8 ms·
> Microsoft will refund customers in full for what they paid, plus an extra $25 if they made annotations or mark-ups. Doesn’t seem all that nefarious. Get your
by nathantotten 7y ago
> Microsoft will refund customers in full for what they paid, plus an extra $25 if they made annotations or mark-ups.
Doesn’t seem all that nefarious. Get your money back, order the paperbacks. No DRM issues again.
- ssivark 7y agoAnd what about the hours of effort put into reading, annotating, and jotting down notes on the ebook? (Typical of serious reading/research) That is worth way more than $25 -- MS is robbing people of the value they tried to create/store for their future selves. What use is a "platform" if it can't support that?
- zaroth 7y agoThis happens every week for people using some SaaS product that gets cancelled. DRM is content as a service, and by definition, all DRM will either be cracked or will become inaccessible eventually with probability approach 1 over time.
- rbmktechik 7y agoHow dare you take away my right to be outraged at tech giants....
- dang 7y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.
- akerro 7y agoIt's more a trust issue in a technology. Pirated ebooks don't have DRM and never expire, can be opened on any device and you keep the money anyway.
- pjmlp 7y agoOr never buy DRM books to start with. I own a Kindle, however I only buy ebooks from stores that offer epub and PDF as well. At max with watermarks.
- bad_user 7y agoAny recommendations for such stores? I know of https://www.downpour.com https://www.downpour.com for audio books and I get all my audio books from them since they are DRM-free. Would love to know of such a service for ebooks, but for fiction.
- winterbc 7y agoDon’t forget https://www.humblebundle.com/ https://www.humblebundle.com/ for frequent book bundles.
- nyolfen 7y agotor is a scifi/fantasy+adjacent publisher that famously offers drm-free ebooks https://www.tor.com/ https://www.tor.com/
- ulysses 7y agoBaen Books https://www.baen.com/ https://www.baen.com/ They have always been very customer friendly. They have a "free library" section, too. (Often has such things as the first book in a series.) J Novel Club https://j-novel.club/top https://j-novel.club/top Translated Japanese light novels. There's a membership that lets you read along as they translate, but if you purchase the ebook when they're done, it's DRM free. And of course http://www.gutenberg.org/ http://www.gutenberg.org/
- dabockster 7y agoIf you live in the US and have a library card, try Overdrive. You can check out a huge catalog of eBooks for essentially free (since it’s paid via your local library).
- bscphil 7y ago
- chance_state 7y agoMy method is to torrent the ebook, then purchase the paperback from the author's website when I finish it.
- intopieces 7y agoThis assumes that the paperback exists. It ought to be the responsibility of the vendor to offer either a full refund or a hard copy, at the vendor's expense, including any annotations that were made on the digital copy.
- brewdad 7y agoWhile having such an option may be a good idea, one of the main appeals of ebooks for me is that I already have far too many linear feet of paper books. Giving me a hard copy adds to this problem. Either way, let me annotate my own paper book TYVM.
- Fnoord 7y agoThat's still showing the dark side of DRM. However it is also Microsoft handling that dark side in a professional way. If a game developer shuts down their game servers, do they release the binaries? Some do, I guess. I've even seen some software companies release the source if/when they shut down.
- icebraining 7y agoSeems very unlikely that MS can unilaterally release other people's books without DRM.
- m-p-3 7y agoAt least this time it's Microsoft closing down gracefully. I can't see the same happening if it's a smaller, specialized business going bankrupt and going away without the ability to mitigate the shutdown.
- reaperducer 7y agoGet your money back, order the paperbacks. From where? The bookstores that no longer exist? Or hope that there is a 1/1000 chance you might get lucky and find one on fleaBay?
- Mindwipe 7y agoAnd if you don't tend to read the books again, you've made out like a bandit.