11 ms·

Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks

634 points by captn3m0 10mo ago

sapphirebreeze 10mo ago
[dead]
Flimm 10mo ago
Can anyone find even one DRM-free ebook on Amazon Kindle?
- criddell 10mo ago
  All Tor books (the publisher, not the privacy tool) are DRM free.
- metaphor 10mo ago
  I've noticed a lot in the SFF genre, including my current fiction read: Joe Abercrombie's latest release The Devils[1]. You'll see something like the following on the bottom of book details: > At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3CB76TV https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3CB76TV
- NetMageSCW 10mo ago
  There are thousands.
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nottorp 10mo ago
For all three DRM-free titles?
- literalAardvark 10mo ago
  Not even, it's opt-in.
- NetMageSCW 10mo ago
  There are thousands.
cwillu 10mo ago
But only if the author/publisher explicitly go in and permit it. This isn't announcing that pdf's and epub's are now available for everything that was drm-free, this is announcing that they will _permit_ pdf's and epub's to be available.
- inquirerGeneral 10mo ago
  [dead]
- _heimdall 10mo ago
  That seems reasonable enough to me though. It should be the publisher's choice what formats of the book they are willing to sell.
  - makeitdouble 10mo ago
    Having the action prominent and potentially with the default reversed would still leave it to the publisher's choice. We can understand why they do it this way (they only need the option to exist, and can afford to apply dark patterns to it), but we don't need to excuse Amazon. Especially when they don't give a shit about what we think in the first place.
    - _heimdall 10mo ago
      Oh I wouldn't expect Amazon to care what I think, especially with regards to digital books as at least I am not a customer. I'm also not going to write off everything they do as evil only because of who they are though. Defaulting to disabled vs enabled would be reasonable too, though I don't know enough publishers or independent authors to know which option would be more often selected to pick a default.
- codazoda 10mo ago
  I'm a self-published author. This is the default setting for new books uploaded without DRM. It's gated behind an "I understand" checkbox. I plan to allow my books to be downloaded as PDF and ePUB. It makes sense not to do this retroactively.
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tgsovlerkhgsel 10mo ago
How many books are actually available DRM-free? This reads a bit like "Amazon will provide free land, construct a paddock and provide feed for life if you order a unicorn, except unicorns don't exist".
- PaulRobinson 10mo ago
  Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the above a lot more, and much more besides.
  - sallveburrpi 10mo ago
    Mildly sad is also that you seem to fault GP for not “exploring” more, instead of the insane practice of DRMing everything in the first place. I never have purchased DRM protected media and never will - I’d rather pirate everything digital and but physical hard copies.
    - PaulRobinson 10mo ago
      I don’t actually think it’s their fault, and if they feel I’m faulting them, that wasn’t the intention. I think it’s sad that what we thought everyone saw as a nonsense is now so normalised that alternatives are just disappearing from view. Everyone should be encouraged to explore. Piracy is your preferred option, but when that became more mainstream we actually ended up creating the market for more DRM, in the form of iTunes, Spotify and others. I’m not sure I want the future of digital media to be entirely subscription-based like that. What might be a better solution is showing that media creators can achieve more of their own objectives through releasing media without DRM. This only works if their objectives are not entirely around making money from media sales, and more aligned to influence, or audience building. I’m actually surprised at this point that musicians - given they don’t make money from streaming services and see them as tools to build audiences for live tours where they really make their money - don’t just jump over already.
TheSilva 10mo ago
Too little too late, already ditched the whole ecosystem after so many years and devices.
- bambax 10mo ago
  Same. I'm done.
  - freedomben 10mo ago
    Yep, never again. I tried to take a pragmatic position with the DRM, and it is just not possible. I buy the crap out of DRM free stuff, but if it's not DRM free, it's not for me
- misterbishop 10mo ago
  The only previous option was not paying for books. This change at least creates the potential for a path to pay for books, if publishers accept it.
  - TheCoelacanth 10mo ago
    No, these publishers were already available DRM-free from other stores.
- paradox460 10mo ago
  Same here. Switched to a Boox, installed koreader, set up sync thing. It's insane how much better a reading experience this is
ggm 10mo ago
So Gutenberg and the internet archive could monetise click through links or an affiliate program? No disrespect intended, if this meant we could fund them with Amazon pitching in some vig I'd think about it. Mind you, they'd probably make more with direct donation per person, but Amazon could drive many multiples more via the store.
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IlikeKitties 10mo ago
The current experience of using a Kobo Libre Color, Koreader, any webdav mounted in koreader and pirating everything on annas archive et. al. cannot be beat by any commercial offering. Unsuprisingly my copy of 1984 has never been deleted from my NAS
- Suggger 10mo ago
  You are essentially a distributed Fahrenheit 451 node.
