111–120 of 538 posts
For books only available through Amazon my workflow used to be buying it, downloading it with their desktop app, importing into Calibre, converting to epub and stripping DRM, then pushing it onto my Kobo. They broke that a while ago by making their DRM even worse, so now I just pirate those books.
I haven't done that in a while though, so I'm not sure if they closed that loophole.
Fun fact: this is one of the few situations in the US where a prosecutor could claim that this is criminal speech (though I hope and trust they would not, and if it did it would get thrown out by any court respecting the First Amendment). Not a civil issue, like libel or fraud, but the sort of talk that can get a policeman to come and drag you off to jail. If you've ever wondered why DRM is so roundly hated by engine…
> they made it against the law to even tell anyone. I’m no fan of the DMCA, but I am pretty skeptical of your apparent claim that this post itself is a potential violation of 17 USC § 1201. Obviously the act of circumvention itself qualifies, as does the code in the GitHub repository the post links to, but can you point to any prosecution of someone for a _prose description_ of circumvention (as opposed to actually m…
These sorts of code are usually pretty short, right? It isn’t as if it needs to be maintainable or have a nice GUI.
For books only available through Amazon my workflow used to be buying it, downloading it with their desktop app, importing into Calibre, converting to epub and stripping DRM, then pushing it onto my Kobo. They broke that a while ago by making their DRM even worse, so now I just pirate those books.
> so now I just pirate those books. I know someone who wrote a (technical) book and how hard it is to get sales in the age of easy internet piracy. I understand the desire to use the books as you please, but please remember that buying the book and downloading a pirated copy for your own use are not mutually exclusive choices. You can still purchase the book to support the author even if you're not using the exact sa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was on the team that wrote this code. We knew it was reverse-engineerable, we just didn't care. Upper management seemed happy enough that it was pretty obfuscated, and we were happy that they didn't force us to do more about it.
> we just didn't care. Upper management seemed happy enough This is very relatable. Management want X, engineers recognise X is dumb and deliver something that sorta looks like X, management see something that looks like X and are happy.
All the people mentioning Kobo favorably in these comments... is the main selling point that the DRM is easily breakable, or is it a superior reader or marketplace in other ways?
It has direct integration with borrowing books from the library.
It has direct integration with Instapaper.
You can drag a file onto the device after mounting it over USB.
You can replace the endpoint for the store with a Calibre Web endpoint to directly sync your books from a personal server.
You can pretty easily modify the device however you see fit.
For me the library integration on the device itself was a major selling point. I have no complaints after switching four years ago!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they made it against the law to even tell anyone. I’m no fan of the DMCA, but I am pretty skeptical of your apparent claim that this post itself is a potential violation of 17 USC § 1201. Obviously the act of circumvention itself qualifies, as does the code in the GitHub repository the post links to, but can you point to any prosecution of someone for a _prose description_ of circumvention (as opposed to actually m…
I wonder how that will if/when LLMs get to the point where they can turn a blog post about a DRM liberation into code. (Are they there already?) These sorts of code are usually pretty short, right? It isn’t as if it needs to be maintainable or have a nice GUI.
For books only available through Amazon my workflow used to be buying it, downloading it with their desktop app, importing into Calibre, converting to epub and stripping DRM, then pushing it onto my Kobo. They broke that a while ago by making their DRM even worse, so now I just pirate those books.
Books have got to be the least expensive form of entertainment out there. The value to cost ratio is incredible. Consider buying books to support authors and publishers. If you can't afford it, then libraries are nice too. I personally know people who pirate books, but pay hundreds of dollars a year for streaming services or battle pass type video games. It blows my mind. Books are so cheap people! I recently bought…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Books have got to be the least expensive form of entertainment out there. The value to cost ratio is incredible. Consider buying books to support authors and publishers. If you can't afford it, then libraries are nice too. I personally know people who pirate books, but pay hundreds of dollars a year for streaming services or battle pass type video games. It blows my mind. Books are so cheap people! I recently bought…
Videogames could give them a run for their money, I guess, but only certain genres.
> Even the maintainer of the DeDRM plugin has gone underground, refraining from issuing an official new release out of concern that Amazon will simply slap it down.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4516384#p...
> This works for most Kindle books currently, but Amazon is cracking down hard on the workarounds lately. So free any books you need to asap.
https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/discussions/...