Methinks it’s probably the fact that it would have needed a bit more processor oomph (correct me if I’m wrong), thus a wee bit more juice. This could push the price of the components up, or it could just be a slow as heck PDF reader. Doesn’t take much to read a plain text file.

Just a thought.

I snagged a copy of Mysterious Island (the 2005 “edition”) off amazon and dragged it off my Kindle and it does appear to be a locked file (unlocked azw files can be dragged off the Kindle onto your pc and by changing the file extension to prc they can be read by the Mobipocket Reader).

The Kindle version I bought does appear to be a match with versions available on mobipocket and Project Gutenberg.

I am not aware of any open source tools for prc file creation but I vaguely recall a German website that allowed users to paste text into a box and the site would then create a prc file for you. The Mobipocket Creator software may run under Wine which might allow you to avoid installing Windows.

You might hit the mobilereader.com forums – that might lead to some other solutions for file creation.

1. It doesn’t matter if rightsholders forced Amazon to put stupid EULA terms in the Kindle. It still sucks. And Amazon has been at the forefront of refusing rightsholder demands in other contexts (for example, they won’t remove or hobble their used book market, and Bezos’s fine statements on this are quoted above). If a publisher came to Amazon and said, “You can only sell our books on your store if you promise to prevent your customers from selling them as used goods and loaning them to friends, and if you allow us to go over to their house and take the books away if they displease us,” that publisher would be shown the door. The point of this post — and the important question — is why is it that Amazon’s balls shrivel up and fall off as soon as we start talking about digital distribution, given that Amazon is arguably the best digital retailer in the world?

2. The problem with DRM isn’t just the restrictions placed on the DRMed files themselves. As I mentioned in the article (and this is important): DRM means that the device has to be designed so that users can’t modify it, lest they modify it to remove the DRM. Anyone who develops any add-ons for the Kindle will be required to sign agreements promising that no user-modifiability will arise as a result of their software. There will never be an “open” way to improve the Kindle. This isn’t a little specialized PC that can read ebooks and be extended and improved by readers, entrepreneurs and the world at large. This is a cable-box, a little caged one-thing-only gadget that starts from the assumption that the poor suckers who give Amazon $400 for it are Not To Be Trusted, and therefore it must take countermeasures to prevent them from understanding it, extending it and improving it. Leave aside the moral outrage for a second: is it likely or even possible that all the people who know how to improve your $400 toy work for Amazon?

As to BB’s arrangement: if you sign up for Boing Boing with Kindle, we get some of the money. But it’s not germane to the post, unless you believe I would have been even *less* complimentary about the Kindle had I not stood in line to derive a vast fortune from it should pigs fly and buying blogs on the Kindle takes off.

Unfortunately, since the DRM lords tend to be powerful and rich, they buy laws that force people to use DRM and use violence to punish those that avoid or crack DRM. There is no such thing as a DRM-enforcing law (like the DMCA) that does not deny your basic rights as a human being.

It’s $400.

You know what else costs $400?

* A full-blown laptop with respectable specs (Dell just dropped the price on their entry-level Vostro).

* An ultraportable Asus EEE

* An iPhone

If this had shown up five years ago for half the price it would’ve been significant. Now with portable computer prices as they are, it’s an expensive toy.

The crazy thing to me is that this isn’t the end of ebook readers! There will be more attempts with more complicated schemes. Meanwhile laptops and ultraportables will get cheaper, lighter, more powerful, and have better battery life. Heck, the iPhone is really just the best-selling tablet pc ever, and it also makes phone calls. The iPhone, Vostro, and EEE will all allow you to read Project Guttenberg and Wikipedia until your eyes fall out of their sockets. Oh, and you can access the full-blown internet, watch movies, listen to music, chat with your friends, play doom, and run a web server. Oh, and you can read any blog you want for free.

Hilarious.

If it doesn’t have all of the features of the real thing, I’m not going to bother.

Can I safely take it to the beach or pool to read like a paperback? Do I dare use it on the crapper (as most everyone knows, a man’s (and my wife’s after showing her the pleasure)favorite reading room)?

Right now I am looking at a “copy” of Eastern Standard Tribe on my Kindle.

How can that be?????

The Kindle is not a DRM locked box. It is a box that supports the DRM of locked Kindle files.

