For you Kindle fans and e-book reader fans in general, what are digital rights issues like with the e-books? Are they tied to readers, or can they be stored as files, backed up, used on different readers, etc.?
I believe that once you buy them, you can share them with up to six deisgnated devices, including PCs, other Kindles, and so on. I don't know about non-Kindle stuff, though. There's some kind of sharing function for sure.
Sure thing. And I'll just say that I adore my Kindle, and am very very glad I got the international wireless function - it was lovely to read poolside in Cancun, and grab a new book whenever I needed one! :)
Typically they are tied to the reader, but you can break the DRM on a bunch of them says the husband who wants a Nook for his birthday. The Nook can read epub format books. It does not appear that Kindle can do this.
Reading patrissimo's complaints, he does not like that Kindle does not upgrade their software often.
The husband says there are readers for other platforms like there is a Kindle reader for the iPad that helps keep you from being stuck with a device to maintain your library.
I think DRM users in general are fighting a rearguard action, but it could be a lengthy one. I'm not a huge fan of very proprietary formats, and I'm not a fan at all of DRM-tainted files. But thanks for your input! Luckily, I'm not in a rush and can continue to watch the devices develop. My ultimate goal is fewer gadgets and less physical space occupied.
My husband has a Nook and loves it. It does have a loan feature, though as I understand it, one can only loan a book once (ever) and for only two weeks. He has been able to D/L books from Gutenberg and is catching up on the classics. B&N is evidently up for sale now and Amazon is a potential buyer, so it will be interesting to see what happens.
I hope the sale doesn't have a serious impact on support of the Nook in favor of the Kindle! The e-readers are very snazzy, but I'm a bit wary of single-function devices (even though I really only use my mobile phone for phone calls and text messaging). I started thinking about the DRM issues with e-books because I was thinking about the next generation (and hopefully much improved) iPad.
I have a nook and love it. It can use Barnes and Noble books obviously, but also ebooks from other sites (except Amazon due to their proprietary format). Some of the B&N books are lendable, but a book can only be loaned once. The nice benefit of being able to read books from other sources is that our public library has ebook available for borrowing. I can download books from the library and read them on the nook. The files can be backed up and stored on the computer. I don't know if the books bought from B&N can be read on other ereaders but they can be read on the computer, iphone, ipad, etc.
I love my Nook. It uses the Android platform, which is open source meaning you can fiddle with the programs. There is a website, http://nookdevs.com/Main_Page, where you can get apps and upgraded operating system patches. There is this nifty app called Trook that you can install that will allow you to download epub documents directly from RSS feeds, without first having to download the content to your computer. For cataloguing, there is a great multi platform app called "calibre" that runs on both Linux AND the Windows platform.
You're the third Nook user to chime in! It's more popular than I'd thought. I do like tweakable features, though I tend to leave most of my programming at work. I'd never heard of calibre; I'll have to check it out. I think if the Droid-based Novel had gotten decent reviews, I'd have been sorely tempted.
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Reading patrissimo's complaints, he does not like that Kindle does not upgrade their software often.
The husband says there are readers for other platforms like there is a Kindle reader for the iPad that helps keep you from being stuck with a device to maintain your library.
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