Proposing an eBook Guaranty Association

>> Posted by: "Beth Young" [email protected]   byoungmpinet
>> At the very least, these providers ought to offer a one-time transfer to a
>> live format when they decide to kill their old format. 

> Excellent idea, but those who've spent years stringing digital concertina wire and doing their best to achieve total control of access to various files would be very unlikely to think of it.--Ed Howdershelt

Gemstar folded, but Microsoft is still in business and solvent. I suspect one reason that they don't offer free conversion of .lit content to registered owners is that the FORMAT conversion itself would be trivial, but that conversion of one DRM format to another while conscientiously preserving the LICENSING would be difficult. It would be computationally expensive (since it has to be performed per book per owner instead of just per book). It would involve an unlikely degree of cooperation between competitors (the conversion target organization would need to share technical information and resources, and the business people would need to be convinced that the conversion process ought not to be considered piracy). 

But it doesn't need to be a technical solution. All that's needed is a business understanding that customers that can show they own a .lit copy of, say, "The Saturday Night Big Tent Wedding Party" by Alexander McCall Smith, is entitled to receive one at no cost in Kindle or Nook format. While Microsoft, let us say, pays Amazon or Barnes and Noble some negotiated very low price.

There are precedents for such things. If your insurance company becomes insolvent, you have a sketchy form of protection from your state's Guaranty Association, which is a sort of consortium of insurance companies operating under state regulation. There's no backup fund, but if your insurer folds, the others pass the hat and provide you with replacement coverage. Of course this wasn't done voluntarily, and it took the collapse of a high-profile insurance company to make it gel. 

eBook publishers ought to form an "eBook guaranty association" that pledges to provide you with replacement eBook copies when your eBook provider fails. 

Notice that it doesn't need to be Microsoft that does it. Any individual eBook publisher, large or small, could take it upon themselves to make a "permanency pledge," promising free replacement of eBooks if the old format becomes untenable. This would of course have the problem that it's good only for the business life of the publisher. Firms like L. L. Bean and Sears Craftsman promise lifetime free-replacement guarantees, why can't eBook publishers? 

> Posted by: "Katharine Krueger" [email protected]   ksaundby
> Re the lit format, there is a very nice !!*free* !! ebook management program called Calibre which will convert Lit, RTF, Jpeg and other formats to PDF or EPub as long as they're not DRM protected. 

I am sure you mean to be helpful, but don't you realize how infuriating it is to say "as long as they're not DRM protected?"

Posted by: "Tammy Potts" tammypotts41-/[email protected]   tammypotts41
> I am a little confused, what is the Microsoft reader?

A Microsoft eBook format and software ecosystem associated with broken promises.  

The Franklin eBookman was widely touted as a game-changer due to its low price and its ability to read Microsoft Reader format. Microsoft formally announced "Microsoft and Franklin Electronic Publishers Bring Microsoft Reader To Franklin's eBookman," that "Franklin and Microsoft are collaborating on a version of Microsoft Reader," and that Franklin's website would become an "authorized Microsoft Bookstore." 

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2000/jun00/ebookmanpr.mspx

In October, 2001, Franklin announced that "its collaboration on a version of Microsoft Reader for use on eBookMan models would not be continued." As far as I know, no explanation was ever provided publicly by either Microsoft or Franklin. Does anyone know? The casualness with which big companies renege on publicly articulated promises always amazes me.

Microsoft itself, if I recall correctly, also announced that they were making Microsoft Reader available for Pocket PC devices. It transpired that they did not mean DRM-protected commercial content like novels. That capability was withheld until the next generation of Pocket PC devices. Supposedly a Microsoft Reader exists for cell phones running Windows phone software, though, doesn't it? You'd think that would be a big enough user base to deserve good treatment.

> Posted by: "joseph harris"
> I am guessing Gemstar files were not easy to convert

I don't think the format was complex or difficult, apart from the DRM. I am pretty sure that the non-DRMed format was reverse-engineered by hobbyists who wanted to continue to load HTML content into their REB-1100s after Gemstar removed that capability from already-purchased devices in a sneak firmware "upgrade." Security was provided by the DRM, not by "security through obscurity" in the format itself. Perhaps others more knowledgeable will comment.





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