So Cory rejected amazon’s offer to offer his books in Kindle format. No biggie!!

The Kindle supports text files and mobi files and prc files natively. It supports Word files and HTML files and PDF files via conversion.

I was able to simply plug my Kindle into my pc and drag a copy of his book in prc format right into the Kindle documents folder and shazaam I have an ebook version of the novel readily at hand.

I also sent an HTML version of his book to my Kindle email address and a few minutes later it automatically appeared on my Kindle.

I don’t like DRM any more than Cory but I am pragmatic enough that I recognize the current reality of the situation of commercially produced intellectual property.

Also, if I want to share a book with a friend I could simply register their Kindle on my account. That is a bit of a kludge cuz they would then temporarily lose access to their books until they re-registered their Kindle back to their account.

My bet is that in the not too distant future amazon will convince publishers that it would not be a bad thing to allow folks to de-register a book from one device so it can be sent to a friend and registered on their device and then “returned” when they have finished reading it.

As some others have suggested I too would love for amazon to take the Netflix approach and offer the all-you-can-read buffet for a set monthly fee.

Time will tell.

Anyway, after only having my Kindle for a few days I love the thing and look forward to future iterations of the hardware/service.

“Those features work for all the files I have tried [...] I’ll send the [gutenberg] file to amazon and let them convert it and send it to the Kindle and see if the same problem exists”

Thanks for following up, I really appreciate your ongoing reportage.

“It’s not surprising that the Kindle offers direct support for un-DRM’ed mobi and prc files since amazon bought Mobipocket a couple of years ago.”

Huh. I didn’t realize that.

“I agree that the Kindle being able to natively support un-DRM’ed mobi and prc files is a definite plus as that opens up a lot of free existing books to ready use on the Kindle and makes it easy for others to convert files into an unlocked format that can be used by the Kindle and many other platforms/devices.”

Perhaps we’re not using the same terms here. While un-DRM’d .mobi and .prc files are nice, the only software currently available to create this format (Mobipocket Creator) is, AFAIK, a windows-only download, and the .prc ebook format itself is proprietary and undocumented. This is not *quite* free enough for my purposes, as it basically means that Amazon has set themselves up as a central point of failure for converting my own legally obtained content (either that, or I’m forced to install Windows, an operating system I don’t use).

I’d really like to see either some open-source tools for creating un-DRM’d .mobi, .prc, or .azw files, or Amazon updating the Kindle to read any one of the other ebook file formats for which such tools (for example rbmake) already exist.

Sony publishes the source to their readers, all the way back to the first Japanese only Librie, the day the binary ships.

The legal notices feature built into the Kindle lists off the open source projects that it exploits but I still haven’t found the link to go grab the source for the open source binaries locked up inside it.

My other disappointment today: $400 and it uses the last generation e-Ink panel. I put my Sony PRS-505 (2nd gen US reader) next to it and the difference in quality is immediately apparent. I put my PRS-500 (1st gen US reader) next to it and the quality was spot on the same. I guess Amazon had to cut corners on the panel to afford some other feature and sell the unit for $400. Call me crazy but I’d think the last thing you’d cut corners on in a dedicated ebook reader would be the display.

(My only criticism of your post is that there are too many one-sentence paragraphs.)

Here’s one more interesting suggestion from the Amazon site:

Joshua Kim:
Hi….I would purchase a Kindle if I could subscribe to newspapers and magazines by topic – and aggregate across the topics. For instance, I would pay $20 a month to get all the technology articles from the major newspapers and magazines.

Re: the 62% who “did not feel Radiohead’s latest album is worth purchasing”.

I assume you are saying that 62% of those who downloaded it didn’t pay for it. You say that as if it was unreasonable. But keep in mind a few things… Radiohead -specifically- said that you should download their album & pay what you think it was worth. If you aren’t a Radiohead fan, $0.00 is not unreasonable to check out a band you’re not familiar with (or in my case, you just never “got” (though I haven’t yet downloaded the album, paid or not)). Second, 38% is a far larger percentage of the revenue then Radiohead receives when they sell an actual, physical album. Radiohead is a big enough band that they -might- get $1 for every $18 album sold. If so, they get far more then the average band. (See http://cdbaby.net/courtney for the average band’s economics)

The point of all this is simply that DRM benefits the record companies (or in the case of Kindle, the publishers) far more then it benefits the artists. When the artists finally realize this, the days of the corporate record companies / publishers will be over.

