy it, huh), but only "license a book" or
"buy/get a license for a book." Oh, right, nothing, it's just "buy٭" or
"$0.99٭" buttons everywhere.

------
sho_hn
My current workflow is to buy Adobe DRM'd epubs and remove the DRM so I can
read them in FBReader on Android. That'll sadly be impacted until the new DRM
is defeated. I could switch to buying from Amazon in the interim and cracking
those, but I'd rather not support the Amazon ebook oligopoly. Annoying. I
guess I'll have to switch to using a DRM-enabled app for a while, but I don't
like any of them as much as FBReader. I suppose I could try limiting myself to
DRM-free releases for now. Wonder what's out there? I remember Tor Books went
DRM-free ...

~~~
gcb0
So you, as a criminal in the eyes of the current law interpretation, will only
be impacted by not being able to buy newer books.

The law abiding clients will be out of the product they bought under
misleading terms.

~~~
sho_hn
Absolutely, I'm not saying I'm impacted the most here. The situation sucks for
many participants.

As for ignoring the law ... I enjoy reading books. I like paying for books,
because I want the activity of writing and publishing books to be a well-
compensated endeavor in my society, so I (and others) get more great books
from professional writers. Removing the DRM gets me a superior reading
experience (favorite reading app), which aligns well with both of those
things. Having to remove the DRM is essentially a nuisance I'm choosing to put
up with because I like books well enough. It's frustrating the nuisance is
mounting.

~~~
rogerbinns
But you are rewarding those using DRM and going against their intentions. And
by spending that money and your time/attention on those, have taken it away
from the alternatives that are in your interests and what you want to reward.
Yes the alternatives may be worse right now, but they will get better quicker
with your money and attention.

[http://www.rogerbinns.com/blog/gplus/those-of-you-who-
downlo...](http://www.rogerbinns.com/blog/gplus/those-of-you-who-download-
content-the-copyright.html)

~~~
sho_hn
You're right. I'm going along with DRM by putting up with it, and it's not
something I feel good about, and something that bothers me. I'm doing it
because it's a complex situation, especially for the authors involved, many of
which aren't in a position to stick up "for the cause". I understand you want
me to make strategic decisions to bring about change faster, but I'm concerned
about the collateral damage. It's tricky.

I have actually tried to give preferential treatment to DRM-free options where
available, and bought some DRM-free books that I might not have otherwise, as
well as advertised them to peers and generally tried to awareness of the topic
and the benefits of unencumbered book files.

That's the trade-off I'm currently at. It's not a desirable one and I have
great respect for your stance, but it's what I feel is best under the
circumstances.

~~~
gcb0
It is only trick because enough people put up with it. ;)

------
lostcolony
"And if you’re using an existing ebook reader, you’d better plan on only
reading DRM-free ebooks until further notice."

Waaaaaay ahead of you.

~~~
WalterSear
Me too. They weren't all that DRM free when I got them, mind you.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I prefer supporting those that sell DRM free from the beginning. Fortunately I
like Science Fiction and at $4-6/book, with a bunch of free full length
samples, there is nothing to loose. [http://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-
library.aspx](http://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx)

------
pudquick
I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment here regarding "wise".

> And of course Kindle and Apple customers won’t even notice, thanks to those
> companies’ wise decision to use their own DRM.

About the only thing "wise" about it is that if Apple were to change its own
DRM scheme for the books it sells, I'm assuming they'd update iOS to include
the new functionality. Admittedly, this would still lock out older devices
potentially that couldn't upgrade to the latest version of iOS.

~~~
TillE
The nice thing about Amazon's Kindle DRM is that it's fairly easy to crack. It
presumably satisfies publishers who insist on continuing with this cargo cult
charade (which really should have ended after the music industry accepted DRM-
free sales), and it allows educated consumers to strip the DRM if they really
need to.

It's not an optimal solution, but it's mostly OK.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I'd pay for a tool that I could feed in my Amazon credentials and it would
iterate through the hundreds of eBooks I've purchased, download them, crack
them, and then back them up to an S3 bucket.

