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M
manobird
Participant
October 26, 2013
Answered

Can I add a second account to Adobe Digital Editions

  • October 26, 2013
  • 1 reply
  • 15688 views

I have two adobe reader accounts. One for my family one for personnel use. The computer has my personnel account on it. I want to add the family account to add books to my wifes nook. Can not seem to find out how to do that

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer Rave

      Hi manobird,

      If you used one ID to install ADE, you cannot download an ebook from a site into ADE if you used a different ID.  That's the way the Digital

      Millenium Copyright Act of 2000 was implemented to prevent unauthorized copying of ematerials.  ADE tells you that in its HELP section.  You can't add a second ID to ADE either, for the same reason.

      What you CAN do is to change users, and authorize ADE with the same ID you used when you downloaded the ebook.  You do this by bringing ADE up, then using the CNTLSHIFTD key combination, you will deauthorize ADE.  Close ADE and reopen it, and ADE should ask you to authorize it.  At this point, you can enter the second ID, and ADE will take off from there.  BUT, keep in mind that any other ebooks you downloaded into ADE with the first ID will not be accessible until you go through the same process again and revert to the first ID.

      Hope this helps!

      1 reply

      Rave
      RaveCorrect answer
      Participating Frequently
      October 27, 2013

      Hi manobird,

      If you used one ID to install ADE, you cannot download an ebook from a site into ADE if you used a different ID.  That's the way the Digital

      Millenium Copyright Act of 2000 was implemented to prevent unauthorized copying of ematerials.  ADE tells you that in its HELP section.  You can't add a second ID to ADE either, for the same reason.

      What you CAN do is to change users, and authorize ADE with the same ID you used when you downloaded the ebook.  You do this by bringing ADE up, then using the CNTLSHIFTD key combination, you will deauthorize ADE.  Close ADE and reopen it, and ADE should ask you to authorize it.  At this point, you can enter the second ID, and ADE will take off from there.  BUT, keep in mind that any other ebooks you downloaded into ADE with the first ID will not be accessible until you go through the same process again and revert to the first ID.

      Hope this helps!

      I
      Inquisitor85MI
      Participant
      October 28, 2022

      This is a useful answer, which I appreciate. But this implementation of DRM is monumentally short-sighted. Literally everyone with a white collar job has a work email and a personal email. It makes sense to license personal books for the personal account and work-related materials for the work account. But to hide this functionality so deeply within Adobe Digital Editions that one cannot even RUN the latest version if you're an Adobe work accout user trying to read a book you just bought from your personal account is shockingly bad User Experience design. To make this extremely common use case so unsolvable that a person has go searching in the forums and be exceptionally persistent and tech-savvy to even figure it out? Irresponsible to the customers and shareholders of Adobe.

      Google has done a MUCH better job with this use case. On my Android phone, I have 2 different accounts, each with their own profiles. Each with their own contacts, email account, cloud storage, etc. To switch between these two accounts is just a tap of the finger on my profile picture. Once I've switched profiles, I see all the material related to that account. 

      When Adobe brings up an "unauthorized" label, they know two things: the email address of the currently signed in user, and the email address of the user the content is "owned" by. It would be a simple matter to ask the user to sign into the correct account to access the content.

      It's not the law that's preventing Adobe from solving this problem in a similarly elegant way, it's something else. Organizational dysfunction? Lack of leadership? Letting lawyers do UI design? Perhaps all three. But it's not a legal or techincal problem. it's a design issue.

      Fix this, you people!
      |
      Figure this out, people, it's a terrible implementation.


        W
        wkaan
        Participant
        October 29, 2022
        Quite right. It's always best to buy your books without DRM (much like
        paper books used to be). Second preference is more flexible DRM.

        Either way, DRM is always to be avoided, as are companies that push it:
        Amazon, Adobe, you name it.
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