Mobipocket still down, DRM servers still the issue
Yet another reason to get rid of DRM: when the DRM servers go down, you can’t get content. MobileRead has an update on the Mobipocket situation, which has been going on for about a week now. Hopefully, the recent moves of DRM-free music will carry over into the eBook world because these DRM schemes are clearly not bulletproof from a customer standpoint. I don’t begrudge anyone the right to make money from selling their content, but there has to be a better way. I do want go give credit to Jayson Billington, whom I presume is from Mobipocket. He commented here and shared info on the problem right away last week. Jayson, any chance we can get an official update or ETA on when service will be restored?
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
As with all purportedly anti-piracy schemes (which are in fact all about profit maximizing) DRM is ineffective and only a really major hassle for the legitimate users.
It’s so anti-consumer it can’t survive in the long run, but I guess it will take a few more debacles like this until the corporations finally bite the bullet and admit that.
http://www.baen.com is the only ebook seller I know of which does not use DRM on there books. They specialize in Sci-Fi and Fantasy. They complete agree we all the anti-DRM arguments and have done something about it. It’s a shame their offerings are limited to those 2 genres though. They even allow html downloads of their books making them available on any device that has a web browser. Eric Flint explains it all over at The Baen Free Library. http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
Actually, I think Jayson was just reposting the message that Fictionwise was displaying about the problem. I don’t think he works for Mobipocket (although he might work for Fictionwise). That message is currently saying “they hope to be back online sometime this week, August 23 or 24.”
I second the recommendation of Baen ebooks. Actually, their ebooks are handled by WebScription (http://www.webscription.net ), which has now added a few more publishers besides Baen. Hands-down, the best ebooks available.