As a student, I actually prefer PDF ebooks. I own a few textbooks from which I have stripped the DRM and I use a PDF reader that is comfortable to me (GoodReader on the iPad).
I agree with some of the commenters here that DRM appears to one of the main problems of eTextbooks.
It is responsible for locking students in to using the publisher's reader software which is usually buggy, limits their printing privileges, and more...
For example the publisher Cengage is now employing new DRM software that only lets you stream protected JPEG pages from the book in some HTML5 viewer, instead of their previous solution that simply used a protected PDF file. This means that you have access to an inferior version of the book, instead of the vector PDF version.
Publishers don't realize that a person can just scan the paper book and upload it online, thus defeating all their fancy protections. For example, I've taken multiple books from the library that had no digital editions available for purchase or a DRM that was (as of yet) uncrackable and scanned them so I could read them on my iPad.
I agree with some of the commenters here that DRM appears to one of the main problems of eTextbooks.
It is responsible for locking students in to using the publisher's reader software which is usually buggy, limits their printing privileges, and more... For example the publisher Cengage is now employing new DRM software that only lets you stream protected JPEG pages from the book in some HTML5 viewer, instead of their previous solution that simply used a protected PDF file. This means that you have access to an inferior version of the book, instead of the vector PDF version.
Publishers don't realize that a person can just scan the paper book and upload it online, thus defeating all their fancy protections. For example, I've taken multiple books from the library that had no digital editions available for purchase or a DRM that was (as of yet) uncrackable and scanned them so I could read them on my iPad.