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And in the future, don’t buy customer‐hostile, DRM‐encumbered media. Use your money to support those publishers who sell DRM‐free ebooks instead, so that you ca

And in the future, don’t buy customer‐hostile, DRM‐encumbered media. Use your money to support those publishers who sell DRM‐free ebooks instead, so that you can preserve multiple revisions of the digital books you pay for without the need for arcane technical tools.

barbazoo 4y ago
That will diminish the number of books one gets to read though, personally I'd rather rip a drm-ed ebook than not reading it at all out of ideological reasons.
- naasking 4y ago
  Buy a physical book, or there's always Genesis library. If you bought the ebook, that even saves you having to bypass the DRM to back it up.
- bentley 4y ago
  I read 27 books last year, mostly relatively short novels. At that speed, I’m not going to work through my backlog of public domain classics before I'm dead in a few decades. Particularly since copyrights have started expiring in the US again at a rate of one year’s worth per year.
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    It's great that works for you. Some people will want to read books though that are not public domain.
    - bentley 4y ago
      Yes, I mentioned DRM‐free publishers for that reason. Tor, for example, has a no‐DRM policy and remains a big player in [copyrighted] fantasy. Some people will still want to read ebooks that aren’t available DRM‐free from anywhere. I don’t expect to convert everyone to my way of thinking. But by advocating DRM‐free media, especially in scenarios like this where publishers use their power in ways people don’t like, I hope to convince some people who wouldn’t have thought about it otherwise. And, too, it’s like free software. People can benefit greatly from using some free software some of the time, even if they never desire to use all free software all of the time. People who purchase some of their books DRM‐free improve the state of the industry even if they don’t have 100% devotion to DRM‐free media.
- steve1977 4y ago
  For me, it will probably diminish the number of ebooks I buy, not the number of ebooks I read.
  - account42 4y ago
    But since books are not fungible, it might still reduce the quality of the books you read. There is almost always a real cost boycotting something, otherwise you would not have considered it in the first place. It's fine to decide that that cost is worth paying.
pharmakom 4y ago
Managing an mp3 file on a local disk is becoming arcane knowledge.

barbazoo 4y ago

That will diminish the number of books one gets to read though, personally I'd rather rip a drm-ed ebook than not reading it at all out of ideological reasons.

naasking 4y ago
Buy a physical book, or there's always Genesis library. If you bought the ebook, that even saves you having to bypass the DRM to back it up.
bentley 4y ago
I read 27 books last year, mostly relatively short novels. At that speed, I’m not going to work through my backlog of public domain classics before I'm dead in a few decades. Particularly since copyrights have started expiring in the US again at a rate of one year’s worth per year.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  It's great that works for you. Some people will want to read books though that are not public domain.
  - bentley 4y ago
    Yes, I mentioned DRM‐free publishers for that reason. Tor, for example, has a no‐DRM policy and remains a big player in [copyrighted] fantasy. Some people will still want to read ebooks that aren’t available DRM‐free from anywhere. I don’t expect to convert everyone to my way of thinking. But by advocating DRM‐free media, especially in scenarios like this where publishers use their power in ways people don’t like, I hope to convince some people who wouldn’t have thought about it otherwise. And, too, it’s like free software. People can benefit greatly from using some free software some of the time, even if they never desire to use all free software all of the time. People who purchase some of their books DRM‐free improve the state of the industry even if they don’t have 100% devotion to DRM‐free media.
steve1977 4y ago
For me, it will probably diminish the number of ebooks I buy, not the number of ebooks I read.
- account42 4y ago
  But since books are not fungible, it might still reduce the quality of the books you read. There is almost always a real cost boycotting something, otherwise you would not have considered it in the first place. It's fine to decide that that cost is worth paying.

pharmakom 4y ago

Managing an mp3 file on a local disk is becoming arcane knowledge.