Protecting Your E-Books on the iPad

The iPad will hit the streets on April 3rd, and several major publishers—Penguin, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins for now—are on board. When the iBookstore opens for business, these publishers will be armored against the inevitable efforts of pirates with Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) software. DRM protects content by allowing an e-book to be downloaded only to a finite number of devices. As pirates attempt to hack the system, Apple responds with harder-to-hack software—a back and forth that began while attempting to protect music and has no end in sight.

Given the buzz about the iPad, publishers hope that this will keep e-book sales rising. The opportunity to introduce their content to millions of iTunes and Apple users is one of the reasons Penguin chairman John Mackinson is excited to have his company on board. Of course, iPad won’t just have iBooks. There will be “apps” for using “Kindle for iPhone, Stanza, Iceberg Reader, eReader, and Kobo,” just to name a few.

Prior to the announcement of the iPad, there was debate about whether or not Apple would use DRM on its iBooks. After all, Amazon has been criticized by some for using this technology and there are a handful of publishers electing to go without. Most publishers, however, including all five of the major publishers on the iPad, are opting to protect their books with DRM. In a culture where people are used to paying for books, the transition to the e-book may not mean that consumers will suddenly expect content for free. Still, it never hurts to be safe.