A question about DRM

[brightwanderer]

Perhaps someone can clarify this for me?

1. If I buy a Kindle, can I read ebooks from any other source, or am I bound to Amazon?

2. If I buy an ebook from Amazon, can I read it on any ebook reader, or am I bound to a Kindle?

Comments

[brightwanderer]

^_^ Indeed, hence my asking here. I have no desire to buy a Kindle if either of those two things are remotely the case.

[elf]

Buying a Kindle definitely doesn't limit you to Amazon's selection, although it limits the non-tech-savvy to non-DRM'd Mobi books. (Which is, at least, one of the very common ebook formats.)

Reading Kindle books on other readers (including the computer itself) takes some tech/script skills; I don't have those skills, but I gather they're not difficult to acquire, and there are people at the Mobileread.com forums who are happy to provide advice & help.

But if variety of ebooks is what matters most to you, other readers are better for that. Amazon tries to ignore the *whomping huge* free ebook collections like feedbooks and manybooks, and not only the big ebook stores like BooksOnBoard ("BoB" on ebook forums), which is DRM'd books only, and Fictionwise, which has non-DRM'd as well, but the hundreds of tiny ebook stores, some with only a few titles.

I will also admit to being biased: I don't like Amazon's monopolistic policies, nor their refusal to acknowledge the non-US market.