It has been suggested that we publish the SFB, F&E, and FC rulebooks in a format for "electronic book readers". One such reader is this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Device/dp/B000FI73MA

and I am told there are others.

The following questions apply (and are based on the idea that we will NOT be selling PDF rulebooks anytime soon; this topic is NOT for discussion of possible PDF projects).

1. Do any of you have such things and if so would you be interested in buying rulebooks in that format?

2. Would any of you be willing to buy such a thing if you could get rulebooks in this format?

3. Would anybody who knows something about this recommend for or against a given device or format? Why?

4. Is anybody who actually knows something about this able to comment on the concepts of security and making sure the documents cannot be exported and uploaded?

By Joe Stevenson (Ikv_Sabre) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 05:08 pm: Edit

1. I do not have such a device.

2. I would consider buying one if the rulebooks came out in that format, but not if the device were priced as the one you linked in.

3. The least expensive one I could find was this"
http://www.amazon.com/Ebookman-EBM-900-Franklin-e-book-eBookMan/dp/B000FSIMHU/ref=sr_1_172?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1229637623&sr=1-172

At that price, I'd probably go for it.

4. The key to protecting ADB is having a device makes use of some form of digital licensing, which would make it difficult to do. However, the fact is that there is no fool-proof way to ensure that a determined smart person with the will and technolgy couldn't steal the content. It would require someone skilled, but considering the intellect that SFU products attract, there will certainly be people in the community with the expertise to be able to do it if they had ill intent.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 05:08 pm: Edit

1) I don't have a book reader. I probably wouldn't buy one just for SFU products (see below). Then again, I've already done the work of maintaining a private (non-transferred) set of OCR'd PDF rules and SSDs on my laptop.

2) Probably not - see above.

3) No comment.

4) No comment.


There is one reason I might buy: better portability. It would be better to have this product than lug my huge laptop with me - particularly to Origins.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 05:10 pm: Edit

One other problem: I would effectively have to "re-buy" all of the SFU products I wanted in order to put them onto the reader. That idea probably is not cost effective for me.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 05:42 pm: Edit

The types of files used in those readers are being passed around the internet via Bit Torrent and other means and are readable by programs available for the Mac at least and I'd be surprised if there weren't for PCs as well. Which is my way of saying they are no different than PDF format as far as SVC's concerns. And once they can be opened on either a PC or a Mac they can be EASILY converted to PDF.

Having said that BOY would such a thing make playing the game infinitely more practical!

regards
Stacy

By Ken Coleman (Eeyore) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:07 pm: Edit

Stacy: I don't believe that's true, at least not yet. I googled for "kindle crack" and came up with nothing except a way to get *other* DRM'd content onto the Kindle. At the moment, the Kindle DRM/copy-protection system appears to be uncracked, so it's not like PDF at all. A real crack of the Kindle format would be very big news.

Other ebook formats have been cracked, though. Maybe that's what you're talking about.

That said, I have no plans to buy an e-book reader any time soon, and the existence of SFU products for them is very unlikely to change my mind.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:22 pm: Edit

I would suggest something like MyScribe. here is a link: http://www.cafescribe.com/download/what-is-myscribe.php
I use it for my clssses at DeVry University (school recommended,required and approved). When my next Textbook comes availiable, they email it is ready, and then i download it to my computer. I can't transfer the file because it has my student Id# on it so another MyScribe won't open it (the Myscribe number and document Id number have to match) best of all the reader was free for me. Of course I get charged for the Ebooks. In the past we used Adobe Digital Editions, which was just a fancy reader and not very secure. With MyScribe I can put my books on a USB Flash Drive (once) and use them on a another computer to read but can't copy or print from the Flash Drive, MyScribe Portable has these features disabled. I can print the book from my primary computer but in small letters across the bottom it prints "Specially prepared for Shawn Hantke then my student ID number and then Devry University." So it should be pretty secure.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:24 pm: Edit

Ken
The format is in question I stumbled across is .lit. I don't know whether that's the format in question. But I'd be surprised if anything couldn't be cracked sooner or later.
regards
Stacy

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:28 pm: Edit

I would suggest something like MyScribe. here is a link: http://www.cafescribe.com/download/what-is-myscribe.php
I use it for my clssses at DeVry University (school recommended,required and approved). When my next Textbook comes availiable, they email it is ready, and then i download it to my computer. I can't transfer the file because it has my student Id# on it so another MyScribe won't open it (the Myscribe number and document Id number have to match) best of all the reader was free for me. Of course I get charged for the Ebooks. In the past we used Adobe Digital Editions, which was just a fancy reader and not very secure. With MyScribe I can put my books on a USB Flash Drive (once) and use them on a another computer to read but can't copy or print from the Flash Drive, MyScribe Portable has these features disabled. I can print the book from my primary computer but in small letters across the bottom it prints "Specially prepared for Shawn Hantke then my student ID number and then Devry University." So it should be pretty secure.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:36 pm: Edit

Steve, no digital format will meet your standards for security.

That being said, I would buy the MRB in this format just for the ability to do keyword searches.

Think of the Kindle as a small bookshelf and its price gets less unreasonable. I'm figuring that in two years the price for this class of device will drop to under a hundred bucks.