~~~
hyperbovine
Judging from your user name your time might be worth more than mine, but some
scripting + Calibre could do this for you with not much effort on your part.

~~~
tomrod
I've not had success using Calibre on Linux, even for backup purposes.

------
fekberg
When I converted my book to Epub and Mobi I just focused on embedding
watermarks/serial numbers so I can identify where the leak is if it leaks.
However, I trust the people that bought my book to understand how much effort
I put into it and that if they would share it with someone else; it would
really hurt my feelings. However, I would never prevent them from putting the
book on all their different devices.

~~~
SyneRyder
From experience, the bigger risk is not from genuine customers (even though
some of them will share it with friends or even post it online for others).
The egregious ones are the dedicated "pirates" who purchase the book using
stolen credit card data, leaving you with a chargeback penalty fee while they
upload the book to websites plastered with Adsense ads so they can profit from
it.

Since you can't stop the dedicated ones, better to provide your genuine
customers with the best experience you can.

------
cityhall
This is almost certain to cause an increase in piracy as owners of now-
obsolete Nooks turn to torrent sites for books they otherwise would have
purchased.

~~~
mildtrepidation
It's a situation that takes the usual morality of theft piracy question (which
people have many different opinions on, both regarding the question itself and
the possible answers) and makes it harder: What happens when people _can 't_
make a "moral" decision, because you've taken away their option to do so?

The people who really lose here aren't the ones who go to the torrent sites;
they at least still get what they want. It's the people who don't know they
_can_ do that. Those people? They're just screwed.

Hopefully they get collectively upset enough to make people notice. We'll
never be rid of this kind of problem, but perhaps it can be made less painful
if enough angry support calls are made.

~~~
wtallis
> _It 's a situation that takes the usual morality of theft piracy question
> and makes it harder_

No, it just highlights the fact that you cannot assume that _illegal_ implies
_immoral_.

A little piece of fine print claiming that your purchase was actually an
indefinite rental that can be unilaterally cancelled has only tenuous legal
power, and absolutely no moral authority. If you bought an eBook in a
transaction that was essentially the same as buying a paper book, then you've
fulfilled all moral obligations for compensating the author and publisher. No
amount of legal shenanigans will create a moral obligation for you to censor
that book from your personal library, any more than a legal action can create
a moral obligation for you to burn your personal paper books.

There's a problem here, but it's not a moral dilemma, it's just another
imperfection in our legal system - an indication that we need to change the
laws.

------
glesica
Does anyone know if the Adobe DRM in the BN readers can be upgraded with a
software update? I've never understood whether it was basically just a library
loaded on the Android OS or if it was some type of firmware that possibly
can't be upgraded...

------
miralabs
I wonder if this has something to do with the recent breach.

~~~
DougMerritt
Which breach is that?

~~~
pkteison
Adobe says their source code was stolen last October: "Very recently, Adobe’s
security team discovered sophisticated attacks on our network, involving the
illegal access of customer information as well as source code for numerous
Adobe products." [http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2013/10/important-
custo...](http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2013/10/important-customer-
security-announcement.html)

~~~
DougMerritt
Ah, of course, I should have remembered that. I don't quite see the
connection, though -- unless there was a backdoor and the crackers got that
backdoor password, or some such.

------
taterbase
I imagine this has to do with how easy it has become to strip the DRM off of
Adobe's current epub solution. For those users savvy enough they'll at least
be able to salvage their _purchased_ books.

------
victorhooi
Err, I have two BN Nooks.....

If I'm reading this right - are they saying that these devices will
essentially become useless after July 2014?

That is a pretty shady move on Adobe and BN's part, if so.

~~~
HelloMcFly
BN will almost certainly issue a software upgrade before the deadline.

