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Comment by pederb72 | Hacker News Reader

I'd love for Amazon to remove the DRM from their books, and just sell books in epub format which can be read on any device without a Kindle app. That would solve Amazon's problem with iOS/Apple, and also be an ideal solution for end users. EDIT: what I mean is, music is now sold without DRM. Why do we still need DRM for ebooks? I'd love to be able to just put all my ebooks in a Dropbox folder, and not depend on Amazon to create an app for every platform where I want to read my books.

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But if you'd like Amazon to make a concession as large as this, surely Apple should be asked to make a few concessions too?

Both companies sell IP - and both rely on a various forms of DRM to enforce scarcity. I think selling IP will eventually be seen as a fruitless (and unsustainable) pursuit - but for the time being this is a way both these companies are making a profit selling digital goods.

As far as I can remember, Apple/Steve Jobs talked the music industry into dropping DRM on music. As the leading ebooks store Amazon should be the one to push to remove DRM from books.

Well, I'm still waiting for the day when I can drag and drop one of these DRM free MP3s onto an iPod (without having to shackle my device to my computer via iTunes).

It's not exactly freedom in the best sense of the word ;)

Are iBooks DRM free? I don't think so ...

The Dropbox app on iOS can play mp3 files so you don't have to use iTunes to sync your music.

iBooks having DRM is (IMO) a problem with the publishing industry, just as DRM on music used to be a problem with the music industry. I want Amazon, and Apple, to push the publishing industry into dropping DRM on books.

I think I'd like to be able to pay an author directly - that would be my ideal solution; and an ebook should necessarily cost less than a paper book. But I agree - removal of DRM should be a target.

The MP3 tip's a good one - thanks.

I may be wrong, but I thought the choice between DRM or not for books was up to the publisher and not Amazon?

You can do this yourself (you can Google for how-to). The process of stripping Kindle DRM-MOBI format and converting it into ePUB is about as simple as ripping a DVD.

Or just send the Kindle over to Cydia.

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