Please excuse me if none of this make much sense… It’s VERY late and I should have been in bed hours ago… I’m skipping a few steps in between the first paragraph and the second, but this is a smart crowd, so I expect that most of you can make the leap.

“Do mobipocket files have feature-parity (ie. reopening on the last viewed page, bookmarking, clipping, etc.) on the Kindle with the .azw format?”

Yes. It seems those features work regardless of file format.

the 62% figure is a lie: “somebody” paid a third-party company WITHOUT access to the real data to publish distorted informations obtained through a not-better-specified “survey” as if they were the real thing.

The Radiohead explicitly said that comscore was publishing “wholly inaccurate” data and that their survey “in no way reflected definitive market intelligence or, indeed, the true success of the project,” but obviously once the news is out, well, that’s it, you can do nothing to correct the false impressions it generated.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1573841/20071108/radiohead.jhtml

As en ebook enthusiast living outside the USA, I’m very, very disappointed about Amazon’s decision to make the Kindle available only to US-based customers. It’s ironic, because I’m a longtime Amazon customer, and bought books and CDs from Amazon.com long before they even opened their european stores! Now, not only Amazon doesn’t want to send a Kindle to me, but it uses the EVDO system, which doesn’t even work where I live. Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Bezos!

Another thing: the proprietary format used by the Kindle is a lot more annoying than simple DRM-ed ebooks. The Kindle requires you to by their own .AZW books, but can’t read ordinary PDF or the DRM’d Mobipocket (.prc or .mobi) ebooks sold through other retailers! I already got a few of those (my favorite authors don’t always go with the no-DRM strategy, alas) and couldn’t read them on the Kindle even if I would, and could, buy one.

The other ebook readers available right now to the US market (the Sony PRS, the Philips-iRex iLiad, and Bookeen’s Cybook Gen3) can read the common ebook formats, including the de-facto standard Mobipocket, with or without DRMs.

Last month, the Paris-based company Bookeen released their brand new ebook reader, Cybook Gen3, with 6-inch e-ink display, USB connectivity and several very nice features, like dictionnary lookup, adding your own fonts or zooming on PDF books. It can read DRM and non-DRM books, is not locked to one ebook retailer, and American residents can order it for 350 USD through the Bookeen online store:

http://www.bookeen.com/ebook/ebook-reading-device.aspx

I hasten to say that I have nothing to do with the Bookeen company, I’m just a happy, happy customer. I’ve been using my Cybook Gen3 for about a week now, and I’m very pleased I bought it, because it’s a very nice way of reading e-texts, especially if you’re an avid reader.

Something other of interest for American residents: Baen’s NAEB (“Not Another E-Book”) company is going to distribute the Cybook Gen3 to US and Canada next month, and provide local customer support.

So, if Amazon “kindles” interest for ebooks, fine, but don’t jump and buy one of their customer-enslaving machines! Try the competition first ;-)

“Given that the Kindle ostensibly lets you read Mobipocket files, does the mobipocket version of Down and Out (http://craphound.com/down/Cory_Doctorow_-_Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom.prc) work? Can you download it using the browser, or do you have to transfer it via USB?”

Brian Carnell @ #60 says that the mobipocket EST file works, but that he transfered it using USB. I’d still like to know if you can use the built-in browser to download and read un-DRM’d mobipocket files.

I’d also be interested to know if any software exists to produce mobipocket files on Linux.

Can someone check one of these out and see whether Amazon is converting these to DRM-infested .azw files or if these are still unprotected .prc files?

Amazon page for ‘Mysterious Island’:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mysterious-Island/dp/B000JMLBHU/

Mobipocket search for the same title (2 results):
http://www.mobipocket.com/freebooks/default.aspx?portletSearch%24tbCriteria=mysterious+island&portletSearch%24butSearch=Search&portletSearch%24language=rbAllLanguages

Um…you let your wife watch you taking a dump while you read a book? That’s just sick man.

Thanks for the additional info.

I’m curious though, do those features really work for *all* file formats as you imply, including text files (such as those downloadable from Project Gutenberg), and not just for ebook formats like .prc and .azw?

