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How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

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Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#31

Post by oneandoneis2 »

RexRollman wrote: post #19
oneandoneis2 wrote: post #12

Since I disapprove of Amazon's DRM policy, the only books on my kindle are tech books from O'Reilly (DRM-free) and fiction from Project Gutenburg (DRM-free) I know I could download ebooks from Amazon and just remove their DRM, but I think it's better to vote with my wallet. After all, they sell the Kindle at cost and rely on you buying books from them to make any profit. So don't buy their books and maybe they'll lea…

Some books on Amazon are DRM free. The publisher is the one who decides if they want to use it.

Yeah, but even if they're DRM-free Amazon can still take them away - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4682392

Until they offer a cast-iron, legally-binding guarantee that any ebook I buy from them cannot be taken away from me, they don't get my money.

If I buy a book, it's my book: If the bookshop I bought it from takes it back, then that's theft.

As far as I'm concerned, the same holds true for ebooks. I buy it, it's mine. Period. Until Amazon agrees with me, I don't buy their ebooks. It's that simple.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#32

Post by fab13n »

danso wrote: post #22

Does removing the DRM also remove the highlight tracking/syncing provided by Amazon? If so, that'd be a deal breaker for me to use this other than as last resort backups

No it doesn't. You reload DRM-stripped books on the device, as if it had never been bought from Amazon.

Don't forget that DRMs aren't here to save Amazon from piracy. Today and for the next couple of years, what they really care about is securing a dominant position. So the DRM security only needs to be good enough to reassure clueless edition managers, who believe that DRM will help their business rather than hurt it. So they have no incentive to get out of their way to bug DRM-stripping customers (in light of which, I'd guess some of the morons who handled Linn Nygaard's case will be fired, and deservedly so).

Same as iTunes DRM actually, which Apple ended up discarding once they were in a position to tell the music editor to just shut up.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#33

Post by DanBC »

bo1024 wrote: post #27
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

I have started going back to real books for any book I might want to keep, loan, or give to a friend when I'm finished. It would be nice not to be screwed over by DRM yet again. I like my Kindle, but it doesn't help me read. It helps Amazon make money. The only thing it does is for me is to help me carry lots of books around easily.

If your books have no DRM, how will DRM screw you over? Isn't that the point of this posting?

Some people are refusing to pay Amazon (or other providers) for DRMd content - a boycott of anything with DRM.

Some people are not going to break any laws, even if those laws are mostly technical and not going to be enforced. And providing means to remove DRM is more problematic because the law is enforced a bit more rigorously there.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#34

Post by ansible »

acabal wrote: post #15
ansible wrote: post #11

Sadly, I would be glad to pay a reasonable price for books without DRM, but my options are still quite limited. I've been waiting patiently for Tor's ebook store to open (promised "by the end of summer 2012"). Baen is fine for a couple genres, but I don't trust Smashwords because of sockpuppet reviews. I don't want to pirate, I am glad to give authors their fair share.

Baen also has a problem with OCR'd text. I downloaded a Greg Bear book from them a few weeks ago and it was clearly OCR'd without a second look towards quality. It had so many typos and spelling errors that it was practically unreadable. I returned it for a refund. To be fair Amazon also has this problem. It's hard being an ebook consumer when 90% of books either have DRM or are unreadably OCR'd.

I've seen that with a couple books from Smashwords, but I'd expect better from Baen. I think I've only bought books by their regular authors (Weber, Flint, Drake) and I've not had that problem.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#35

Post by DanBC »

js951534 wrote: post #24
digitalengineer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes free as in stolen-content-without-compensating-the-author. I prefer DRM-free books myself (or ripping the DRM and making it DRM-free) but the books at this website are in fact all stolen. (I'm sure you know).

Now now don't be looking down at me from your high moral horse The difference between you and the pirates is that pirates also prefer to buy books and strip DRM but they share it with everyone :D By the way authors at best get ~10% commission for each book sale, rest goes to a publisher.

Charlie Stross (cstross) (an author I admire and respect) is sometimes asked why he doesn't have a tip jar on his website.

(http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/03/reminder...)

> Folks still ask me how they can send me money. Usually it's because they've downloaded a warez copy of one or more of my books and enjoyed it and want to pay. Well, I'm happy they enjoyed the books, and pleased that they want to pay me — but still: no tipjar.

