Posts Tagged ‘eBook’

OMA DRM as the 1st Choice for Carriers and Service Providers Deploying E-book Services

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

E-book market is experiencing significant growth. Approximately four million electronic-book reading devices were sold last year. According to U.S.-based market intelligence firm iSuppli, number is expected to jump to 12 million in 2010 and 18 million in 2012 . Increasingly E-book readers are  equipped with a broadband mobile connectivity. For example Hanwang Science released a 3G e-reader capable of connecting with China Mobile Ltd.’s network, a feature that enables users to access the Internet and to download books. Other examples of e-book readers that include a cellular connection can be seen here

http://gizmodo.com/5365676/irex-dr800sg-ebook-reader-verizon-3g-bn-books-stylus-touchscreen
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/29/asus-to-launch-3g-wimax-equipped-e-book-readers-by-march-2010/

OMA DRM is the most common content protection and access system in use today by mobile carriers. All forms of digital content including multimedia, ringtones, music, video and games are secured using the OMA DRM solution.

By expanding OMA DRM to protect E-book content mobile carriers can leverage their existing back end infrastructure and qualified workforce. Moreover as an open standard DRM scheme it enjoys the support of content owners and service provides alike. The scheme is robust and widely deployed, and supports all the required business models including:

  • Subscription
  • Time limited rental
  • Buy to own without sharing (forward lock)
  • Sharing with other users (super distribution)
  • Preview
  • Right to read on multiple devices (domains)
  • Usage metering and advertising funded models
  • Backup and recovery

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The Right Price for an eBook…Let the Consumer Decide

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

The recent war of words between Apple and Amazon regarding the correct way to price an eBook says a great deal about Apple’s brand value and their ability to leverage success in music market. Ironically in this case the roles are reversed with Amazon charging $9.99 for a best-seller and Apple planning to $12.99 – $14.99. By pricing eBooks aggressively Amazon hoped to stimulate demand, an important lesson learned from Apple’s success in music market. What is not clear is whether Apple’s pricing for eBook’s will proved to be as successful as their 99c per song and whether the download-to-own is the correct approach. Both vendors are deploying in-house content protection technologies.

Just looking at the sheer volume of second hand books available for sale on Amazon.com, my guess is that any eBook pricing model that does not allow the owner to resell the content is not likely to succeed. Moreover, the business model for eBook needs to correctly reflect the way people consume and acquire books. For example support an electronic book library or so-called subscription based models is an important requirement. The ability to share a book with friends and family, typical of books clubs all over the world is another model that must be supported. Text books also pose a serious challenge to the monolithic download-to-own model. This is to say nothing of the different types of devices, with either fixed or removal storage and a multitude of operating systems (e.g. Android, Symbian).

What is clear is that a one-size-fits-all approach (download-to-own) will not allow the eBook market to reach its full potential. Any viable content protection technology for the eBook market needs to support the full range of business models.

OMA DRM 2.1 is such a scheme, providing an ideal solution for eBook market. As an open DRM scheme it enjoys the support of content owners and service provides alike. The scheme is very robust and widely deployed. Moreover the scheme supports all the enhanced business models required by the eBook market.

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