Here’s an email from reader Denise in Australia. She puts the DRM problems with ebooks today in a nice perspective. I hope some publishers will read it – It’s people like Denise who are their customers
I’ll do without the blockquotes. The email begins:
Hi Paul
Just found your site and I love it. I’m enjoying all the news, it’s the first ebook news site that I have found informative in a unique way.
I love my ereader so much that I can’t live without it. So I always have 2 ereaders in case one breaks or is playing up and I need to tweak the software.
One of my Hanlins for some reason won’t charge or connect to the computer via usb anymore so when the battery goes flat I am just going to ditch it. So I have been researching whats out there in ereaders at the moment and came across a site that has a 6″ ereader coming in on the 20th Aug 10. Thought you may be interested to have a look. Great price, thinks it’s going to sway me, I could afford two for the price of most other ebook readers. I really can’t stand to be without a backup reader. Also swayed by the extended warranty option, never had this before when buying an ereader.
http://www.kogan.com.au/shop/ebook-reader-6-e-ink-screen/
Also I really wish that the DRM issues would be sorted out by the powers that be. I have so many people that I have shown my book to (many come and ask me about it when they see me reading) that really want to buy when when they have seen mine but I truthfully explain to them there are issues. And most are turned off when I explain about some ebooks being device dependent and about my PID number.
One issue I have had personally is that if I chose to update my Hanlin software than I wouldn’t be able to read some of my books.
Here’s the update info warning.
V3update Hanlin V2.10 2009-08-03 2009-08-04 Download Description:
1.Support ADOBE DRM. Support PDF reflow.
2.Support ADE recognition and device activation.
3.Support mobi files without drm.
4.Support 5 X zoom in PDF and EPUB files.
5.This version does not support Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
*** If you have purchased Mobipocket ebooks with DRM, you won’t be able to view them if you load this firmware, as Mobipocket DRM support will be removed ***
so of course I haven’t updated them.
Also this means that I can’t purchase books with Adobe DRM and some of the books I have wanted to purchase don’t come in the format I need. I was told by one ebook site that this is because of a Mobi decision.
I know that if the issue was sorted so that you could be assured that you could read the ebook you have purchased on any of the ebook readers you have and that you could still read your ebook over and over again for as long as you want that I personally could convert heaps of people to the ebook format.
I know that the publishing industry think, that if the ebooks have no protection, that people will just share them and the profits would drop but I disagree. I won’t even share my print books and wouldn’t be sharing my ebooks even if I could. I can’t find the space to store anymore print books and most people I know have the same problem. After buying my books I won’t even share them with anyone. I love them, paid for them and want to look after them for my own use again in the future. I learnt my lesson 2 decades ago that about loaning books out means, they never come back or they are damaged, people don’t respect what they haven’t paid for themselves
But I also know that if I didn’t have so many issues with the formats when I try to buy books, then I would be buying more and more books and I believe that due to the easy online assess, the easy storage of the books on a hard drive, the reduced costs of an ebook (and any other benefits), that people would actually buy more book than they ever have.
Anyway enough from me I am sure you have heard these sort of comments a thousand times before. Love your site, justed wanted to let you know and let you know about the cheap ereader.