> If I put a Paypal tipjar on this blog, to take conscience money from folks who've downloaded a (cough) unauthorized ebook or two, the money would come to me, not to the publisher. And without the publisher those books wouldn't exist: wouldn't have been commissioned, wouldn't have been edited, wouldn't have been corrected and marketed and sold in whatever form filtered onto the unauthorized ebook market. (Yes, they commission books, and pay authors for them up-front — a vital part of the process, because most of us can't afford to take a year to write a book on spec and then hope somebody liked it enough to buy it. And if you think my bank manager would front me the kind of advance money that Ace, Orbit, or Tor have no difficulty offering for a novel that isn't even written yet, let alone doing so without charging interest or asking for their money back when the product's late, well ... you might want to think again.)

> Your typical book publisher is not like the music or movie industry; they run on thin margins, and they're staffed by underpaid, overworked folk who do it because they love books, not because they're trying to make themselves rich on the back of a thousand ruthlessly exploited artists. I think their effort deserves to be rewarded appropriately.

This is, I think, an excellent response.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#36

Post by mapleoin »

oneandoneis2 wrote: post #31
RexRollman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some books on Amazon are DRM free. The publisher is the one who decides if they want to use it.

Yeah, but even if they're DRM-free Amazon can still take them away - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4682392 Until they offer a cast-iron, legally-binding guarantee that any ebook I buy from them cannot be taken away from me, they don't get my money. If I buy a book, it's my book: If the bookshop I bought it from takes it back, then that's theft. As far as I'm concerned, the same holds true for ebooks. I buy it,…

They can't take them away from you if you backup your DRM-free books on a different media.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#37

Post by travisp »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

I have started going back to real books for any book I might want to keep, loan, or give to a friend when I'm finished. It would be nice not to be screwed over by DRM yet again. I like my Kindle, but it doesn't help me read. It helps Amazon make money. The only thing it does is for me is to help me carry lots of books around easily.

I somewhat agree. But, I personally vastly prefer the experience of reading on the Kindle to a physical book (instant dictionary definitions, easier on the subway because I can hold on in the subway and still turn pages, the ability to choose my preferred font size and text width which allows me to read faster, and so on). I would pay more to read a book on a Kindle and frequently do (one can often find good quality used paper books for less).

The one thing I don't buy on Kindle are the rare books I expect to want to keep a long time. For everything else, I'm willing to accept that I might somehow lose access or be unable to read it in several years.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#38

Post by Derbasti »

Frankly, I don't care about DRM for fiction. I generally only read fiction once, anyway (and donate the paper book afterwards).

For technical books it's a different story, but then the Kindle is not a medium that works well for diagrams and special formatting that you would expect in technical writing.

So in the end, Kindle DRM does not hurt me much. Then again, it is so easy to strip that I think Amazon does not care, either. It's just a pacifier for publishers.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#39

Post by doesnt_know »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

I have started going back to real books for any book I might want to keep, loan, or give to a friend when I'm finished. It would be nice not to be screwed over by DRM yet again. I like my Kindle, but it doesn't help me read. It helps Amazon make money. The only thing it does is for me is to help me carry lots of books around easily.

Not buying eBooks from suppliers that infest them with DRM doesn't mean not buying eBooks. I love my Kobo reader with all my heart and it has massively increased my consumption of fiction. Just don't support and buy eBooks from suppliers that use DRM.

Baen Books is my favorite for science fiction. (www.baenebooks.com) O'Reilly Media for technical books. (http://shop.oreilly.com/category/ebooks.do) Calibre eBook store. (http://drmfree.calibre-ebook.com/) Project Gutenberg for the classics. (http://www.gutenberg.org/)

There are quite a few more, but I don't want to link them because I haven't personally used them. I'm also hoping DRM-Free eBook bundles catch on (https://www.humblebundle.com/).

If there are books that I "desperately" want to read and can't find them in DRM-Free form, I visit the local library. If the library doesn't have it, I will buy a print version. As long as it isn't a technical reference manual I will use frequently, I then donate it to the library when I'm done with it.

Re: How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others

#40

Post by bruceboughton »

acabal wrote: post #15
ansible wrote: post #11

Sadly, I would be glad to pay a reasonable price for books without DRM, but my options are still quite limited. I've been waiting patiently for Tor's ebook store to open (promised "by the end of summer 2012"). Baen is fine for a couple genres, but I don't trust Smashwords because of sockpuppet reviews. I don't want to pirate, I am glad to give authors their fair share.

Baen also has a problem with OCR'd text. I downloaded a Greg Bear book from them a few weeks ago and it was clearly OCR'd without a second look towards quality. It had so many typos and spelling errors that it was practically unreadable. I returned it for a refund. To be fair Amazon also has this problem. It's hard being an ebook consumer when 90% of books either have DRM or are unreadably OCR'd.

I've never experienced this with Amazon. Presumably it is a publisher problem, not a retailer problem. What publishers have you experienced this with?
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