Helene

iRex Technologies is the company behind a line of ebook devices/readers like the iliad and the digital reader series.

In a recent blog entry iRex announces that in the fourth quarter of 2009 they will provide support for Adobe PDF and epub. iRex currently supports mobipocket on their devices.

The twist however is that ebook readers today can only support one DRM technology on a device, either Mobipocket or Adobe. So the consumer have to make a decision of what DRM technology to use on their device, and it will affect all book purchases. People usually don’t care who publishes the books they read, or what type of paper is used on a paperback. Choosing what DRM to use is in the same category, a decision most people have no knowledge or interest in taking.

Furthermore, if one already have purchased books in one format and suddenly switch to another format, it will leave the previously purchased books unreadable.

This brings the issue of DRM and ebook formats even closer to the consumers, and how it limits the access one has to purchased goods. It’s a bold move made by iRex, and it certainly is interesting that they try to satisfy “everybody’s needs” by leaving it to the consumers to choose which DRM to use. But, will it be a positive change in the long run?

I don’t think so. Most people don’t want or need to consider what DRM they use on their purchased books. I can only see that this will generate more questions and uncertainty to people (that makes them even more uncertain to purchase an ebook device). On the bright side, DRM will continue to be a hassle for consumers, and may be the publishing houses in the end will learn something from the music industry – DRM don’t work!

I sometimes have to convert between ebook formats, and that is a common scenario for ebook readers who often experience that ebooks are available as free pdf downloads. The trouble is that the pdf’s usually aren’t displayed nicely on ebook devices, but displays nicely on computer screens. Another issue is that a specific ebook might be available in formats that are not supported by the ebook device that one currently use. So what to do?

I have several options I use (that only works for DRM free ebooks):

• Calibre can convert most formats to epub, mobipocket, lit or lrf. It’s freeware and available for windows, macosx and linux. The user interface for converting an ebook to another format is easy, though have only epub or lrf options. Calibre has terminal/console commands to do the same work (which gives more options): any2epub, any2lit and any2lrf

  

• Windows only: For converting from pdf/html etc. to mobipocket (prc/mobi) I use Mobipocket creator (freeware). It does a good job in converting to mobi books, the downside is that it’s only available for windows. I’m a Mac and Linux user, so this is a hassle for me. Fortunatly I have an old laptop with XP on, so I somehow make it work (anybody wants to donate a windows vista license to me?)

• For converting from prc/mobi/html/text/epub to prc/mobi/html/text/epub one can use Stanza (also freeware), and it’s available for windows, mac and iphone.Personally this haven’t worked out so well for me. When reading converted ebooks to prc using stanza, then my iRex iLiad displays the ebook, but there is no paragrahs and chapters. It’s a continues flow of text that is tiresome to read.When converting an ebook to epub, my iRex iLiad isn’t able to read them at all, it only crashes even though I have FBReader installed on it.

A great resource to get started is MobileReads EBook Conversion Software and Freeware page.

If you have any suggestions and experiences, I would love to hear about it.

An ebook can be published in multiple formats. An ebook (file) format is a predefined data representation of how a digital book is to be stored and displayed on a computer/device. Ebooks today are published using multiple formats like Mobipocket, Microsoft Reader and Adobe Reader to name a few.

What these formats have in common is that they are proprietary (owned by a company). This means that to publish ebooks in a proprietary format one has to buy a (software) license to be able to publish books in that format. A publisher doesn’t have access to the format itself (the grimy details of how a table of contents is represented in data for example), and are locked to the limitations set by the format owner. The software provider has exclusive control over the format/technology.

So, the publisher owns the book (content), but have to use a specific software to retrieve it. To share the book requires the receivers to have software that can read it, and again may be locked to one software provider (can’t use competing software). Or a competing software producer have to purchase a license to obtain compability with the format in question.

Example of locked formats are mobi/prc and lit.

So what effect does all of this have on us book lovers?

• Ebook readers are locked to formats supported by their ebook device/reader. Ebooks aren’t always made available in all formats at once, so one have to wait until it do. There have been many incidents where Amazon ebooks aren’t made available to non-kindle people, or where a book is published in a different formats at later times.
• Operating system hassles. Ebook software which simplifies ebook transfers/management like Mobipocket Reader/Creator supports only Windows, and there’s a big Mac and Linux world out there.
• One becomes locked to software provided by the format owner.
• If an ebook device reads a format poorly, converting between formats can be a hassle.
• When ebook reader software becomes updated, previously purchased ebooks may become outdated/not supported/unreadable.
• When purchasing a new ebook reader, it may not support previously purchased ebooks.

Now, there is an open industry standard (format) for ebooks called EPUB, but at the time of writing it’s not supported by all ebook readers.  I also haven’t written about DRM. I will probably write about that at a later time.