At that point, the mass paperback market is dead.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:37 pm: Edit

I bought a book from RPGnow once the last decipher star trek roleplaying book Through a Mirror Darkly and it was the same, my name and customer id was across the bottom of each page. her is a link to there website:http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php
and they have contact information for publishers as well, maybe a deal could be reached or SVC's questions answered. Another posibility is SVC could talk to Steve Jackson, he sells ebooks on e23 http://e23.sjgames.com/ the stuff I have bought from them doesn't appear to be secure at all. But surely he would have an opinion about ebooks.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:41 pm: Edit

1) No

2) I would buy books for my computer, but I am a bad example, I buy everything.

3) and 4) ses my earlier posts

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:52 pm: Edit

I wouldn't get one for rules unless every rule reference was hyperlinked.

Even then I wouldn't get one unless I had the SSDs and an excellent index to both the SSD and the coresponding MSSB rule. Odds are high that the version 1.0 release would not satisfy me.

Put me down as a no.

By Ken Coleman (Eeyore) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 07:07 pm: Edit

Stacy, absolutely agreed that everything seems to be cracked eventually. And SVC, IMO that's what you really want to consider. All it takes is for the secret of the DRM system to get out and all of a sudden, you *are* selling PDFs. That might never happen with the format you choose, but it's absolutely a risk.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 09:33 pm: Edit

Sony makes one for $269.00


It would be quite a while before I'd go that far. The only reason I'd buy electronic rules is for keyword searches and a hyperlinked index/TOC (with in rule references linked to their rules).

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 10:16 pm: Edit

I'm with Tos. The only reason I would be interested in "digital manuals" would be to enjoy the benefits of them being hyper-linked and cross-referenced - without that there isn't much to be gained beyond basic word-search. Not worth the re-investment for me.

That, and I am severely anti-DRM. I only buy files that are "mine" and don't restrict my ability to move them from device to device, make backups etc. It's why I'm such a big user of Amazon's music store, since they sell high-quality mp3's (inherently unrestricted), versus the others (Apple iTunes, etc) that sell "crippled" files that can die at any point, should they turn off their servers or I upgrade my computer too many times.

I understand and totally support ADB's stance on "no pdf's" or other unrestricted digital files. The IP needs to be protected.

The whole mess with MSN Music, Yahoo Music, and other vendors "orphaning" the already sold (read: "rented") files is not where I would want to go.

By Tony L Thomas (Scoutdad) on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 11:03 pm: Edit

Stacy: I have MS Reader installed on my PDA (Compaq iPac)and it reads .LIT files. I have downloaded quite a few of the "classics" from our libraries website in that format.

Steve:
1: I have a PDA with the software to read eBooks and have purchased a couple that were in the .LIT format. While I would be interested in purchasing an electronic version I could use, I'd not purchase the same file in a format that required me to purchase a dedicated device to read it.

2: While I would be interested in purchasing an electronic version I could use, I'd not purchase the same file in a format that required me to purchase a dedicated device to read it.
I already have personally created (and non-shared) scanned / OCR versions of the SFB rulebook / every SSD and the F&E rulebook that is on my laptop and my PDA - so this would be rather redundant.

3: I have no experience with this type of device so I can not comment.

4: Again, no experience with this type of device - but after being a Boy Scout Leader for ten years and dealing with hundreds of teen-aged boys plus my own 2 and seeing the information they can find on the internet with simple searches...
I can't imagine that there would be a file format that could not be copied, transferred, shared on a P2P network, and uploaded to a new device. Sure, you may be able to configure the files so that the original owners name / ID is plastered across every page - but once a copy gets out, it spreads like wild-fire and the only person you can legitimately go after is the original owner. If my copy leaks and is "given" to 10,000 other users via bitTorrent, I don't think you're going to be able to sue me for anything like enough cash to compensate for the unauthorized copies out in cyberspace. Well, OK - maybe you can sue me for that much, but the only way to actually get that much in value from me would be if you foreclosed on my kids... and after a few days, you'd pay me to take them back!

By John C. Barnes (Nitehawke) on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 03:55 am: Edit

I will buy an eBook reader ONLY when it is no longer possible to buy paper books.

I am a voracious reader. I have tried eBooks, and if it came down to it, I'd give up reading for entertainment before I switched to them. It's not about the content for me, it's about the tactile aspect of reading a book.

You can put me firmly in the "not just no, but #3&& no" group.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 05:22 am: Edit

I have to agree with comments made uptopic: there is no electronic book format (PDF, LIT, etc) that cannot (and WILL not) be cracked eventually.

And given that we SFB players tend to be well-educated and technologically savvy, I have to agree that there is no electronic format that satisfies SVC's security concerns.

My $0.02.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 10:03 am: Edit

True - but nothing stops any of us from scanning papers into PDFs and then uploading or redistributing (other than knowing not to do evil). So long as there is *reasonable* security, it would probably be OK.

Somone above mentioned cross-hyperlinked rules and text. THAT I would buy. I.e., if a rule refers you to J1.5 and you were able to click on "J1.5" and go to that rule - that I would definitely buy.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 10:09 am: Edit

Ted, it's not us folks who would make illegal copies, because we already have LEGAL copies that we've bought and paid for. It's the new guys just getting into the game, who haven't bought paper copies, who I expect would rip ADB off via electronic copies.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 10:42 am: Edit

Then there are those people who believe that anything electronic should belong to the people. SFB's size is what is protecting it the most.

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 11:06 am: Edit

I will search antique stores for real books before I ever own an ebook reader.

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 02:54 pm: Edit

I agree with my cousin

B^)

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 03:42 pm: Edit

NPR article about ebooks: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102330373&ft=1&f=1006