DRM-ebook-Memory Question(s)

[shawnc]

I don't really understand how the whole DRM concept works. All I know is I've got two MS Reader books that I placed on my SD card shortly after purchasing my Axim. I moved them from my 128 to my 512 card and now I can't open them :evil: in either my Axim or HP 4150.

As pissed of as I am at this whole concept, I'm going to try it again, but this is going to be a significant purchase so I want to make sure I know what I'm doing. I've identified 7-8 books from fictionwise.com that I plan on purchasing and loading to my 4155 (the minute my wife lets me open it after xmas). I have a couple of questions for any one gracious enough to help out.

1. I'm thinking about loading directly to the ipaq (no storage card). I don't run a lot of programs, so I'm not overly concerned with using up the 50+ meg of available memory. If however I decide to move them to a storage card at a later date, is that option available to me?

2. If a secure MS reader book is loaded on a memory card, can it's contents be read on any PPC or is it only accessible to the PPC it was initially opened on? Please let me know if I haven't phrased this question very clearly.

I understand that we have to protect authors from piracy but this process (IMO) will do more to kill the concept of ebooks than a lack of interest. It is insane to me that I have to worry about whether I can read a legally purchased book on a different PPC. If I decide to visit my son in Florida, I should be able to take my SD card and read my ebooks on his PPC.

In scanning this forum, I have noticed that there are other ebook readers (palm digital, etc.). I really like the way the MS reader works (when it actually works) and would rather not introduce any other formats to this mix. But I am definitely open to suggestions from anyone on the relative merits of competing formats, especially if I am not able to do what I want with the MS reader.

Thanx in advance for your help.

[shawnc]

I don't really understand how the whole DRM concept works. All I know is I've got two MS Reader books that I placed on my SD card shortly after purchasing my Axim. I moved them from my 128 to my 512 card and now I can't open them :evil: in either my Axim or HP 4150.

As pissed of as I am at this whole concept, I'm going to try it again, but this is going to be a significant purchase so I want to make sure I know what I'm doing. I've identified 7-8 books from fictionwise.com that I plan on purchasing and loading to my 4155 (the minute my wife lets me open it after xmas). I have a couple of questions for any one gracious enough to help out.

1. I'm thinking about loading directly to the ipaq (no storage card). I don't run a lot of programs, so I'm not overly concerned with using up the 50+ meg of available memory. If however I decide to move them to a storage card at a later date, is that option available to me?

2. If a secure MS reader book is loaded on a memory card, can it's contents be read on any PPC or is it only accessible to the PPC it was initially opened on? Please let me know if I haven't phrased this question very clearly.

I understand that we have to protect authors from piracy but this process (IMO) will do more to kill the concept of ebooks than a lack of interest. It is insane to me that I have to worry about whether I can read a legally purchased book on a different PPC. If I decide to visit my son in Florida, I should be able to take my SD card and read my ebooks on his PPC.

In scanning this forum, I have noticed that there are other ebook readers (palm digital, etc.). I really like the way the MS reader works (when it actually works) and would rather not introduce any other formats to this mix. But I am definitely open to suggestions from anyone on the relative merits of competing formats, especially if I am not able to do what I want with the MS reader.

Thanx in advance for your help.

[ucfgrad93]

Personally, I use Palm Reader Pro on my hp1910. It is available for use on Pocket PCs, Palm OS devices, Windows and Mac computers.

Palm Digital Media uses the credit card that you purchased the book with as the DRM protection. In my opinion this is way better than how Microsoft handles DRM.

[PetiteFlower]

Do you have the latest version of MS Reader installed and activated on your PPC?

[ctmagnus]

.lit ebooks are tied to passport accounts so if Reader on the desktop and on the PPC are both activated with the same passport account there should be no issues. I'm not sure how to deactivate a copy of reader on a PPC as I've never had to do so, and I can't recall how to do so on the desktop atm as it's been quite a while since I've had to do so. But as long as both versions are up-to-date there should be no problems.

You can also go the un-DRMing route if you like but there may be legal implications depending on where you're located.

[shawnc]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

Personally, I use Palm Reader Pro on my hp1910. It is available for use on Pocket PCs, Palm OS devices, Windows and Mac computers.

Palm Digital Media uses the credit card that you purchased the book with as the DRM protection. In my opinion this is way better than how Microsoft handles DRM.

I'm seriously considering going this route for a couple of reasons. One, there seems to be a better selection of the books I'm interested in available on Palm Digital. Also, in scanning this forum the prevailing opionion seems to be that Palm Digital is much better to work with than Reader. I just like the functionality of Reader and would like to stay with it (though I must admit that I don't have anything to compare it too since it's the only one I've ever used. With my limited vocabulary, it is soooooo nice to come across a unfamilar word, tap on it, and get a definition. I love that feature). It's amazing how hard MS works to send people to Palm.

Originally Posted by PetiteFlower

Do you have the latest version of MS Reader installed and activated on your PPC?

Yes.

Originally Posted by ctmagnus

.lit ebooks are tied to passport accounts so if Reader on the desktop and on the PPC are both activated with the same passport account there should be no issues. I'm not sure how to deactivate a copy of reader on a PPC as I've never had to do so, and I can't recall how to do so on the desktop atm as it's been quite a while since I've had to do so. But as long as both versions are up-to-date there should be no problems.

This may be my problem. I don't even think I have reader on my desktop but I know that when I activated reader on my new ipaq I didn't use the same passport information that I used when activating on my Axim.

This is crap. MS has got to be smarter and figure out a better way of preventing piracy (assuming that is their reasoning behind this idiotic process).

Thanx to all for the help. I'll see if I can figure out what my passport information was when I registered my 1st version of reader. Or at least what is was when I purchased the ebboks that I can no longer open :evil: :evil: !

[Jorgen]

>I'm not sure how to deactivate a copy of reader on a PPC

I don't know why you would want to? Change user? Well, it can be done: I activate manually after a hard reset or after buying a new PPC by copying the following files (which I have burned to a CD) and soft reset the PPC:

Microsoft Activation.Unload
Secrep.dat
Secrep.dll
Secrep.xml
Secrepid.dat

I think. it would be possible to deinstall by copying the original files to the PPC.

This said, I have not updated to the latest version (the one that was supposed to conquer clit.exe.

Jorgen

[ctmagnus]

Originally Posted by Jorgen

This said, I have not updated to the latest version (the one that was supposed to conquer clit.exe.

Neither have I