- stringsandchars 10mo ago
  > pirating everything on annas archive et. al. cannot be beat by any commercial offering While I understand people pirating movies - there are hundreds of movies I'd happily pay to watch, but which are literally unavailable to me because of some arbitrary 'regional' restriction imposed by the distributors. But I can't think of a single book that isn't available in most parts of the world - certainly they're available wherever a Kobo is for sale. So how are new books going to be published in the future, if people like you don't pay writers for their work? Would you like your work to be pirated, so you wouldn't be able to even buy another Kobo?
  - spidermonkey23 10mo ago
    I feel like if the platform is unwilling to give you access to books you posted for, you should be able to download them from arrr without authors or publishers being affected financially - buy first pirate later.
  - IAmBroom 10mo ago
    People have been writing for much longer than writing has been a profession. And their work has been published by the means of the day, which pre-Gutenberg in the West meant hand-copying. It's not immoral in any way to make a living off of your own creations, but - artists gonna art.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 10mo ago
    >Would you like your work to be pirated, Imagine being so good at writing, that people out there are trying to get a copy of it that they can upload to The Pirate Bay. Hell yeh, I'd love that... seems like reaching the big leagues.
internet_points 10mo ago
At least better than completely disallowing it I guess.
strawhatdev 10mo ago
I wonder if this is in response to Bookshop.org's DRM free e-book shop. I buy a lot of e-books and have completely switched over because of that feature.
- gizzlon 10mo ago
  Cool, but quite a small subset are DRM-free. OTOH. its seems like all the audiobooks on libro.fm are DRM-free? https://support.libro.fm/support/solutions/articles/48000695411-why-should-i-choose-libro-fm- https://support.libro.fm/support/solutions/articles/48000695...
- jwalton 10mo ago
  Bookshop.org has a DRM free section? Where do I find such a thing?
  - m01 10mo ago
    It's at least available as a search filter. On the book listing it seems to show "Type: Ebook (DRM-free)". Maybe there's a better way.
- habosa 10mo ago
  I’m waiting for Bookshop.org to offer an integration with any hardware reader for most of their books. When they do, I’ll switch to whatever that reader is.
  - BeetleB 10mo ago
    Eh? Not sure what you mean. I picked a random book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/hemlock-silver-t-kingfisher/0220022c0a495082?ean=9781250342041&next=t&listref=get-it-now-in-ebook-the-biggest-novels-of-the-year https://bookshop.org/p/books/hemlock-silver-t-kingfisher/022... It's DRM Free, and available as an ePub. Other than Kindle, what device does not accept ePub?
    - habosa 10mo ago
syntaxing 10mo ago
Just get a kobo instead. The price difference between with ads and a new kobo is minimal. Not worth the Amazon headache with a locked down device.
- icedrift 10mo ago
  Thing is Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you don't mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and add koreader.
  - stringsandchars 10mo ago
    > Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you don't mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and add koreader. Because Amazon were increasingly locking-down their systems - and also because they are all-round shits - I decided to abandon the ecosystem having been a customer since the days they only sold books. I have owned two Paperwhites, two Oasis devices, and a Kindle Scribe. I sold all of them last year and bought a Kobo Libra Colour. I get WAY more joy from reading on the Kobo. I love buying books from the Kobo store (yes I know they also have DRM) - and I'm buying and reading WAY more on the Kobo than I was at the end of my time with Amazon. Every time I buy yet another book on the Kobo Store I feel the thrill of sticking it to the horrible, anti-user shits at Amazon.
  - syntaxing 10mo ago
    How so? Just looking online, the prices between a Kindle and Clara BW is minimal (the Clara BW is actually cheaper). I don’t see how the hardware is better when they use the same exact screen…
  - WolfeReader 10mo ago
    Try actually using a Kobo reader sometime.
  - wishfish 10mo ago
    I've had both. Kobo is fine hardware-wise. And light years better on software than Kindle. One huge example: I have 1000+ books in Calibre. Took the time to tag them all into their respective categories. Kobo recognizes those tags and my book collection is sorted. With Kindle, I'd have to sort by hand on device. It ignores Calibre tags. For this feature alone, I'd never go back to Kindle. Sure, I might be able to replicate it with jailbreaking + KOReader. But the Kobo worked this way out of the box.
embedding-shape 10mo ago
Hah, they actually did a slight rollback! When I first heard about them stopping the downloads, I immediately downloaded all the books I purchased from Amazon and went from buying ~1 book per week to 0. Seems a lot of us doing so had some sort of effect. Unfortunately, it seems like this will be chosen by the publisher, so of course probably most of the books won't be downloadable at all, and Amazon can now point their finger at the publisher instead of taking the blame themselves. Publishers was probably always the reason behind the move, but at least now Amazon have someone else to blame, which I guess is great for them.
- Finnucane 10mo ago
  It’s pretty unusual for Amazon to put any other entity’s interest ahead of it’s own, so they can be presumed to have some business reason for it, like the number of people who’ve decided not to buy from them any more.
