Tuesday, January 7, 2003
Of eBooks, DRM5, cracks and Microsoft
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 01:00 PM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28736.html
Recently the form of encryption used by Microsoft to protect .lit ebooks sold by online bookstores such as Amazon.com has been cracked. Several publishers that rely on this encryption, also known as Digital Rights Management level 5, or DRM5 for short, to distribute ebooks.
What I personally find interesting is that hackers took aim at DRM5 as opposed to the encryption method used by Palm Reader. If nothing else, the Palm library has to be larger. They announced this morning they had over 10,000 ebooks in their library. I'd be surprised if there were 1,000 ebooks published in the DRM5 .lit format.
Could it be that Microsoft's form of protection requires that you activate a device and the content then belongs to the device and not the user? Could it be that Palm ebooks are readable on all Windows desktops (98/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP), Mac desktops (OS 8.6+/10.1+), Palm OS devices and Windows CE devices (Pocket PC, Palm-Sized PC, Handheld PC) which is more convenient, leaving the user to decide where and when to read it. Could it be that users find the protection mandated by Palm, essentially your name and credit card number, easy and reasonable to deal with, allowing you to move your ebook to another platform or device in less time than it takes to read this post, whereas Microsoft's activation technology is such a pain, to the point of rendering your ebook useless, that it was worth the time and trouble to crack it?
I like MS Reader and have some ebooks I have purchased for it, but they are all DRM3 or lower, which means that activation is not required. At some point Microsoft and their publishing partners will treat me like a valued customer rather than a thief when it comes to digital rights management, or they will exit the ebook business due to lack of sales.
Recently the form of encryption used by Microsoft to protect .lit ebooks sold by online bookstores such as Amazon.com has been cracked. Several publishers that rely on this encryption, also known as Digital Rights Management level 5, or DRM5 for short, to distribute ebooks.
What I personally find interesting is that hackers took aim at DRM5 as opposed to the encryption method used by Palm Reader. If nothing else, the Palm library has to be larger. They announced this morning they had over 10,000 ebooks in their library. I'd be surprised if there were 1,000 ebooks published in the DRM5 .lit format.
Could it be that Microsoft's form of protection requires that you activate a device and the content then belongs to the device and not the user? Could it be that Palm ebooks are readable on all Windows desktops (98/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP), Mac desktops (OS 8.6+/10.1+), Palm OS devices and Windows CE devices (Pocket PC, Palm-Sized PC, Handheld PC) which is more convenient, leaving the user to decide where and when to read it. Could it be that users find the protection mandated by Palm, essentially your name and credit card number, easy and reasonable to deal with, allowing you to move your ebook to another platform or device in less time than it takes to read this post, whereas Microsoft's activation technology is such a pain, to the point of rendering your ebook useless, that it was worth the time and trouble to crack it?
I like MS Reader and have some ebooks I have purchased for it, but they are all DRM3 or lower, which means that activation is not required. At some point Microsoft and their publishing partners will treat me like a valued customer rather than a thief when it comes to digital rights management, or they will exit the ebook business due to lack of sales.
