15 Nov 2008

Publishers welcome to the digital age

Written by Brian Teeman
Angry man scrapes fingernails on desk

This week I was approached by a book publisher, to review their books on this site. After pointing them to my blog honesty post they agreed to send me two of their latest books for review.

Unfortunately it is not possible to review them because the publisher, Packt, doesn't trust me or you.

The publisher, supplied books, that for now are remaining anonymous to protect their poor authors, in both traditional paper and what they call Adobe PDF eBook.

Password protected pdf are NOT eBooks!!!! You cannot read them on an eBook reader. What sort of eBook does that make this? An unread one.

To read these books I am either going to have to print out approximately 250 pages or read them on my PC.

Sorry that's just not going to happen. Either use a standard ebook DRM format for your ebooks or trust your customers. It's not exactly hard to crack a password on an adobe pdf but why should you force me to "potentially" break the law to read your book.

To make matters worse it would appear that every single page of the book has a header reminding me that the book is mine and where I live. I know where I live thank you. I don't need reminding.

It also says

"... and is licensed for the sole use by Brian Teeman on 14 November 2008"

Can I not read it next week?

 

blog comments powered by Disqus

About Brian Teeman

  • As a co-founder of Joomla! and OpenSourceMatters Inc I've never been known to be lacking an opinion or being too afraid to express it.

    Despite what some people might think I'm a shy and modest man who doesnt like to blow his own trumpet or boast about achievements.

    But it seems that no blog exists without an "About" page so rather than talk about what an amazingly great guy I am and list all the things I've achieved (and failed at) in life from my Cycling Proficiency Test in 1976 to winning an award for the "UK Individual Contribution to Open / Source" in 2005 here are some links.

    {...}