Adobe Plans to Force Everyone to Change to New DRM

Sadly, we can't have only hopeful news today. The Digital Reader reported yesterday that Adobe is planning to push everyone to a new DRM model; along the way existing readers and content will be cut off. I categorically refuse to call this an "upgrade" as Adobe is doing.

I got a good breakdown of the situation from a friend who tracks this marketplace; his assessment is that this is mostly going to hurt the smaller participants. B&N and Amazon, the two giants in this space, don't use the Adobe ACS4 that is being retired. Apple doesn't either, but for all the devices Apple sells, they sell remarkably few books and are not a major player from the publishing side. Most others who publish e-books in ePub or PDF format and want DRM use ACS4; likewise, ACS4 is available on devices like Nook where it's used by third-party publishers who want copy-blocking.

It seems that the use of ACS4 is currently required by many library contracts in order for those libraries to be able to lend out ebooks to be read on Nook devices. This means that libraries will be shut out, or will be in situations where they can't lend older books to users with upgraded tablets (and vice versa). Tablet and smartphone users are likely going to be in better shape as they'll be able to purchase new apps that support the new ACS5 standard. People with dedicated devices (other than Kindle) are going to be badly hit. People who can no longer re-download their e-books due to incompatible DRM formats may be a bit annoyed but anecdotal tales seem to show that people treat e-books largely as disposable items so this may not affect a lot of people. People who must rely on assistive devices such as audio readers (for sight-impaired persons) have my sympathy.

I refer people to my post of April 2012 in which I predicted we would see the end of the dedicated e-reader device in favor of general-purpose tablets. My time window was a little short, but I still think I was fundamentally right. That said, if you're using DRM on your e-books you brought this on yourself and my sympathy is quite limited. Stop letting other people put locks on your stuff and you will cease having these sorts of problems.