VietNamNet Bridge – VTC and FPT, the big guys in the high technology sector, have announced that they would develop specific e-book formats which would be decoded only by their reading software pieces. This is a part of the program to struggle with book piracy.

A senior executive of FPT Telecom said the company has been negotiating with publishing houses on the contracts to digitalize books. The company plans to complete the digitalization of 300-500 books by 2012 in the immediate time.

“FPT Telecom wishes to be the pioneer in setting up an e-book store which allows to satisfy people’s demand for reading books everywhere and every time with high technology devices,” he said.

According to Bui Trung Ngoc, Deputy Director of Go.vn, belonging to VTC Online, the company and the Vietnam Education Publishing House signed a memorandum of understanding on the cooperation to publish e-textbooks in 2012.

In the immediate time, the fourth quarter of 2012, VTC would focus on digitalizing some thousands of reference books for primary, secondary and high school students. This could be seen as a step to explore the market demand.

VTC has also signed contracts with the other 4-5 publishing houses on digitalizing books and journals.

Ngoc said that using e-publications is really an optimal solution for students, because this helps them have better communications with the schools. Besides, it would allow to access information more quickly and conveniently. Especially, the book digitalization would “liberalize” students from the heavy books and schoolbags they have to carry to school.

Sharing the same view, an executive from FPT Telecm, also said the use of e-publications would allow students and lecturers save their time, because they would not have to spend money going round and round to look for the books they need.

The biggest advantage for book publication houses is that the cost for making e-books with high technologies is much lower than the cost for printing a book. However, it is the high technology which is the biggest problem in developing e-books. Readers need to have suitable devices to read e-books, while the devices remain unaffordable to many people.

Vietnam to set up standard formats for e-books?

Also according to Ngoc, the biggest problem VTC faces in digitalizing books is the high number of books. The Vietnam Education Publishing House, for example, has 240 million textbooks, accounting for 80 percent of the total books published.

This means that it would take much time and labor force to digitalize all textbooks. “VTC wishes to see the state’s support to be given to the enterprises getting involved in the field,” he said.

Regarding the protection of the digitalized books’ copyright and the struggle against piracy, VTC would develop DRM – Digital Right Management – of its own which would be decoded only by VTC’s software. The development of specific types of format would also help VTC generate the books with better interaction capability, the thing that pdf or epub cannot do.

FPT Telecom has admitted that it would be very difficult to digitalize books, partially because of the habit of consumers – they have got used to read printed books instead of e-books. Moreover, communication firms would have to work out with all publishing houses and copyright holders to negotiate the publication of the electronic versions of the books.

An executive of FPT Telecom said when developing IPTV technology, FPT has got much experience in preventing the content from being pirated. And FPT would consider applying the technologies in the digitalization of books.

Buu Dien