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DRM-free e-books are a big deal (2019)
- timonoko 3y agoAll ebooks I have ever bought were instigated by stealing the first book from Pirate Bay. It must be bigger phenomenon than authors understand. Palahniuk knows this and made a video how to steal more of his books. Lars Wilderäng seems to understand it too, because he just jokes about it in X. He probably made those torrents himself as they are from trilogies and people are compelled to buy rest of the books, like I did.
- benrutter 3y agoDRM is terrible for so many reasons, one I don't see me mentioned a lot is that it's part of a massive antitrust issue with media and proprietary formats in general. Kindle formats for example are locked into .ksx format, which you can strip out into a DRM free epub, but most people can't or don't know how to. This means: - They have to buy amazon ereaders if they want to read their books - No other company can reliably build ereaders for an exclusively proprietary format like ksx
- _pvxk 3y agoBig stores that sell DRM-free e-books: - https://www.ebooks.com/en-uk/drm-free/ https://www.ebooks.com/en-uk/drm-free/ - https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ DRM-free audiobooks: - https://libro.fm/ https://libro.fm/ - https://www.downpour.com/ https://www.downpour.com/ Other lists and tips on where to buy DRM-free: - https://libreture.com/bookshops/ https://libreture.com/bookshops/ - https://aperiodic.net/phil/archives/Geekery/where-to-get-ebooks/ https://aperiodic.net/phil/archives/Geekery/where-to-get-ebo... (Here in Norway we've so far been lucky, I've yet to see e-books with DRM. There's ebok.no which does watermarks, but that feels acceptable.)
- livrem 3y agohttps://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/ https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/ I have some of their military history books in printed books and was happy to discover recently that they are selling DRM-free EPUBs. They also cover many other historical topics (like the section on technology history) and sell some books from other publishers too.
- orlandohill 3y agoEbooks: - https://www.smashwords.com/ https://www.smashwords.com/ - https://www.tor.com/ https://www.tor.com/ - https://ospreypublishing.com/ https://ospreypublishing.com/ - https://www.baen.com https://www.baen.com - https://weightlessbooks.com/ https://weightlessbooks.com/ - https://www.manning.com/ https://www.manning.com/ - https://nostarch.com/ https://nostarch.com/ - https://leanpub.com/ https://leanpub.com/ Public Domain Ebooks: - https://standardebooks.org/ https://standardebooks.org/ - https://www.gutenberg.org/ https://www.gutenberg.org/ Audio Books: - https://audiobookstore.com/ https://audiobookstore.com/ Public Domain Audio Books: - https://librivox.org/ https://librivox.org/
- nathansherburn 3y agoAudiobookstore.com are fantastic. I've enjoyed so many of their audiobooks over the years.
- sotix 3y ago> https://standardebooks.org/ https://standardebooks.org/ Standard Ebooks is seriously impressive. One of my favorite sources of books in the public domain. I’d also add in addition to this excellent list of DRM-free ebooks, it’s always worth looking into borrowing a book from the library via Libby/Overdrive.
- waveBidder 3y agothank you both, I'm getting tired of stealing the digital copy and buying a physical one
- starstripe 3y agoFree ebooks: https://libgen.is https://libgen.is Book summaries: https://littlerbooks.com https://littlerbooks.com
- loudmax 3y agoI second downpour.com for audiobooks. You can download files in mp3 or m4b formats and listen to them in whatever player you like. I hadn't heard of libro.fm. I'll have to give them a try, thanks for pointing them out.
- pjmlp 3y agoI tend to always go for DRM-free ebooks as much as possible, the few ones I have bought that are under DRM are because their authors decided not to provide it otherwise besides paper format, so I got to respect their decision as I didn't want to get a couple of dead trees for technology stuff, always outdated after a couple of years.
- silcoon 3y agoIt’s really annoying buying an eBook and have to pass it trough Adobe app, to get an EPUB. To then discover that I need to register my e-reader with Adobe to read it… wtf? I just use calibre with plugins and remove the DRM. But at this point it gets faster downloading a pirated ebook than buying one. Why publishers don’t actively fight the book piracy and offer a better way to read eBook? The eBook market is large. And kindle is not an alternative solution since uses a proprietary format. I’m a proud user of Kobo for that reason
- dax_ 3y agoDRM on ebooks really shouldn't be a thing. It's easy enough to remove (fortunately), defeating the point of of it entirely. At the same time it's super annoying for legitimate customers, so much that I often ignore ebooks that use any kind of DRM.
