I want to purchase ebooks, but I want to own what I purchase!
Oreilly books had drm free copies you could buy. Some good deals (buy 2 get 2 free) They moved to a drm based subscription model, but because the books I bought were drm free I still can access them!
Manning still does this. (Thoug they embed your email address in the pages of the pdfs you download. I’m ok with that). They market drm free as a feature, and I look there first when looking for tech books.
“What is Manning's DRM policy? What security restrictions are enabled on the PDF eBooks? Can I print, copy and paste, etc?
Manning eBooks are DRM-free. We do personalize each eBook with a license stamp in the footer of the PDF. There are no print or copy & paste restrictions on the PDF eBooks. You can also download your eBook as many times as you want, and put it on as many devices as you wish.”
It's still limited to applications that explicitly support it. Maybe there will be a wider ecosystem than Adobe's. But my current preferred reader apps all either have built-in storefronts (Kindle, Apple Books) or are open source (Calibre and Google Chrome, so I can use a Japanese dictionary extension). The former category probably won't ever support LCP, and the latter category definitely won't.
And as for longevity… who's to say LCP will still be around in 10 years or 20? At least Adobe has a big brand name.
At the end of the day, I'll keep using de-DRM plugins to get around those problems, but that's a solution that only works for people who are relatively tech savvy, not your average reader. And I'm not sure DRM will always be as ineffective as it is today.
As for LCP being around in 10-20 yrs, the idea with LCP (excluding loans, of course) is that you don't need to be online or require a remote server to validate/access ebooks you've downloaded. You just have your "password", that is used to decrypt the book content through LCP, so as long as you still have any app that supports LCP, you still have access to the publication. I think it's the best compromise that will exist in reality for publishers that still want DRM. The entire system is open-source except a small key derivation function.
- you can only read them in [publisher-approved apps]
- you can't share them with your kids
- you are guaranteed to lose access to them in 10 years or tomorrow
Does LCP solve any of these problems?
You can read them in LCP-approved apps. Publishers don't decide which apps are LCP-approved. There is a decent selection of apps that exists, on mobile and desktop.
(the following doesn't apply to loans, only owned books)
> you can't share them with your kids
You can, see https://www.edrlab.org/readium-lcp/faq/ "What are the advantages of LCP for users?" and "Why isn’t there a strict device limit on LCP licenses?"
> you are guaranteed to lose access to them in 10 years or tomorrow
As long as there still exists an app that supports LCP, you can still open the ebook.
As I said in another comment, I think it's the best compromise that will exist in reality for publishers that still want DRM. The entire system is open-source except a small key derivation function. Note I'm not involved directly with LCP, but collaborate closely with people that do for the Readium project.
Without a DRM mechanism it can be easily shared on warez sites. They really don't want books easily disseminated DRM free on warez sites. Alongside this they can track what pages you read and even know how 'fast' you are at reading. Welcome to 1984.
DRM doesn't seem to be very good at preventing this either, though. The only thing it's really good at is making it harder for legitimate users to access their legally purchased media.
There is an inherent asymmetry to it: It only takes one sophisticated bad actor to break DRM and make a cracked book widely available, yet legitimate users not willing to break the law are suffering the inconveniences of error-prone, user-hostile systems.
I can even somewhat empathize with the idea of DRM for subscriptions or loans (otherwise there is really no incentive for users to continue paying, and durable access is not a concern either), but for outright purchased media, it really rubs me the wrong way to know that I can lose access to my stuff at any time.
It worked like this for music (Spotify and Apple Music have DRM, but iTunes and Amazon MP3/AAC purchases haven't, for example), and it's even working for eBooks in some countries: German language ePubs have been DRM free for some years now (although watermarked).
Every time a publisher mentions this to me, they look surprised when I tell them their books are already easily shared on warez sites. Complex DRM schemes, especially Adobe, limit innovation in reading applications and cause all sorts of end user issues. This in turns pushes people to find sites like zlib in the first place.
Does anyone do this? I don't see how it's relevant beyond "wow! you reading speed increased 5% this month" in emails from the Kindle service. Maybe they target ads for "read better and faster in 90 days" if you're in the 10th percentile on reading speed?
It could also be sold to publishers as part of a tool to determine the above prior to publishing; what if books were optimized for your attention?
Pleasant or not, there are plenty of uses for the data.
They can also see the things that you highlight, the things that you reread. This could be used to profile the reader and personalize ads
not only this, but being forced to buy an ebook through their portal, they'll know everything you're reading. Whereas you could read pdfs anonymously if you wanted
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201541130
> A customer can read your eBook as many times as they like, but we will only pay you for the number of pages read the first time the customer reads them.
Warez sites often link to more than just software. Software may or may not be the primary focus. Terminology evolves.
[0] https://songswithsimon.com/simple-simon/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Simon_%28nursery_rhyme%...
Tor Publishing Group
Release Date: August 31, 2010
Imprint: Tor Books
ISBN: 9781429992800
Language: English
Download options: EPUB 3 (DRM-Free)
Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to explicitly search for DRM-free titles, but the description for these usually has a sentence like "made available DRM-free at the publisher's request", or is lacking the reference to "use limited to x devices simultaneously".
$ ls /mnt/comixology | wc -l
239
I also have a small collection of DRM‐free music I had purchased and downloaded from Amazon that no longer seems to be accessible online. Certainly I have no plans to purchase anything digital from them in the future.
Given the option to support content creators in some way that doesn't screw me over as a content "consumer", I'ma prefer that option all day long, every day; However, too many corporate entities these days would rather not offer that option, if they think they can find a way to make you pay every single time you lay eyeballs on something… (That is the ultimate goal of some of 'em, to be certain.)
The music industry was the same, initially – and maybe MP3s would still be sold with DRM by default if it wasn't for Steve Jobs and the iTunes store back in the day.
There's hope, though: With very few exceptions, German e-books are also sold without DRM these days.
Removing Kobo's DRM or the Adobe version is pretty trivial too and doesn't seem to change as much as Amazon's.
But they don't support Kindle because Kindle doesn't support ePubs and Adobe DRM'd ePubs at that.
I think it can even read MOBI though, i vaguely remember accidentally uploading some to my kobo without converting and reading them before i realized the conversion step was missed.
The point though, was that koreader works there too.
The "ebook shops" are the worst. Amazon & Apple have their DRM'd copies, and Kobo may be even worse.
[Edit: tor books, not the other tor. Although presumably everything is there regardless of legal status]
The notable exception is Amazon: Kindle books are almost always DRMed from the same publishers.
Watermarks can of course be stripped, but so can DRM--the goal is just to add an extra barrier, which watermarks do without inconveniencing legitimate customers. I actually kind of feel it adds value--it gives my purchase an authenticity a pirated copy wouldn't have.
I recently bought these two (in DRM-free PDF and EPUB), mostly-happily paying twice what I'd have to for paperback or being locked to a jerky-reader:
* https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/book/210313783/programming-rust... ($60; for experienced systems programmers, this seems better than the free official book)
* https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/book/209970024/software-enginee... ($51; for front-loading Googliness)
I used ZLibrary to download e-books of books that I could only find in some crappy format (including physical). I use game-pirating sites the same way. I already purchased Secret of Mana-- why shouldn't I just re-download it?
I have a Kobo, and its store is woefully lacking (would get a Kindle if I could go back in time). So, what I do is buy the book wherever I can find it cheapest, then chuck it and pirate an e-version of it. That way, my weird conscience thinks it's OK, and I have it in the format I desire.
The entire content distribution system for all forms of media (and a lot of software) is pretty broken.
> you are guaranteed to lose access to them in 10 years or tomorrow