If Free content in Free formats is downloadable via Whispernet at no extra cost, the value proposition of the Kindle is rather different (and larger) than what Amazon is presenting.

The only missing piece necessary to unlock that value proposition is open source software that can produce a supported ebook format. This could happen either by Amazon adding support for any open ebook format to the Kindle, or by some third party creating software to produce one of the supported ebook formats (by reverse engineering the format, if necessary).

The non-user-modifiability of the Kindle would still be annoying, but I think I’d be willing to pay a couple hundred dollars for an appliance device that gave me free wireless browsing + storage for ~200 novels + Free format ebook downloads + an e-ink display for reading + 30 hours battery life.

That would be useful to me without ever buying a DRM’d book, although I think I’d still wait for the price to drop.

Also, your next paragraph implies that there isn’t already piracy in publishing. It implies that if it were not for the DRM in the Kindle, piracy would be even worse. Optical character recognition technology has long existed. Also, if history holds, those who want to defeat the Kindle’s DRM will defeat it. As usual, all DRM will do is shackle law abiders, not law violaters. The track record, so far, is that DRM has been worthless in fighting piracy.

I think you need to inspect some of your own logical fallacies.

http://www.mobipocket.com/freebooks/download.aspx?id=8993

http://www.mobipocket.com/freebooks/download.aspx?id=1268

Here are more comments-of-interest from the Amazon site:

J. Rivera:
3) I would hate to buy the Kindle just to see the price drop dramatically 3 months from now. If that happens, I want to be reassured that I would be reimbursed if the price drops by a lot. Similar to what happened with the iPhone recently.

5) If Amazon offered 1 or 2 free ebooks of MY choice out of all of the Kindle books currently available for purchase. I am not sure if they offer this already, but it would be nice.

Leonard Senn:
Some people have indicated that the page forward and page back keys are often pressed inadvertently. I read in the instruction book, and the leatherette cover was meant to be used even when reading. Using it while reading completely eliminated the problem of pressing fwd/back keys in error.

Brandy Fortune:
It’s a heck of a lot like the iPod. In fact one way it’s better is they back up all the purchased books on their servers, iTunes doesn’t let you re-download anything at the moment. … Now ANYONE can publish a book and anyone can buy it, I have hopes that is just like podcasts, suddenly anyone can be a audio personality, now anyone can be an author with far less limits than previously.
+++++++++++

(My (Roger Knights) comment (here only)):
That last point hints at the staggering potential of the Kindle. It may be the reason Bezos called the Kindle “the most important thing we’ve ever done.” Authors could disintermediate publishers and sell direct via Amazon, upping their royalties—and saving the customer money too. For instance, if an author now gets $2 per hardcover book (or $1 per paperback), he could price his eBook at $6, split the gross 50/50 with Amazon (if that’s OK with Jeff), and wind up with more $ in his pocket. (And so would the buyer.)

As for how an eBook is to generate “buzz” to attract eBook customers:

1) Amazon could distribute free (but time-limited) copies of eBooks to its “top 1000 reviewers (or some other bunch of sincere reviewers, as judged by customer feedback on their reviews).
2) The ordinary bunch of customer reviews.
3) The normal Amazon suggestion process of “customers who bought the eBook you just bought also bought these eBooks …”

Maybe a more balanced review/analysis would be more interesting. After watching Bezos on Charlie Rose last night, this seems like a pretty cool, if not imperfect, product…certainly cooler than what I read in the blogosphere would have you believe. Having your newspapers and magazines pushed to your reader, impulse buying that book you overheard people discussing a seat over on the train, etc. are pretty nifty features. Yes, DRM sucks. Yes it’s not the uber-opensourceohmygash reader that people like us would love. But it’s a big step in the right direction (combining a built in delivery mechanism and well stocked store, ultra low battery life, and an interface my grandparents can understand, push periodical subscriptions, etc), and a pretty cool concept as well.

Not trying to troll or start flame wars or blahblahblah. I’m just saying a little more perspective than “DRM blows and here’s why” (again) couldn’t hurt your case and make for a better read.

The most important thing is
THERE IS SOURCE
I have visited the page that offers source code for download yesterday

Search on http://www.mobileread.com
somewhere burried in one of the discussion threads about Kindle there is link to the source.
Linux Kernel and things like busybox.