- lxgr 3y agoI agree. The one use case where I can kind of understand it are library books; purchased books have no business being DRMed. If it works for the music industry (basically all purchases are DRM-free since the iTunes store dropped theirs), why shouldn't it work for publishing?
- chankstein38 3y agoAgreed. I just want a PDF I can put in Goodnotes because that's where I keep my books.
- voiceofreason5 3y agoDigital has its benefits but not being able to actually own the asset to transfer or sell to others is really terrible.
- thfuran 3y agoI think it ought to be illegal to advertise such an arrangement as a sale or a purchase rather than a rental or some other similar term. It would at least make clearer than a lot of so-called purchases are actually revocable and non-transferable licenses, though it might not do much to actually curb the practice.
- lxgr 3y agoEbook publishing in Germany is curious: Surprisingly, some time ago all large publishers (or rather, their trade union) have agreed to drop DRM in favor of "invisible watermarking" for all of the German-language books they sell – except for one. Take a wild guess which one... In any case, this is really great when buying books: Since it's all just DRM-free ePubs, I can read them on whatever hardware I want, including a Kindle. The formatting and UI is a bit off compared to "native" Kindle books (which are also just ePub at this point!) because Amazon refuses to activate their nicer/newer renderer for "personal documents", but not being locked into a given ecosystem for books I already bought vastly outweighs that.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoReminder that Tor Publishing group (https://www.tor.com/ https://www.tor.com/) publishes some of the best sci-fi and fantasy books on the planet, and all of their ebooks are DRM-free. They are one of the only major non-indie publishers to do so. I recommend patronizing them, whenever possible.
- habosa 3y agoMy dream job is building a DRM-free eBook store with all of the major publishers onboard. If anyone on HN is building that, please email me. I have so many ideas about how that could revitalize the books industry. Aside: I think if publishers want to protect their books from being shared for free, watermarking [0] is a better solution than DRM. It brings back the same dynamics we have with sharing physical books (common with friends, less so with strangers), and also is a lot more obvious to non-technical people. [0]: https://www.lemonink.co/home https://www.lemonink.co/home
- mxxc 3y agoregardless, kindle books can be cracked. not the easiest thing ever, but it's doable. cracking ADE books is much, much easier. i crack all my ebooks because otherwise i can't read them in my ereader
- n9 3y agoA stack cutter and a scansnap sheet scanner can make any book into a DRM free pdf. That's what I do.
- meristohm 3y agoI get most of the books I read from the public library. Sometimes I want to buy and gift books to friends. Only a few publishers (Tor, and other sci-fi publishers, as noted in this article) have determined that it's better to not bother with digital rights management. I haven't yet found as a DRM-free epub the book I want to gift, and I may end up not buying it at all because of that. In addition to whatever discussion this URL might bring about, here's an Ask: What can I do, in addition to not buy books (quietly speaking with my wallet?), to promote DRM-free epub sales?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago> I get most of the books I read from the public library. Best Buy will no longer be selling physical DVDs soon. What happens if publishers stop selling paper books and only sell licenses for ebooks? Edit: https://time.com/6266147/internet-archive-copyright-infringement-books-lawsuit/ https://time.com/6266147/internet-archive-copyright-infringe...
- extraduder_ire 3y agoBooks are likely going to be around for a lot longer, as they have a long history of being shelf decorations. Plus, people like them for the format, not in spite of the format. e.g. if you could get the same DVD quality video copied onto a USB stick, it would be more appealing than a disc nowadays.
- ravenstine 3y agoIn all honesty, this is why I have no problem removing DRM from media. If it has a lock on it, someone can take away the key. Screw that. As if an individual author cares whether you removed the DRM.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIt works until we can no longer remove the DRM.
