Re: Are EBooks a Tower of Babel

[Note from Jon Noring: The term "Tower of eBabel" was coined by
David Rothman, not me!]


2010/2/25 Bill C <bczygan-/[email protected]>

> The question is, are there so many formats, and different kinds of DRM,
> that EBooks are published in, that the industry has created a tower of
> babel? With no single clear ubiquitous standard, has this hobbled the whole
> idea of EBooks in the society? And looking to the future, if the answer is
> yes, then what can be done to abandon also rans and push for a clear winner?
>

Pretty much, yes they are. In fact, over on TeleRead we regularly use the
term "Tower of e-Babel" (coined by the blog's founder David Rothman, I
think, or maybe he got it from Jon Noring here) to refer to the problem.

I think it is both holding the e-book market back *and* helping Amazon,
because of all the vendors out there Amazon has done the most so far to make
e-book buying comparatively simple. (Though I expect Apple will give it a
run for its money in that department when the iPad and iBooks come out.)

The problem is that it's a sort of "prisoner's dilemma" situation. Every
different e-book device vendor thinks it's in that vendor's best interest to
try to promote consumer lock-in. Even Apple is disingenuously using the
"open standard" ePub format but wrapping it in its own DRM. As long as that
remains true, it's not likely that any interoperability will come about. And
I can't see anything changing it.

-- 
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