161–170 of 297 posts
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I also removed the DRM on my first Kindle books, found it way harder with the last book I bought (and gave up)
Same here, it seems that amazon has improved its protection and changed its ebook format to harden it against DRM removal.
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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 sit…
Can I add Tor (publisher of SciFi, Fantasy etc) who also sell most of their eBooks DRM free.
Check out this list of DRM-free bookstores, maintained by Libreture [1]. I usully buy my DRM-free ebooks from Weightless Books [2], and also subscribe to "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction" and "Interzone" from that site. [1] https://www.libreture.com/bookshops/ [2] https://weightlessbooks.com/
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I assume books are encrypted on the ebook reader and the reader operates by going to Microsoft each time someone tries to open a book and getting an encryption key show the book unencrypted.
That's not how it usually works, does it with Microsoft? It would be very limiting and annoying to be unable to read books without internet access (say on the beach on holidays, for example). Certainly not the case on Kindle. There were cases were people's Amazon accounts were cancelled, so they couldn't buy new books from Amazon. The books they already bought remained on their kindles, though. There were also cases…
Has anyone made "ZuneBook" puns yet?
Edit: hah Zunebook was an MS tablet that was supposed to compete with Amazon Kindle tablets...
1. For some reason they cost a similar amount to print books
Sometimes a bit less, sometimes the same, sometimes more. Distributing a physical book means you have to print, handle, store, transport, store again, handle again and transport again (using a simplified model of the journey a book takes to the end user). That costs money, and it costs effectively $0 to get an ebook to a user. I don't see that saving being passed on to me, the consumer.
Not only that, you're generally paying for less than you get with a physical book in terms of rights and (IMO convenience)
2. You can't (or maybe you can) lend them freely.
Last I checked there were limits on lending with the kindle/amazon. Maybe that's changed, but I don't want to have to think about that, I just want to lend the book to someone.
3. You can't give them to someone.
Maybe this has changed since I last looked, but passing on the book to someone else and it now being "theirs" isn't possible. Again perhaps that's changed these days.
3. Cognitive overhead
Can I do this stuff? Can't I? How do I do it? I don't want to have to think about that. Last week I gave a book to my daughter by just putting it on her desk. It was easy.
4. Longevity
In 10 years will I still be able to access my books? 20? Yes, because they're over there, on a shelf.
If ebooks cost a fraction of what they cost today then I would totally consider them. It's a tradeoff. Right now ebooks don't swing the balance towards them.
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If you are already using Calibre, it's not hard to protect yourself from Amazon. I have a Kindle PaperWhite that's about ~3 years old and it only connected to the Internet once during initial setup. I've put it in flight mode after that and it will never go online again. As for books, when I buy them on Amazon I select "transfer via USB" which let's me download it and when I add it to Calibre, the DRM is stripped by…
Hey, thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. I’ve used deDRM a lot in the past, but it doesn’t work with the latest DRM on (I think AWZ3 files) - but perhaps it’s been updated since I last checked about 6 months ago or so.
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Because it's trivial to turn one ebook into a billion pirated copies, not so much with a physical book. It's a huge difference in logistics.
It's trivial even with a watermark and all other forms of DRM. As demonstrated by the article, DRM only punishes paying customers that don't understand what they're paying for.
The hope publishers have is that it slows distribution a bit and they use it as attempt to manipulate people to allow stronger punishment of infringers.
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These watermarks only appear a few times in places like beside the page number. You'll have to provide a darn good explanation to convince me it makes the book harder to read. And yes, it's still trivially copyable, but that makes it better in any way than DRM: it can be traced back to the original owner but doesn't make it unnecessarily hard to read it on multiple devices.
Traced back for what purpose? What's the punishment? Any answer, other than "none", would be insane.
But hardly any uploader would keep watermarks in, which makes them more of a way for faithful users to not give the book I.e. to friends since there is a visible reminder about being your personal copy.
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.
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).
I don't buy ebooks, and this is just one reason. This is the complete list: 1. For some reason they cost a similar amount to print books Sometimes a bit less, sometimes the same, sometimes more. Distributing a physical book means you have to print, handle, store, transport, store again, handle again and transport again (using a simplified model of the journey a book takes to the end user). That costs money, and it co…
5. Visibility
A physical library can be browsed, including by a visitor, and serve a useful social purpose.
I often find it interesting to see what books someone has on their shelves, and it can lead to interesting discussions. I can't recall a time when I've discussed the contents of a Kindle library with someone.