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Comment by plorg | Hacker News Reader

After the recent press for Bookshop.org I saw an author I like had a new book and thought I'd try out the service - I am okay with paying slightly more for a book if the money is going to someone other than Amazon. But I should have looked twice, because Bookshop ebooks are not DRM free unless the publisher explicitly opts for it, and DRM encumbered books can only be read on their website or in their app. I know that the copyright landscape is rough for that sort of things, but this was a huge miss. For it to cost $5 more and be tied to a service that is not currently available on any dedicated e-readers is frankly insulting.

Oh, and so far as I can tell they don't label which books are DRM free.

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> Oh, and so far as I can tell they don't label which books are DRM free.

Anyone who cares enough to comment about this on hn would do well to comment on it to the people whose paychecks depend on what you think about them:

https://uk-support.bookshop.org/en/support/tickets/new

dedicated ereaders are another thing to get away from if possible. onyx boox ereaders for example run android as the OS so you can install whatever apps you like, kindle, nook, bookshop.org or just any basic epub or pdf reader.

the main reason i switched was so i could install syncthing and which makes the whole process of getting books onto the ereader as simple as dropping a file into a certain folder on my laptop. no more nonsense like emailing a file to your kindle or having to plug it in to sync with calibre

Seconding this. Bookshop.org is a terrible experience if you want to read on your own eInk device.

I had to purchase the book I wanted from a different seller at double the cost.

My approach has been to purchase books from bookshop.org (or directly from the author if that is an option), and then immediately go find a DRM-free backup copy to send to my e-ink device.

At least they appear to be partnering with Kobo "later this year" [1]. I've been a big fan of Kobo's devices so this is a nice plus. (I just wish they could figure out some way to get Kindle exclusives, but well that's a contradiction in terms, so...)

[1]: https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks ("Can I read my ebooks on my Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.?")

The desktop web-app reader is interesting in that it's a DRM-free legal way to access otherwise DRM-encumbered e-books. Last I checked the EME DRM browser sandbox was still not required.

Personally I'm fine with this compromise solution. I've read whole books in the Kindle desktop web interface. The usual line is that it's somehow bad on the eyes, but I figure that I already spend my days reading documents and articles on a screen and it's irrational to imagine a "book" is somehow fundamentally different.

Is it really drm free if you can't save the books? Maybe there's technically no encryption but it's not like you're free to do with the book as you please either.

There is no EME DRM, but they actually go through some means to prevent the user from downloading the ebooks. That includes anti-devtools mitigations and storing much of the ebook contents encrypted in the cloud.

Yes yes I understand. My point is that I personally find it easy to read text in a desktop web browser, and this is the unique way of consuming rights-encumbered content without needing to install black-box spyware.

It doesn't use EME (EME isn't designed to protect text so it couldn't), but it's very likely what it does would be considered to be a "technical protection measure" in most courts and reverse engineering it is probably illegal in most territories.

it's not bookshop.org's fault. blame the publishers

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