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Kobo, Onyx, and more e-ink devices, I never had to install any app. Even if I bought it on Amazon, I can deDRM it with ease (bless Calibre and deDRM tools), and

Kobo, Onyx, and more e-ink devices, I never had to install any app. Even if I bought it on Amazon, I can deDRM it with ease (bless Calibre and deDRM tools), and then go on my own merry way, with cute e-readers, and actually owning the file. Edit: And for epubs, if the devices doesn't have the capability ootb (e.g Hisense phones) themeselves, there is e.g open-source, really well done, KOReader :3

the__alchemist 3y ago
Have you had any luck de-drming titles released in 2023? Calibre/de-drm stopped working for me for these, with no fix on the horizon.
robertlagrant 3y ago
Understood - thanks. I think I managed to pick a side issue rather than a core issue. I think this is my real question: Given libraries traditionally worked because books are not (easily) replicable, and so selling a library a book didn't mean a drop in sales particularly, how do you keep the same situation with open digital formats? How do you make the publishing economics work, outside of schemes such as Amazon's Kindle Unlimited?
- sircastor 3y ago
  Publishers have historically viewed a library copy as a threat of patrons who would have otherwise purchased their product. The economics of publishing itself are transformed with digital formats. There is (virtually) no material cost. Replication is immediate and easy. Transportation is (again, virtually) free. Book Publishers largely are the ones to lose out in digital publishing. The only thing they have left to offer is connections for distribution. And since most of their costs were associated with the production and distribution of a material book, most of those costs disappear too. Cory Doctorow has asserted in the past that the biggest issue any author has is discovery - do people actually know the work I wrote exists? Once you've crossed that barrier, if you ask people to pay for your work many of them will. Even if you don't prevent them from freely replicating your work.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Yes, indeed - that's the conundrum I'm posing. Why should a publisher promote a book, or pay an advance for a book, that might sell very few copies in a world of free and peer to peer distribution? They (and their authors) can exist in a system where people pay $10 for a book, instead of $0 for a book. Digitally enabled libraries are a tricky spanner in the works for them, so they create a walled garden app that simulates lending. Thinking a little creatively, a simple modern alternative for digital lending might be a building with some nice chairs and coffee and 5k e-readers with a Kindle Unlimited (or library equivalent) subscription on them, and anyone can walk in. Then library services can also issue a fleet of them to people who sit below a certain income level.

the__alchemist 3y ago

Have you had any luck de-drming titles released in 2023? Calibre/de-drm stopped working for me for these, with no fix on the horizon.

robertlagrant 3y ago

Understood - thanks. I think I managed to pick a side issue rather than a core issue. I think this is my real question: Given libraries traditionally worked because books are not (easily) replicable, and so selling a library a book didn't mean a drop in sales particularly, how do you keep the same situation with open digital formats? How do you make the publishing economics work, outside of schemes such as Amazon's Kindle Unlimited?

sircastor 3y ago
Publishers have historically viewed a library copy as a threat of patrons who would have otherwise purchased their product. The economics of publishing itself are transformed with digital formats. There is (virtually) no material cost. Replication is immediate and easy. Transportation is (again, virtually) free. Book Publishers largely are the ones to lose out in digital publishing. The only thing they have left to offer is connections for distribution. And since most of their costs were associated with the production and distribution of a material book, most of those costs disappear too. Cory Doctorow has asserted in the past that the biggest issue any author has is discovery - do people actually know the work I wrote exists? Once you've crossed that barrier, if you ask people to pay for your work many of them will. Even if you don't prevent them from freely replicating your work.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Yes, indeed - that's the conundrum I'm posing. Why should a publisher promote a book, or pay an advance for a book, that might sell very few copies in a world of free and peer to peer distribution? They (and their authors) can exist in a system where people pay $10 for a book, instead of $0 for a book. Digitally enabled libraries are a tricky spanner in the works for them, so they create a walled garden app that simulates lending. Thinking a little creatively, a simple modern alternative for digital lending might be a building with some nice chairs and coffee and 5k e-readers with a Kindle Unlimited (or library equivalent) subscription on them, and anyone can walk in. Then library services can also issue a fleet of them to people who sit below a certain income level.