5 ms·

My wife has a Kindle, we wanted to buy an ebook to support the author but didn't want to go through Amazon anymore because it's Amazon. So we tried buying from

My wife has a Kindle, we wanted to buy an ebook to support the author but didn't want to go through Amazon anymore because it's Amazon. So we tried buying from Kobo and surprise surprise, they only work with their ereaders because of their shitty DRM! So now Kobo has permanently lost us as a customer too. Great job there folks!

wlesieutre 4y ago
Kobo doesn’t force books to use DRM, for example: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-way-of-kings-1 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-way-of-kings-1 Tor Publishing Group Release Date: August 31, 2010 Imprint: Tor Books ISBN: 9781429992800 Language: English Download options: EPUB 3 (DRM-Free) But if you’re only browsing the books that choose not to use it, it’s certainly a smaller selection
- Blackthorn 4y ago
  I wouldn't mind so much if the books that do use their DRM were able to work with other ereaders, but they aren't because this technology is garbage.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    Main reason I mind is because DRM a) creates "artificial scarcity" of an effectively "infinitely" and freely duplicate-able resource (digital bits of data) mostly to fulfill the bottomless greed-hole of corporate entities (rather than to enrich the original creator for their part in it), and b) (and this is the main reason I hate DRM) because it gives some bottomless pit of greed corporate entity the ability to arbitrarily deprive me of something I paid for, or restrict my ability to use / access it at some unknown point in time down the road, forcing me to maybe have to pay again for something I already paid for. (Nope. Not gonna do that. If I'm backed into that corner, I'll choose to "fly the Jolly Roger" and acquire a DRM-free copy some other way.) 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.)
    - lxgr 4y ago
      I see it less as bottomless greed, and much more as a fear or inability to adapt to a new situation, desperately clinging to the past via technological means instead. 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.
- lxgr 4y ago
  Not even Amazon forces publishers to use it! There are DRM-free Kindle books available. 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".
  - feanaro 4y ago
    If Amazon doesn't demand it, then it must be the book publishers that are actually demanding it. So it's not just big bad Amazon after all. That's interesting.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    Including in KDP. There's a tickbox for whether you want DRM or not. Personally I'd never add DRM to mine because it's so trivial to strip anyway and just an inconvenience.
  - rendaw 4y ago
    Comixology as part of their Amazon acquisition just got rid of their old DRM-free offerings: https://twitter.com/comixology/status/1492222215139459072 https://twitter.com/comixology/status/1492222215139459072
    - bentley 4y ago
      This is why I not only favor purchasing DRM-free media, but also keep a local archive of all such purchases. $ ls /mnt/comixology | wc -l 239 (This can be a bit difficult for larger‐sized media, such as video games, but I do it anyway—my GOG archive is over two terabytes.) 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.
komali2 4y ago
Amazon also does this right? But unlike kindle, kobo devices can easily have libre readers installed on them that can read whatever format you like. I threw koreader on my kobo and haven't looked back. It communicates with my private opds server to download books I have, ah, acquired, and converted to epub. Or sometimes PDF. 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.
- Blackthorn 4y ago
  koreader also works on my Kindle. This used to belong to my wife, and got passed to me, and got rooted by me, and koreader installed on it, thus keeping it out of a landfill or generating more e-waste.
  - alwayslikethis 4y ago
    Good for you then. Kindle devices have decent hardware but is crippled by the dystopian Amazon firmware on it. It forces upgrades, with no way to opt out, and Amazon have the ability to remotely wipe your books for no reason.
    - Blackthorn 4y ago
      Yeah, the upgrades were why it ended up in my possession in the first place. The "upgraded" software required capabilities that the device did not have, making it super slow. The point though, was that koreader works there too.
deleted 4y ago
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goosedragons 4y ago
It doesn't. It will work with any Adobe DRM compatible reader or app even before you remove the DRM. It will also work with their apps on Android, iOS, Windows and Mac. You do have to download from your account page to get the ACSM file but with that you should be able to use Adobe digital editions to put it on a compatible non-Kobo reader like something from Pocketbook. 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.

wlesieutre 4y ago

Kobo doesn’t force books to use DRM, for example: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-way-of-kings-1 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-way-of-kings-1 Tor Publishing Group Release Date: August 31, 2010 Imprint: Tor Books ISBN: 9781429992800 Language: English Download options: EPUB 3 (DRM-Free) But if you’re only browsing the books that choose not to use it, it’s certainly a smaller selection

Blackthorn 4y ago
I wouldn't mind so much if the books that do use their DRM were able to work with other ereaders, but they aren't because this technology is garbage.
- blooalien 4y ago
  Main reason I mind is because DRM a) creates "artificial scarcity" of an effectively "infinitely" and freely duplicate-able resource (digital bits of data) mostly to fulfill the bottomless greed-hole of corporate entities (rather than to enrich the original creator for their part in it), and b) (and this is the main reason I hate DRM) because it gives some bottomless pit of greed corporate entity the ability to arbitrarily deprive me of something I paid for, or restrict my ability to use / access it at some unknown point in time down the road, forcing me to maybe have to pay again for something I already paid for. (Nope. Not gonna do that. If I'm backed into that corner, I'll choose to "fly the Jolly Roger" and acquire a DRM-free copy some other way.) 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.)
  - lxgr 4y ago
    I see it less as bottomless greed, and much more as a fear or inability to adapt to a new situation, desperately clinging to the past via technological means instead. 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.
lxgr 4y ago
Not even Amazon forces publishers to use it! There are DRM-free Kindle books available. 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".
- feanaro 4y ago
  If Amazon doesn't demand it, then it must be the book publishers that are actually demanding it. So it's not just big bad Amazon after all. That's interesting.
- vidarh 4y ago
  Including in KDP. There's a tickbox for whether you want DRM or not. Personally I'd never add DRM to mine because it's so trivial to strip anyway and just an inconvenience.
- rendaw 4y ago
  Comixology as part of their Amazon acquisition just got rid of their old DRM-free offerings: https://twitter.com/comixology/status/1492222215139459072 https://twitter.com/comixology/status/1492222215139459072
  - bentley 4y ago
    This is why I not only favor purchasing DRM-free media, but also keep a local archive of all such purchases. $ ls /mnt/comixology | wc -l 239 (This can be a bit difficult for larger‐sized media, such as video games, but I do it anyway—my GOG archive is over two terabytes.) 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.

komali2 4y ago

Amazon also does this right? But unlike kindle, kobo devices can easily have libre readers installed on them that can read whatever format you like. I threw koreader on my kobo and haven't looked back. It communicates with my private opds server to download books I have, ah, acquired, and converted to epub. Or sometimes PDF. 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.

Blackthorn 4y ago
koreader also works on my Kindle. This used to belong to my wife, and got passed to me, and got rooted by me, and koreader installed on it, thus keeping it out of a landfill or generating more e-waste.
- alwayslikethis 4y ago
  Good for you then. Kindle devices have decent hardware but is crippled by the dystopian Amazon firmware on it. It forces upgrades, with no way to opt out, and Amazon have the ability to remotely wipe your books for no reason.
  - Blackthorn 4y ago
    Yeah, the upgrades were why it ended up in my possession in the first place. The "upgraded" software required capabilities that the device did not have, making it super slow. The point though, was that koreader works there too.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

goosedragons 4y ago

It doesn't. It will work with any Adobe DRM compatible reader or app even before you remove the DRM. It will also work with their apps on Android, iOS, Windows and Mac. You do have to download from your account page to get the ACSM file but with that you should be able to use Adobe digital editions to put it on a compatible non-Kobo reader like something from Pocketbook. 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.