Apple said to be using FairPlay DRM for iBookstore
By Donald Melanson 
posted February 15th 2010 5:18PM
posted February 15th 2010 5:18PM
Well, it looks like anyone hoping that books on Apple's iBookstore would be as DRM-free as music is on iTunes may be in for a bit of disappointment, as the Los Angeles Times is now reporting that Apple will be making its own FairPlay digital rights management available to any book publishers that wish to use it. Of course, that shouldn't come as a huge surprise considering that Apple still uses FairPlay for movies and TV shows sold on iTunes -- not to mention apps -- and it even still technically supports it for music as well, although it's pretty safe to assume Apple won't be going back down that road anytime soon. For its part, Apple is unsurprisingly staying mum on the matter, but March is fast approaching, so we should know for sure soon enough.
@Ringu Or you could use the App store apps for other companies products. I read my books on my nook and iPod Touch. Bought from the same store. Once. I also have a few Amazon books and a whole ton of the free Project Gutenberg books, too.
@Chris Dunning Unfortunately, no other iPhone app plays Adobe DRM'ed ebooks, which are still the most common format. If you have bought ebooks already that are DRM'ed, you can't play them on iPad.
@Ringu Ah, didn't know that. Thanks for bringing it up.
@Ringu Well done. Agreed that the obvious choice for "one DRM to rule them all [eBooks anyway]" would be Adobe's DRM. If they used Adobe's DRM for their eBooks then yes we would have more ability to move eBooks from one manufacturer's devices to another. Too bad that won't be possible.
Seems inevitable that Apple would use their existing DRM though. They're in a ptiched battle with Adobe, they already have FairPlay implemented for video etc...
@Fanfoot Absolutely. I couldn't believe it when they said they were going to support ePubs.
Typical Apple -- create something awesome but leave out one absolutely essential factor.
@Ringu. that's not actually true. you could view Adobe books, just like you can Amazon ones. if Adobe puts out an app.
@Charlik Adobe have clearly said that they won't make an iphone/itouch app. They make a reference library build available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, but they don't yet have an iphone port -- and until that happens, no-one else can make an iphone app either.
Couldn't resist posting an iPad story amongst all the Windows Phone 7 news, eh Engadget?
It's a shame that Apple went with their own DRM rather than one of the existing ones for ePub, I guess their seeming hatred of Adobe overrides the sense in appealing to people that already have quite a lot of ePub content with the adobe drm.
As distasteful as the idea of DRM shackled music files is, the idea of books that could expire or be locked is worse. In the end people did not put up with DRM on pop music, so hopefully it will be the same with books.
Jeeze, why didn't they just create their own format then? Having a proprietary DRM seems to defeat the purpose of using a standard format (ePub). And worse, it will certainly confuse many users.
@Plothole Because it's optional. Publishers that choose not to use it will at least be delivering standard ePub files that *can* be used on other readers. And in cases where there is similar content (say, reference books of some type) we can at least vote with our dollars and purchase from the publisher that chooses not to use DRM (if any exist :) Also, it gives an easier route if the DRM guys later agree not to use it, just a strip of the DRM rather than a whole different book format with different features, etc.
@darksharpie It's not optional. Publishers stipulate very carefully that no ePubs are to be sold without DRM; most actually specify Adobe DRM too.
It's not the publishers that add the DRM, BTW: it's the retailers. You will never be able to buy a commercial ePub without some form of encryption (DRM) -- given the size of the files, publishers know that the moment this happens, they would become the most pirated content known to man. :-(
When I read that Apple were going to support ePub files, I was so happy -- I have several thousand books, all ePub format -- but somewhat disbelieving given the Adobe spat. Playing ePub with Adobe DRM is like playing MP3 with the byte order reversed: pretty damn pointless and effectively invalidates all your content before you start.
They'll probably make a big thing about turning it off once they've killed Amazon's eBook business...
The vast majority of music in the Japanese iTunes Store still uses Fairplay.
Apple is going to do what they did with the iTunes music store.. they got VERY popular and thus gained a lot of power and eventually overturned the DRM. (I hope) they'll do it again with eBooks! I think the publishing companies need Apple to help them make that decision.