Thursday, December 01, 2005

How Not to Make eBooks "Take Off"

How Not to Make eBooks "Take Off"
by BILL MCCOY
Blogs.Adobe.com, publication date: 21 November 2005
"The DRM and client issues seem clearly to be Adobe's: atlhough they might arguably exist with alternative eReading systems, that's immaterial to this poor guy's particular experience. But the first three issues are really more with Amazon and its suppliers' etailing infrastructure and DRM rights-offering choices. In fact therein lies a dilemma for infrastructure vendors like Adobe. Apple's vertically-integrated iTunes Store in many ways provides a better end to end experience to users. For example Apple FairPlay [sic] DRM rights are consistent and reasonably simple to understand. Yet, Apple's ecosystem is completely closed and proprietary, and gives users and publishers no choices. In order to create a compelling eBook user experience, must we abandon an open ecosystem, where publishers and users have choices of different kinds of rights and different channels for acquiring content?"

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