Digital rights management, or DRM, is a catch-all term that refers to license agreements and technologies intended to protect the rights of content providers from would-be pirates. It is DRM technology that Apple uses, for example, to prevent unlimited duplication of songs from its iTunes store.
I've been looking at tablet computers, including the Amazon Kindle and B&N's recently updated Nook. English-language books are hard to come by here in Serbia, and they're expensive when you find them. So I've been thinking that I should feed my addiction to literature with an e-reader of some kind.
The problem with most e-books is that they suffer from draconian DRM restrictions. Most user licenses cover only a single hardware device, so if you want to use the tablet one day and the laptop another, you need to buy a second copy of the book. Some e-book publishers tie their offerings (officially if not practically) to their own software. Copying, printing, sharing, and reselling are typically not allowed. It's complicated – the relevant restrictions on a particular book may come from the publisher, the distributor, or the e-reader's platform vendor. Individual titles from the same publisher or vendor may have different restrictions.
Amazon made headlines recently when it opened the Kindle Owners' Lending Library for e-books. Reality doesn't live up to the headlines, however. First, the service is available to Kindle users only. Second, it is available only to members of Amazon's $79/year Amazon Prime program. Third, the service is limited to one book per month, one book at a time. Finally, the service is currently limited to about 5,000 titles, a list that consists largely of public-domain and self-help books.
You're better off going to your local public library. Seriously. Public libraries across North America are now making e-books available for check-out, often at no charge. (You can access libraries' offerings with a free e-reader app called OverDrive if you've a mind to. The company's Web site even helps you locate nearby libraries to lend you books.)
The complicated e-books ecosphere is just the latest example of the fractious world of digital rights management. Vendors are lending toward a streaming model, in which they retain all ownership of digital content, offering users only a limited one-time right to view it. Users, understandably, would prefer to store content on their devices or in the cloud, and access it multiple times on an unlimited number of arbitrary devices. The marketplace is a mixed-up mess of compromises between these two poles.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers a thoughtful checklist of issues to consider in the e-books world at this page: Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers. It's well worth reading.
Web recommendation: Call me a cockeyed optimist – I have a good feeling about Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). The latest version of Google's operating system for mobile devices is a major release that's intended to power both smartphones and tablets. Google has promised to release the source code to developers so they can fine-tune their offerings. Why develop for Ice Cream Sandwich? ZDNet blogger Ed Burnette has combed through the ICS SDK and emerged with a handful of compelling reasons: Top 10 Features in Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). J.D. say check it out.
J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He enjoys the occasional game of cribbage.