Do yourself a favor and go get a Kobo reader, install KO Reader on it and never look back.
Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
21–30 of 356 posts
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#22How many books are actually available DRM-free? This reads a bit like "Amazon will provide free land, construct a paddock and provide feed for life if you order a unicorn, except unicorns don't exist".
Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the above a lot more, and much more besides.
Mildly sad is also that you seem to fault GP for not “exploring” more, instead of the insane practice of DRMing everything in the first place.
I never have purchased DRM protected media and never will - I’d rather pirate everything digital and but physical hard copies.
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#23Just get a kobo instead. The price difference between with ads and a new kobo is minimal. Not worth the Amazon headache with a locked down device.
Thing is Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you don't mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and add koreader.
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#24Just get a kobo instead. The price difference between with ads and a new kobo is minimal. Not worth the Amazon headache with a locked down device.
The eBooks in Kobo's store are also locked down with DRM.
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the above a lot more, and much more besides.
Mildly sad is also that you seem to fault GP for not “exploring” more, instead of the insane practice of DRMing everything in the first place. I never have purchased DRM protected media and never will - I’d rather pirate everything digital and but physical hard copies.
I don’t actually think it’s their fault, and if they feel I’m faulting them, that wasn’t the intention.
I think it’s sad that what we thought everyone saw as a nonsense is now so normalised that alternatives are just disappearing from view. Everyone should be encouraged to explore.
Piracy is your preferred option, but when that became more mainstream we actually ended up creating the market for more DRM, in the form of iTunes, Spotify and others. I’m not sure I want the future of digital media to be entirely subscription-based like that.
What might be a better solution is showing that media creators can achieve more of their own objectives through releasing media without DRM. This only works if their objectives are not entirely around making money from media sales, and more aligned to influence, or audience building.
I’m actually surprised at this point that musicians - given they don’t make money from streaming services and see them as tools to build audiences for live tours where they really make their money - don’t just jump over already.
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#26How many books are actually available DRM-free? This reads a bit like "Amazon will provide free land, construct a paddock and provide feed for life if you order a unicorn, except unicorns don't exist".
Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the above a lot more, and much more besides.
> Books enter the public domain.
...and then they get re-packaged with DRM on Amazon's store, mostly because people uploading public domain books on Amazon have no idea what they're doing.
> Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses.
You can read DRM-free stuff on a Kindle already, so that's not particularly relevant here.
> The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad.
When every big publisher is doing it, it is the norm. That doesn't mean there doesn't exist any book publisher which doesn't do this, but the vast, vast majority of the books actually sold today contain DRM. We don't have to like that norm, but pretending it isn't one is just denying reality.
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#27How many books are actually available DRM-free? This reads a bit like "Amazon will provide free land, construct a paddock and provide feed for life if you order a unicorn, except unicorns don't exist".
Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the above a lot more, and much more besides.
I assumed that that was clear from the context, but let me rephrase it then:
"being made available DRM-free on Amazon" (and I'd narrow that down to "primarily/only on Amazon")
Of course public domain books are DRM free but I'm getting those from Gutenberg, not Amazon. Likewise, the copyleft books I'll most likely download from their own homepages, not Amazon.
I'm aware that DRM free media exists, including for currently copyrighted content that Amazon distributes ;)
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#28How many books are actually available DRM-free? This reads a bit like "Amazon will provide free land, construct a paddock and provide feed for life if you order a unicorn, except unicorns don't exist".
All books published by Tor are DRM-free.
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mildly sad is also that you seem to fault GP for not “exploring” more, instead of the insane practice of DRMing everything in the first place. I never have purchased DRM protected media and never will - I’d rather pirate everything digital and but physical hard copies.
I don’t actually think it’s their fault, and if they feel I’m faulting them, that wasn’t the intention. I think it’s sad that what we thought everyone saw as a nonsense is now so normalised that alternatives are just disappearing from view. Everyone should be encouraged to explore. Piracy is your preferred option, but when that became more mainstream we actually ended up creating the market for more DRM, in the form…
I was just talking about books, but sure for music there are tons of alternative options as well.
I detest streaming platforms and it’s pretty easy to buy music directly from the creators in almost all cases - except maybe the top “superstars” but I would argue that they are probably doing fine anyway…
Also physical records still exist for music as well.
Lots of artists can do just fine with living from media sales.
Look I’m not saying “pirate everything and never pay the artists” - I’m saying “never pay the predatory tech companies that have inserted themselves between us and artists”
Re: Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
#30Just get a kobo instead. The price difference between with ads and a new kobo is minimal. Not worth the Amazon headache with a locked down device.
There are two single line comments recommending kobo over kindle in this thread. How do I know this is a genuine recommendation and not astroturfing?