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Comment by chocolatkey | Hacker News Reader

As someone who works in the ebook sector, I'll say that no one loves Adobe's DRM, whether it be the publisher, vendor or user. It's implemented by apps and such because of the network effect - other apps support it, and users want to be able to read Adobe DRMed content without trouble, and it was also the first big solution to the "problem" of ebook DRM. However, because people have to pay a fee to Adobe per license, vendors are not very happy about having to continue to tolerate it, so that provides for a great incentive to slowly get them to move to a more user-friendly alternative as long as it's zero-cost, which is what LCP is trying to solve.

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Hadn't heard of LCP before. Based on some skimming of the website… how does it improve on Adobe's DRM other than cost?

It's still limited to applications that explicitly support it. Maybe there will be a wider ecosystem than Adobe's. But my current preferred reader apps all either have built-in storefronts (Kindle, Apple Books) or are open source (Calibre and Google Chrome, so I can use a Japanese dictionary extension). The former category probably won't ever support LCP, and the latter category definitely won't.

And as for longevity… who's to say LCP will still be around in 10 years or 20? At least Adobe has a big brand name.

At the end of the day, I'll keep using de-DRM plugins to get around those problems, but that's a solution that only works for people who are relatively tech savvy, not your average reader. And I'm not sure DRM will always be as ineffective as it is today.

It improves on it because the barrier to entry is much lower for apps to integrate it, and the ecosystem for LCP is arguably already much larger than for Adobe Adept. There are multiple mobile apps, the thorium reader on desktop, and more.

As for LCP being around in 10-20 yrs, the idea with LCP (excluding loans, of course) is that you don't need to be online or require a remote server to validate/access ebooks you've downloaded. You just have your "password", that is used to decrypt the book content through LCP, so as long as you still have any app that supports LCP, you still have access to the publication. I think it's the best compromise that will exist in reality for publishers that still want DRM. The entire system is open-source except a small key derivation function.

GP lists some concrete deal breakers with existing DRM:

- you can only read them in [publisher-approved apps]

- you can't share them with your kids

- you are guaranteed to lose access to them in 10 years or tomorrow

Does LCP solve any of these problems?

> you can only read them in [publisher-approved apps]

You can read them in LCP-approved apps. Publishers don't decide which apps are LCP-approved. There is a decent selection of apps that exists, on mobile and desktop.

(the following doesn't apply to loans, only owned books)

> you can't share them with your kids

You can, see https://www.edrlab.org/readium-lcp/faq/ "What are the advantages of LCP for users?" and "Why isn’t there a strict device limit on LCP licenses?"

> you are guaranteed to lose access to them in 10 years or tomorrow

As long as there still exists an app that supports LCP, you can still open the ebook.

As I said in another comment, I think it's the best compromise that will exist in reality for publishers that still want DRM. The entire system is open-source except a small key derivation function. Note I'm not involved directly with LCP, but collaborate closely with people that do for the Readium project.

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