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Don't "buy" e-books from Oxford University Press

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Re: Don't "buy" e-books from Oxford University Press

#3

Post by diggan »

Say I want to buy "The Catholic Reformation: A Very Short Introduction", published by Oxford University Press. What are my options if I want a DRM-free copy, legally? Amazon no longer lets me download the books themselves so I can strip the DRM locally, so that's no longer an option. Apparently Oxford University Press also don't offer DRM-free reading. So what really can I do here if I want to buy it in digital form?

I guess it's easy to say "Don't buy X from Y", but if it's the only option, what can one individual really do about it, besides just not purchasing it at all or pirating it?

Re: Don't "buy" e-books from Oxford University Press

#5

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

diggan wrote: post #3

Say I want to buy "The Catholic Reformation: A Very Short Introduction", published by Oxford University Press. What are my options if I want a DRM-free copy, legally? Amazon no longer lets me download the books themselves so I can strip the DRM locally, so that's no longer an option. Apparently Oxford University Press also don't offer DRM-free reading. So what really can I do here if I want to buy it in digital form?…

Not ideal, but you could either scrape the browser pages to reproduce the pages without DRM, or even get hold of a physical copy (e.g. from a library) and scan the pages yourself. If you manage to produce a good enough version, don't forget to make a torrent available.

(There's a bunch of physical copies available on eBay)

Re: Don't "buy" e-books from Oxford University Press

#6

Post by thephyber »

The screenshot mentions a 14 day return policy. If that doesn’t work, your credit card company is likely willing to help you force a refund (unless you agreed to a contract during checkout).

The dead tree version is about a dollar more than the silly lease-under-onerous-terms-pretending-to-be-purchase version. Do the world a favor and opt for the physical book so you don’t contribute to the anti-consumer digital distribution company.

Re: Don't "buy" e-books from Oxford University Press

#8

Post by sdh9 »

diggan wrote: post #3

Say I want to buy "The Catholic Reformation: A Very Short Introduction", published by Oxford University Press. What are my options if I want a DRM-free copy, legally? Amazon no longer lets me download the books themselves so I can strip the DRM locally, so that's no longer an option. Apparently Oxford University Press also don't offer DRM-free reading. So what really can I do here if I want to buy it in digital form?…

It's still "easy" to strip DRM from Amazon books but you need an actual Kindle to do so. If it's something that you would like to do, it might be worth investing in a cheap used Kindle even if you never plan to use it to read.

Re: Don't "buy" e-books from Oxford University Press

#9

Post by vouaobrasil »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #4

Piracy is the answer to consumer hostility. Ironically companies that abuse DRM in this fashion are pushing more people to consider piracy.

Exactly. That's probably why Anna's Archvie grew so much. Modern DRM and digital media solutions are trash compared to just getting the ePub on Anna's archive or Libgen. Until the official solutions are as easy as that, piracy will continue.
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