- 3y ago
- ashton314 3y agoMy favorite fantasy author, Brandon Sanderson, has long been against DRM and has written a few times about the topic. (https://www.brandonsanderson.com/some-faqs-you-might-enjoy/ https://www.brandonsanderson.com/some-faqs-you-might-enjoy/ for one instance.) Whenever I buy his books from anywhere (usually via Amazon, (or direct in the case of his Kickstarter books!) but I should start going direct through Tor for his other ones…) I get them DRM-free. I hope more authors and publishers start releasing their stuff DRM-free too. As it stands, I have a jailbroken Kindle that I run KOReader on; I use a Calibre plugin to bust the DRM off of any book I buy for my Kindle, then port the ebook over to my device. Of course, I wouldn't have to do any of that if publishers would just sell the darn things without DRM.
- Yujf 3y agoCalibre DRM busting is great. It is also what I do when adding any ebook to my library.
- james-bcn 3y agoHow do you get it to work? If I try it with a Kindle book it just comes up with a message saying it is protected by DRM.
- hanche 3y agoCalibre won’t do it out of the box, but you can install third party software to do the de-DRMing, and Calibre will use it if present. At least that is how it worked years ago. I think the Calibre web site (if not the app itself) had pointers. Sorry I can’t be more specific – I don’t have access to my laptop at the moment.
- fractallyte 3y agohttps://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/releases https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/releases Import the plugin into Calibre, provide your Kindle serial number, and then DRM removal is transparent. I have over 2000 books in my library, all DRM-free, thanks to these excellent tools.
- m-p-3 3y agoPersonally I strip the DRM of all the ebooks and movies I buy (not rent of course). Enough with the "bought, but actually renting with an undetermined end date".
- lrvick 3y agoProblem with this is it means you are giving money to providers that sell with DRM, that restricts the rights of those not technical enough to circumvent it. Piracy is more ethical than buying DRM media.
- condwanaland 3y agoYes but this also takes money away from the author, who put in a ton of work to make that book. It's not as simple as claiming the piracy is 'ethical' just because it circumvents the publisher
- Moru 3y agoI buy books and music by writing the author and asking them how to pay directly. This ofcourse only works with very small authors so I'm not buying much any more. Reading and watching movies I do from the local library.
- lxgr 3y agoDo you think that the editor, cover art designer, potentially illustrator etc. don’t deserve to get paid? I know at least one author that refuses “out-of-band payments” for that reason. And this is to say nothing about advance payments where the publisher is taking the risk of a book not selling, and the author gets paid regardless, which can be a big thing for small authors too.
- NoGravitas 3y agoI think the idea is that by hurting sales of DRM-ed books relative to DRM-free books, and by increasing the piracy problem only for DRM-ed books, you make it more attractive for publishers to sell DRM-free books, and for authors to apply pressure to their publishers in that direction. Of course, you have to put your money where your mouth is by actually buying books from DRM-free publishers (like Baen and Tor).
- chrisfosterelli 3y agoI will often buy books on kobo because it's really easy to do so and it supports the authors, but I always download a corresponding DRM free epub eventually because I want a personal library that will still work in 10 years.
- Eji1700 3y agoLibro.fm can also have drm free audio books. I ditched my kindle for a pocketbook era (yay speakers) and am just so done with any storefront that doesn't let me own things I buy.
- habosa 3y agoCan you explain how Kobo supports authors? I was not aware.
- chrisfosterelli 3y agoI understand that authors are generally paid some portion of the money from people purchasing their books either directly or indirectly.
- ddingus 3y agoSame. For many of my purchases, they came DRM free.
- themadturk 3y agoThis is me, as well. I was a Kindle user for years, always stripped the DRM. Now I use Kobo and still have those books...the ones I bought. I just changed the bookshelf, you might say.
- mark_l_watson 3y agoI just created an account on Kobo. Is there a search filter for only showing DRM free selections? All the books I saw were ePub Adobe DRM.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
- userbinator 3y agoIMHO it is more important that DRM be easily breakable, because that is how you can assert ownership.
- lxgr 3y agoNo, "easily breakable" DRMs don't really improve the situation: The laws in many countries make it specifically illegal to break/circumvent DRM (even if making a copy, e.g. for personal use or viewing it on an unsupported device, would otherwise would be legal!), which is pretty messed up. If you buy DRMed content because you know it's easily breakable, you are sending the signal that you are fine with DRM for purchased (not rented) goods, which is probably not what you want since it reinforces this unfortunate status quo. If you want to actually support "asserting ownership" of digital goods, support DRM-free content.
