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When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

bbc.co.uk

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Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#91

Post by throwitallaway8 »

asveikau wrote: post #8

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.

The Japanese eBook store BOOKWALKER, owned by publishing giant Kadokawa, is by far the most draconian I've seen in recent years when it comes to eBook DRM: https://bookwalker.jp

Some examples of the lengths they go to:

- They used to have a desktop app that allowed reading offline. Not anymore. They're phasing it out in favor of their web reader which has no offline reading functionality. Presumably because people were cracking the DRM there.

- Their Android app detects root/custom roms and disables itself and starts spamming you with a new browser tab every few seconds, even if you don't try to open it at all (I have no idea why this is even possible on Android). It doesn't just use Android's built-in SafetyNet APIs either, it uses some custom methods that somehow managed to bypass Magisk's root hiding feature until version 18, when I discovered that it finally started working. But soon after that I found my account mysteriously locked, and upon contacting support it sounds like they were able to find out I was running under root somehow, and reinstated my account with the caveat that the next time they catch me my account will be disabled for good. That was the last straw for me, and I vowed never to do business with them again.

With that said, I do hope someone who's more well versed in the dark arts of reverse engineering than I am could take a crack at breaking the DRM in their Android app or Desktop app (they still post a really old version on their site, not sure if it's still usable) dump their entire library on a torrent somewhere and show them the futility of their ways. I honestly think their DRM only survived for so long due to sheer obscurity because they have a such a limited audience and not enough smart people are interested in fucking with them. I'd love to have some means to liberate the library of books I've already regretfully purchased on there (they lured me in with their frequent sales and rewards program).

They have an English site too if language barrier is an issue: https://global.bookwalker.jp/

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#92

Post by miki123211 »

That's why I love the way we get ebooks in Poland. When we buy an ebook, we usually get a pack of files (epub/pdf/mobi), without any DRM, but with watermarks, some visible, some hidden. Same for audiobooks. There's no DRM, there's some piracy, as always, but the system works and it works pretty damn well. I wish american ebook and audiobook stores were like this.

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#93

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #19
asveikau wrote: post #8

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.

I do the same with Audible. As far as I can tell, there's no way to remove the DRM that is both easy and free, so against my better judgement, I paid $30 for a program to do it for me[0]. I now have every audiobook I've bought in mp3 format, split by chapter and tagged with the correct metadata. Now I can dump them on a USB drive and plug it into my car stereo for road trips (I don't mind listening to good books more…

There's a RainbowCrack plugin which allows you to extract your activation_bytes which is both fast and free. Once you're extracted your activation_bytes, it can be saved and re-used to remove the DRM from all your audiobooks.

Then you can use ffmpeg to convert the .aax file:

    ffmpeg -activation_bytes $activation_bytes -i $audiobook_file -c:a copy -c:v copy $output_file
I'd suggest converting to m4b, which you can achieve by replacing the aax extension with m4b as part of the output_file. This preserves all chapters, metadata, and even the cover art. The m4b format also has a neat feature which lets you bookmark your last position in the same file.

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#94

Post by mrmondo »

I REALLY don’t agree with giving Amazon money (ethically) but I am a hypocrite and end up buying a lot of ebooks and audiobooks from them, I do my best to back up the files using calibre but I‘m sure they could lock down devices / files using DRM and their latest DRM incarnation is very hard to remove. I try to buy DRM-free ebooks and audiobooks whenever possible but I think mostly due to market domination authors and publishers end up at least mostly exclusively providing content via Amazon.

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#95

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

flukus wrote: post #85
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep your $30. Or... Pay me $30 :) ffmpeg -activation_bytes 1CEB00DA -i test.aax -vn -c:a copy output.mp4

Does this leave enough meta data for other book readers? You can listen to them in a generic audio player but I like having something that understand the chapter breaks.

You have to copy the video as well if you want to keep all the metadata, chapters, and cover art. I'd suggest converting to m4b rather than mp4. I gave an example in my other comment in this thread.

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#96

Post by TeMPOraL »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #42
hombre_fatal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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…

Wow, thanks for that list, in particular for Simon & Schuster. I am a Trekkie (that's the origin of my handle, too), and I sometimes bought Star Trek e-books on Amazon (most recently, Department of Temporal Investigations series). I'd much prefer to buy DRM-free.

> I don't mind watermarks, I ain't a pirate

That depends; pirates mind water marks on goods they liberated on the high seas, as they reveal the provenance of the merchandise. They like the marks left by water on their equipment, as a proof of prowess.

(Yes, I had to.)

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#98

Post by calcifer »

mrmondo wrote: post #94

I REALLY don’t agree with giving Amazon money (ethically) but I am a hypocrite and end up buying a lot of ebooks and audiobooks from them, I do my best to back up the files using calibre but I‘m sure they could lock down devices / files using DRM and their latest DRM incarnation is very hard to remove. I try to buy DRM-free ebooks and audiobooks whenever possible but I think mostly due to market domination authors an…

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 DEDRM_tools [1][2] before transfering into the Kindle.

[1] https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools

[2] Note that the tool only removes the DRM, it doesn't anonymise the file. It's still associated with your account.

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#99

Post by novaRom »

miki123211 wrote: post #92

That's why I love the way we get ebooks in Poland. When we buy an ebook, we usually get a pack of files (epub/pdf/mobi), without any DRM, but with watermarks, some visible, some hidden. Same for audiobooks. There's no DRM, there's some piracy, as always, but the system works and it works pretty damn well. I wish american ebook and audiobook stores were like this.

Do you mean even books from Kindle store are without DRM?

Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too

#100

Post by dudus »

miki123211 wrote: post #92

That's why I love the way we get ebooks in Poland. When we buy an ebook, we usually get a pack of files (epub/pdf/mobi), without any DRM, but with watermarks, some visible, some hidden. Same for audiobooks. There's no DRM, there's some piracy, as always, but the system works and it works pretty damn well. I wish american ebook and audiobook stores were like this.

I get my books from Google play books and it does allow downloading as epub. I'm not sure if it includes any kind of drm in it though. I always assumed all of them allowed downloading

# Edit: apparently you need something called Adobe digital Editions to read that epub later. So there is some kind of drm.

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