------
onli
This might break the option to use Adobe DE on Linux. The current version does
not properly work with Wine, only a specific older on (1.7? There are by now
different reports on WineHQ, but it just didn't work on the system I tested).
I migrated the family computer to Ubuntu (ran XP before), and to support the
prior bought DRM-protected Epubs, Adobe DE in that old version got installed
and locked.

Later on, I removed the DRM from that books, but still, DE was necessary to
download the epubs if the online shop provied just the download files, not the
epub itself. If the new DRM will change any of that Workflow, Adobe-DRM-
protected epubs will just not be readable on Linux anymore - as they are not
providing a Linux-Version of their software.

Or does someone know a .asm-Downloader? Calibre will surely support breaking
the now DRM soon, so that part might be fine.

What a fucking mess. How are ebooks supposed to be used by the public, if it
is even for me complicated to have a proper workflow which does not mean the
ebooks we buy are less usable than a real book (which costs the same)? How
shall this system work if they don't even support Linux?

------
fiatmoney
Ebook DRM is such a silly idea. Even absent vulnerabilities in the software,
it's trivial to screenscrape & OCR the text.

~~~
speeder
Or worse...

There is a certain series of books, that several installments are only
e-books, and the only place you could buy them in Brazil was from Fictionwise.

Except Barnes & Noble bought Fictionwise and closed them down, and left a faq
on Fictionwise site saying that you cannot even download the books you bought
on that site if you are not in the US...

Meaning, that I NEED to pirate books. ZERO stores sell it to Brazil, and ALL
of them have DRM. The only way to get the book, is find a illegal copy
(because even if you bought legally in the US, the DRM would not allow you to
read it in Brazil anyway)

------
wmf
If Kindle, Apple, Google, or Kobo don't use this DRM, who's left? Is there a
story here?

~~~
misnome
I'm also confused - Adobe has their own ebook DRM? I didn't know this at all.
Who uses this?

~~~
pudquick
Barnes and Noble Nook readers use it, I believe.

Plus lots of other vendors that don't have their own hardware chain. Powell's
books, for example.

Or anyone attempting to self-publish a DRM'd ePub without putting it in
Apple's store.

------
razzmataz
Did they not already abandon one DRM scheme many many years ago, with DRM-ed
pdfs? I remember Acrobat versions 5-8 or somewhere in that range of versions
having DRM, with a few vendors using it, then dropping it around '06.

------
stefanve
I would gladly pay (help fund) to get a DRM remover ASAP for the new Adobe DRM
make it useless as fast as possible. I pay for my books I love the Kobo
ecosystem (and safari/manning) but I always download the epub and remove adobe
DRM. since that is the only way to ensure your investment is still readable
for the years to come. If you want DRM give me a rent option for 10 per month
like Spotify. Anyway I would stop buying books until the DRM is hacked.

------
blueskin_
Does anyone even still use a Kindle?

I wouldn't feel comfortable using a device that's contents can be remotely and
silently memory-holed at any time.

~~~
Xylakant
Do you use any kind of smartphone?

At least with my kindle, only the books that I bought via amazon and did not
liberate from DRM are affected, so the risk is fairly low that it will nuke
something really important.

~~~
blueskin_
>Do you use any kind of smartphone?

Sure. I have daily Titanium Backup runs going offsite. Not even google/CM can
touch those.

~~~
Xylakant
Well, since they own the OS underneath they can nuke any of your apps and
prevent reinstall. Enjoy your backuped version of the app.

~~~
blueskin_
Nope, I can disable the signature enforcement.

I also use CM, who are very good at reversing google's anti-privacy changes
(personally, I think they should fork android entirely, but that's another
conversation).

------
reiichiroh
Whatever happened to the Microsoft Reader LIT format?

~~~
nikbackm
Microsoft gave up on it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Reader](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Reader)

------
jonahx
Given the chance the new DRM is broken quickly, or even within a couple years,
isn't this likely to be a massive wasted effort?

------
abc123xyz
More reasons to use [http://ebookoid.com](http://ebookoid.com)