- treyd 3y agoWhat's the point then? How does DRM improve the user experience? Why should you have to break it?
- paulryanrogers 3y agoDRM reduces casual piracy during the critical first wave of sales, or at least that's the thinking. If DRM were illegal or impossible then fewer works may get published. Ergo there would be less to choose from.
- treyd 3y agoIs there any evidence that DRM actually leads to more works getting published long term or is this just a oft repeated anecdote? It's trying to force the logic of commodities into a medium where it does not naturally exist.
- izacus 3y agoThere has actually been several studies with proofs that DRM does nothing, but this is an emotional issue ("My feelings tell me that evil thieves need to be stopped even if I crap on users!") and proofs don't matter.
- Panini_Jones 3y agoCan someone help me move away from Audible? I have about 20 titles that I've downloaded over the years and enjoy downloading and re-listening to. What's the best audiobook solution I can use so that I can cancel my subscription?
- mcshicks 3y agoI have not tried it but is there some reason you can't simply record from an headphone jack? I thought there was some Linux app that would just do this.
- lrvick 3y agoPiracy.
- unhammer 3y agoI don't listen to many audio books, but I've bookmarked https://www.downpour.com/ https://www.downpour.com/ as a DRM-free alternative.
- jspizziri 3y agoDespite its many flaws, I use Plex as the single place for all my video and audio content. If you pay for the lifetime pass, you get access to an app called Plexamp which is designed for playing back audio. Cancel your subscription, download all your books from audible, put them on a NAS, run Plex, and use Plexamp for access. I still buy things via Audible, I just immediately download them and load them into my Plex server.
- alexfromapex 3y agoAnd Kindle and Apple Books
- mark_l_watson 3y agoI have been using Libro.fm. Also, you can put your Audible membership on hold, and still have access to books you have paid money for, but not the free members books.
- iansinnott 3y ago
- mark_l_watson 3y agoCory Doctorow writes on this subject, on how important owning digital media, open platforms, etc. I also have a few comments: All of the recent ebooks I have written are DRM free. While I do buy Amazon Kindle and Audible books sometimes, I try really hard to find DRM versions of what I want to read. As someone else here mentioned, it is good to have a personal library that is still readable in 10 years. For audio books, I find Libro.fm to be awesome: DRM free, great prices, and nice app and infrastructure.
- NoGravitas 3y agoYou just made a sale (of Loving Common Lisp, sight-unseen since I love CL, and it was mentioned in another comment).
- aidenn0 3y agoFrom your comment, I looked to your username. I'm a happy owner of Loving Common Lisp; and for technical material it's particularly nice to be DRM free.
- mark_l_watson 3y agoThanks!
- foobarbecue 3y agoCase in point: I bought one of my favorite books from Amazon as a kindle e-book about 10 years ago. It was Ring, by Stephen Baxer. Somehow Amazon screwed up and replaced the English version with a German copy. It's now impossible to buy or download in English -- only German is available. I complained to Amazon customer support and they issued me a refund... but I can't find any way to get them to fix it, and no way to read the book in English. Wish I had downloaded a DRM-free copy.
- jraby3 3y agoIs this it? https://zlibrary-africa.se/book/4656372/ff14fc https://zlibrary-africa.se/book/4656372/ff14fc
- arcanemachiner 3y agoI don't think you should be linking to that stuff here. Besides, I'm pretty sure it's this one: http://library.lol/main/DF685E8ED6CBF00858A861342AAF6DED http://library.lol/main/DF685E8ED6CBF00858A861342AAF6DED
- WalterBright 3y agoYou can buy a used copy from Amazon with shipping cheaper than the ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Xeelee-Sequence-Stephen-Baxter/dp/0061056944/ https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Xeelee-Sequence-Stephen-Baxter/d...
- foobarbecue 3y agoYep, I have bought that a few times.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- GhostVII 3y agoI don't really get how a DRM free library works. Based on the article at least it seems like being DRM-free means people can keep the book as long as they want? What's the difference between that, and just letting anyone download the book for free online? DRM for books will of course always be easily bypassible - it's just text and images, not exactly hard to copy. But I don't see how a "library" can work without some limit on how long you can be using a piece of content.
