E-books, DRM, and a new computer

We finally got the Kindle, and it turns out one cannot read a digital library book on a Kindle (note to Amazon, figure this out, it's a major problem).

The problem lies in the attempts to protect copyright. As the wife of an author, I'm all for protecting copyright--after all, the only way Richard will ever make any money from his writing is if people buy new copies of his book. And protecting copyright in a digital format is tricky. Publishers use something called DRM, or digital rights management. Essentially, it is a bit of code which prevents someone from duplicating a digital book, and can, in the case of library books, cause the digital book to become unreadable after a certain period of time. Just like print books, the library buys a certain number of copies of the books, and then lends them for a specified period of time.

When you download a book from the library, you use special software, and download directly to your computer. If you then want to move the book to a reader, you have to find a way to deal with the DRM. Sony has managed to do this, but not kindle.

Our problem, as you may have seen in an earlier post, is that we bought a netbook that runs linux, and the Sony software will not run on Linux (note to Sony, fix this, it's a problem). What this meant was that we would be unable to download any new library books, or, for that matter, buy anything from the Sony store while on the road. Though this did not mean we would be bookless (we could load several hundred books before we left) and we could download non-DRM books from places like Project Gutenburg (all works in the public domain), it sure limited our choices.

So, finally, last night we made the decision to return the linux netbook, and get one running windows. Thank goodness for Costco, which is selling the Acer Aspire One Netbooks at the moment. Our main reason for choosing the linux version had been to get a solid state drive (which has no moving parts), rather than a hard drive (which has moving parts and is therefore more susceptible to breaking). But, we really needed to be able to get books for the readers, and this was the easiest way to do it.

For those who are wondering, we haven't yet used the Kindle, but my initial impression is that I like the feel of the sony much more. Somehow the kindle feels cheap and plasticky, while the sony feels sort of sleek. After we've used them both, I'll let you know how they really compare.