In the past couple of years, the fragmented ebook industry has been gravitating toward a universal format that works on virtually all ebook devices. We are not there yet, and some of the larger players such as Amazon are not very willing to play ball. Eventually a worldwide standard will be adopted and it is looking like China will be left out in the cold yet again. That is, if they do not decide to steal our technology and claim it as their own.
Many people in the ebook industry seem to think that China will take the usual route, borrow someone’s already patented technology, and modify it slightly claiming it as Chinese innovation. This has happened in the past and will probably continue to happen until it is no longer financially profitable for them to do so.
.
.
Universal E-book Format Standard
The ePub format, PDF, and Amazon Kindle format seem to be the most popular around the world today and are likely contenders for a universal ebook format standard. EPub is more likely though because it is an open source standard anyone can us without paying royalties for.
For China to consider us a potential enemy, they sure do seem to like our technology and entertainment. Piracy and corporate theft is rampant in the Chinese culture and the government seems unwilling or unable to do anything to slow it down. Let us hope at least that Chinese ebooks are as easy to find on the net as other countries are. It is the only payoff any of our industries are ever going to get from this development.
.
.