- fooker 3y agoCall it a repository if you want to. Artificially imposing a limitation doesn’t seem like a great thing to do.
- GhostVII 3y agoIf there is no limitation, why would anyone pay for the ebook though when they can just get it for free from the library indefinitely? I just don't get how this works from the authors side, are they supposed to just give away their book to everyone for free? Or is the idea that the library compensates them enough to cover the costs of them writing the book.
- fooker 3y agoThe library could have a monthly fee. The library could charge per download. There could be be ads, though that seems distasteful. None of these require making an ebook available for a limited amount of time.
- marcus_holmes 3y agoI thought they discussed this in the article? > While pricing for unlimited-user, DRM-free e-books is higher than the cost of traditional 1-user versions protected by DRM technology, DRM-free materials are also seeing more usage—and so the cost per use is ultimately lower. I read that as: for some works, the libraries are buying "unlimited-user" licences that basically allows them to give away copies of the book to borrowers (not "borrowers" any more, I guess?).
- everyone 3y agoVoting with our wallets is one of the very few ways we can influence the capitalist society we live in. I never buy anything with DRM.
- criddell 3y agoI wish we could vote with our votes… I know it will never happen, but I would love it if our government tried to strike a different balance between the rights of buyers and sellers of ebooks. DRM should be allowed, but it must expire when the copyright does, it must accommodate transferring titles from one person to another, it must provide a way for accessibility devices to access the book, it must not lock readers into a single ecosystem, etc…
- corethree 3y agoThe problem is I vote without my wallet. If there's no DRM likely I'll get it without paying for it. So it's my vote against yours.
- corethree 3y agoI love how people just skim over the situation and are like no DRM no DRM! without asking why DRM exists. It exists because of me. To eliminate DRM you have to deal with people like me who very much exist. A discussion is worth more than lying to yourself and voting me down. Plenty and I mean plenty of people responding and reading this thread is Exactly like me.
- shric 3y agoI'm with you 100% on never buying anything with DRM, but I wouldn't think for one second that it's going to influence any business. We are in the tiniest minority. We're in a world full of DRM precisely because it's so lucrative compared to the alternative.
- jraby3 3y agoI moved abroad several years ago and basically gave up on purchasing books. Unless the author sells an epub version I usually pirate them now. It got so frustrating finding out a book wasn’t available in my part of the world once I tried to purchase it.
- xavdid 3y agoI wholeheartedly agree. I saw a great quote that summaries how I feel: Piracy isn't stealing if purchasing isn't ownership Whenever I buy something, I start by trying to find a DRM-free version. ebooks.com has a whole section devoted to this (https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/drm-free/ https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/drm-free/) and https://libro.fm https://libro.fm exclusively sells DRM-free. Failing that, I mostly get things from my local library (via Libby). Conveniently, those all have weak DRM, so one could still build a personal library that way.
- neilv 3y ago> Failing that, I mostly get things from my local library (via Libby). Conveniently, those all have weak DRM, so one could still build a personal library that way. Doesn't this motivate publishers to only let books be shared from public libraries using strong DRM?
- xavdid 3y agoIf it's a big enough problem, then maybe. Honestly it just seems like a cat and mouse game - there'll always be dedicated people willing to crack any new DRM scheme that comes out. I would guess that the DRM mostly does its job though, but it's hard to say for sure!
- neilv 3y agoSeems like it's creating a problem for libraries. Libraries to Publishers: Please stop abusing our readers so much. Readers: The library helps me pirate, muahahaha. Publishers: I rest my case.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- twiceaday 3y agoThat quote is pirate propaganda. 1) All of the heavy lifting is done sneakily by the word "purchasing." Of course "purchasing" something feels like you ought to own it, but did you "purchase" X or did you just pay for limited access to it? That's the entire debate, but this quote baits you into thinking of everything in terms of purchasing / panders to people that already do. 2) This quote amounts to "if paying cannot get you full ownership of X then getting a full copy of X for free is not stealing (so go ahead)." How about you always pay the creator and then pirate only for the additional ownership rights? I'm sure the quote reads that way to some people, but clearly it was crafted to also appeal to the "I just want stuff for free" crowd.
