I didn't start buying ebooks from Amazon/Kindle until I realized it was relatively easy to break its DRM. I've never used the files anywhere else but I keep a cracked copy of every purchase just in case. That old story about "1984" being removed gave me too much of a negative impression.
I do the same with Audible. As far as I can tell, there's no way to remove the DRM that is both easy and free, so against my better judgement, I paid $30 for a program to do it for me[0]. I now have every audiobook I've bought in mp3 format, split by chapter and tagged with the correct metadata. Now I can dump them on a USB drive and plug it into my car stereo for road trips (I don't mind listening to good books more…
When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
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Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#42I didn't start buying ebooks from Amazon/Kindle until I realized it was relatively easy to break its DRM. I've never used the files anywhere else but I keep a cracked copy of every purchase just in case. That old story about "1984" being removed gave me too much of a negative impression.
So they still get your money and you deal with the inconvenience? Try buying from https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebooks where possible (DRM-free).
There's actually quite a few eBook stores out there with DRM-free options, you just have to know where to look, and they're usually publisher-specific.
Humble Bundle does a weekly Book Bundle. Wiley, O'Reilly, No Starch, and several other publishers all regularly participate with tech books, geek books, comic books, and manga.
No Starch itself deserves a separate mention just because they're awesome. On their own site, if you buy the print book, the eBook comes free, a nice courtesy you won't pick up buying on Amazon. And of course, all of their stuff is DRM-free.
Informit, which is Pearson's programming and IT book site, sells watermarked, but otherwise DRM-free content (if you really care, watermark stripping likely isn't that hard, but as long as they're not trying to tamper with my ability to open the file where I want to, I don't mind watermarks, I ain't a pirate). Informit includes Adobe Press, Cisco Press, Microsoft Press, VMware Press, Sams, etc. I've gotten a lot of textbooks from here.
Manning Publications sells DRM-free too.
If you're a Trekkie, Simon & Schuster sells Star Trek novels DRM-free on their site as well. They have monthly sales that bring a set of them down to 99 cents a piece, which is good, since their standard prices are obscene.
Even Comixology (from Amazon, of course), has joined the DRM-free game, though only for specific publishers. Neither Marvel nor DC participate, mind you, but many of the smaller publishers do.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
With 5G it will be faster and cheaper for IoT companies to unobtrusively collect surveillance data about you, they'll be giving them away.
If this is true, someone here will hopefully make an inward-facing firewall for home networks.
Now, now there is an idea!
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#44Another curious situation drm-demanding publishers have created for themselves is the lack of control and leverage against the stores. With the closed Kindle ecosystem in such a major position, Amazon (with its poor drm) has tremendous leverage over the publishers.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
So they still get your money and you deal with the inconvenience? Try buying from https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebooks where possible (DRM-free).
Inconvenience? It's really not that complicated. You download them from a web interface and you drag and drop them into Calibre (with a de-DRM plugin installed). Done, they're now available together with all the ebooks that you got from other sources. Having all the purchased ebooks in one place is more convenient for me, not less. The alternative isn't a different book store, it's pirating. While I do have an apprec…
one could argue that you not paid for that kind of usage and basically pirating in the sense that you use it without permission. It has probably even been denied explicitly to you to break the DRM too. In some countries its even illegal by default to circumvent digital protection measurements.
Just saying, you probably could directly pirate the books too. Putting your money where your rights are respected and you are given the freedom to read your books on any device you want is probably a better idea. Even if it is just to make them grow more.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep your $30. Or... Pay me $30 :) ffmpeg -activation_bytes 1CEB00DA -i test.aax -vn -c:a copy output.mp4
Does this really work?
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#47Same here. Every amazon book I've read has been on my kindle, after I've unnecessarily stripped the DRM. Just so I know that the process of removing the DRM was successful.
The instant I no longer can is the same day I'll stop buying DRMed books.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Install Calibre and DeDRM, download everything to Kindle for PC and add to calibre, which will break the DRM and ensure you have a copy regardless of what happens with Amazon. I've personally had an Amazon account blocked along with access to all my Kindle books, which sucks. Now I download every book as soon as I purchase it and add to calibre.
Then take the next logical step. Quit paying them for the abusive media. Pirate. You have to break the law anyways even if you pay legit.
This is not specific to amazon, but I'm kind of OK with vendors who use mild easily-broken drm if it helps them (and the creators) stay in business. i.e., If they want to use it as a casual deterrent, fine by me. I'm not a casual user. So it doesn't affect me.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#49I didn't start buying ebooks from Amazon/Kindle until I realized it was relatively easy to break its DRM. I've never used the files anywhere else but I keep a cracked copy of every purchase just in case. That old story about "1984" being removed gave me too much of a negative impression.
So they still get your money and you deal with the inconvenience? Try buying from https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebooks where possible (DRM-free).
The books I've bought through Kobo are DRM-encumbered. They work on my PocketBook, but only after I set up some Adobe DRM thingamabob. Not sure whether it's easy to break.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#50> But with the 5G boom about to hit, experts will tell you we’re set to see a massive increase in connected devices and appliances, many of which we’ll probably only be able to licence, rather than own. Why is this more likely with 5G than 4G? What appliances are not suitable for IOT right now, but will be with 5G? Would most of my appliances be in my home, where I have wifi?
This is the usual marketing nonsense. But unless mobile carriers start offering very cheap plans for IOT devices (which is in itself unlikely), I don't see this happening any time soon. WiFi is pretty much here to stay, and is much more reliable indoors than 4/5/6/7/..G