- natch 3y agoThis line from the article was a real off-key note: “Unfortunately, software that strips an e-book of its DRM protections is readily available online.” What??? UNfortunately? And this is coming from Library Journal?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- davisr 3y agoJust buy paperbacks and scan them. Way easier than changing how publishers do things. http://www.davisr.me/projects/books/ http://www.davisr.me/projects/books/ On that note, do the same for your CDs and Blu-Rays.
- eviks 3y agoThat'd be such a massive time waste if everyone did that tindividually, if you were capable of convincing people to expend that much effort, it'd be way easier to ask them change all the copyright laws
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kuang_eleven 3y agoI've switched almost entirely to ebooks for fiction, but I will only buy books that fit the following criteria: 1. DRM-free 2. No more expensive than the cheapest suggested retail price 3. Available in a generic format (EPUB, preferably) So far, I've had excellent luck with Baen books, and decent luck with Tor books and miserable luck with just about every other publisher. Still, jokes on them, I will just pirate if I can't find a version that fits my criteria.
- tene80i 3y agoThe joke is of course also on the authors who will not be compensated by you for reading their work.
- concordDance 3y agoThen they shouldn't use a DRM publisher.
- tene80i 3y agoYou think that because of your beliefs you should be able both to enjoy somebody’s work and not pay them? Boycott them if you want - that’s absolutely fair. But enjoying their work anyway, and just not paying, is unprincipled and cheap. And arguing that it’s their fault that you’re stiffing them is awfully convenient.
- concordDance 3y agoCan you argue this position using a consequentialist utilitarianism system?
- tene80i 3y agoSure, because only the most trivial forms of utilitarian are act-by-act. A rule-utilitarianism could easily require us to pay one another for things, even things we could just take, to maximise overall utility. If you think it needs to be act-by-act, you prove it. But start with why consequentialism is a better ethical system than any other.
- neilv 3y agoPersonally, I have a rule against buying DRM books. If a title is only legally available with DRM, I'll just do without, not pirate. When the book is available non-DRM, such as from ebooks.com, I've paid a hefty premium over the Kindle DRM price. Thanks to O'Reilly for being clueful enough to sell non-DRM versions. If the DRM situation gets even worse, I don't know what I'll do. I'd like the DRM situation to get better, not worse.
- Moldoteck 3y agoYou also can pirate the book and send the money to the author, or even ask the author in the mail if they can send you a drm free copy for some money
- humpydumpy 3y agoThis, exactly this! Spending money on DRM is supporting DRM, even when stripping it afterwards. Not too long ago I heard about some fantasy series that I really wanted to read. It wasn't available as DRMfree e-book, so I got the paper books second hand. Reading them reminded me again how much nicer e-books are, especially when travelling. I have since gotten recommendations for two more fantasy series which appear very interesting. Again, no DRMfree e-book available. This time I decided I will just not read them. Imagine how quickly we could get rid of all DRM if everybody simply stopped buying DRM! The world would be so much better! To me it feels like a moral obligation to not support any kind of DRM. Luckily there are plenty of authors and distributors who support DRMfree books, games, audio. Let's make the world a better place, for ourselves and for the next generations, by simply refusing DRM!
- AnonHP 3y ago> Thanks to O'Reilly for being clueful enough to sell non-DRM versions. Did O’Reilly start selling ebooks again? Directly? Several years ago it stopped doing that and pushed the Safari or O’Reilly subscription as the only way to read its catalog of books. I provided feedback at that time, but the policies didn’t change. But I have seen some O’Reilly books in Humble Bundle sales once in a while. There was also a time when O’Reilly and Apress would have a “deal of the day” every single day, selling ebooks at a much lower price than retail..all DRM free. I haven’t seen those in years.
- shmerl 3y agoWe need more DRM-free stores for books.
- cosmojg 3y agoI only ever pay money for physical books and DRM-free ebooks. Otherwise, I just hit up the local library or, failing that, Anna's Archive.
- riffraff 3y agoMan I just bought a book on Amazon after a long time. It is illustrated as a comic (but not considered a comic) and due to the shitty experience with the Kindle desktop app and Kindle web app I am unable to actually zoom and read it properly as I would with any PDF or CBZ. Basically removing the DRM and converting it is the only way I'd be able to enjoy it and to do that I'd need the whole calibre+dedrm machinery which I'm not even sure works on my box. Damn Amazon and DRM using publishers.