- ay 10mo ago
  I have bought more than 600 books over a decade or so; But after they decided the ebooks were actually just license to read, I did exactly the same as you, and now rather than happily buying from them, actively discourage everyone in my social circle from using kindle. I am not going back, whoever they decide to blame.
  - ashton314 10mo ago
    What do you do now? I’ve been buying physical books off of Abe Books—not a bad thing at all—but I’d like to use my jailbroken kindle again because the form factor is so convenient.
    - JimmyBiscuit 10mo ago
      Not the guy but you can just buy your ebooks from someplace else and use calibre to convert/send them to your kindle. Im kinda cheeky and use Amazons Send-to-Kindle service to send ebooks in epub format to my kindle via wifi
monomial 10mo ago
Do yourself a favor and go get a Kobo reader, install KO Reader on it and never look back.
- mapontosevenths 10mo ago
  I like to be able to price shop, but I do want to support the authors. So I use Kobo & Kindle, then buy it wherever it's cheapest usually. Then I use epubor ultimate to convert to epub and read it on my generic e-ink reader. Some folks object to the licensing or whatever with epubor (unattributed GPL?) but it works, it's easy, and when Amazon tightens up the DRM they always find a way around it eventually.
  - freedomben 10mo ago
    Dang, it's unfortunate they don't support Linux
drpixie 10mo ago
What's amazon's angle on this? Because it's not believable that they wouldn't have an angle. So the real question is - how is amazon going to enshitify drm-free books? Are they trying to wipe out gutenburg, standard-ebooks, etc? Are they trying to be the youtube of drm-free? The place where everyone goes, and that becomes crap due updating Ts&Cs - inserting ads or charges?
SoKamil 10mo ago
I hope they will allow me to download e-books that I uploaded through their upload site. I do backups but better be safe than sorry.
p0w3n3d 10mo ago
So much for your master’s mercy
wrxd 10mo ago
This was unexpected. They lost me as a customer when they stopped allowing me to download books I bought and I'm in the Kobo (+ BookLore) side now and I am not coming back. I wonder how many books are actually DRM-free and are going to be affected by this change. I suspect relatively few, but I would be happy to be wrong
- NikolaNovak 10mo ago
  For me it appears highly genre-correlated. High percentage of science fiction books come with a small statement "this book is drm free on request of publisher / author". Zero of my photography, music, computer science or graphic novels came with such a tag.
  - delecti 10mo ago
    Yeah, Tor Books publishes without DRM, and they seem to be one of the bigger SFF publishers these days. John Scalzi, George R.R. Martin (though not the ASoIaF books), Robert Jordan, Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, and a bunch of other SFF authors I recognize. I'm sure there are others, but all the once I've noticed have been from Tor.
    - freedomben 10mo ago
      Indeed, and I love Tor for this. Brandon Sanderson has also come out against DRM. I already loved the man's books, now I love the man too
  - m463 10mo ago
    same here. I've also purchased some books that are available as serials on the web for free. I would imagine those publishers would be aligned with making them .epub
- DennisP 10mo ago
  I bought a Kobo for the same reason but when it came to buying books, none of the books I wanted to buy were on Kobo's store.
partomniscient 10mo ago
They're still going to take note of what you're reading and possibly brand you as a non-ultra-capitalist disruptor. Amazon can get fucked. I still buy physical media from them once a year (November) when availabilty and rest of the world can't compete price-wise. Yes I recognise the hypocrisy of said actions and minimise it as much as possible. Non-US based. Many physical media producers (e.g. Disney) no longer produce stuff for our 'region'.
icqFDR 10mo ago
I’d advise anyone buying e-books on Amazon to think it through carefully. My account was banned recently because, years ago, I ordered two paper books that Amazon said would be split into two shipments. Both books arrived without any issues, but later Amazon refunded me for one of them, claiming that one package never arrived. This happened 4–5 years ago. Apparently, during a recent review, they decided this counted as fraud and banned my account. As a result, I can no longer log in and lost access to all my Kindle e-books. They also remotely wiped my Kindle, so my entire library is gone. I appealed the decision, but I’ve been waiting for over six months with no resolution.
- jgbuddy 10mo ago
  I work at Amazon and can escalate this if you're interested. Let me know the order ID and I'll see what I can do.
- wrxd 10mo ago
  Unfortunately bad press is likely going to be the only thing to give you your account back. You should write a blog post and let the internet and the media do its magic
  - arcanemachiner 10mo ago
    Pretty much what I was going to say. I think Twitter (or whatever social media people use these days) would be a more appropriate place to put the company "on blast".
    - onemoresoop 10mo ago
      That's not a sensible solution for us all.
- sheepscreek 10mo ago
  That is truly insane - sorry that you’re unable to access the books that you rightly purchased. Though I highly doubt this alone was the reason for an account ban. Is it possible your credentials were stolen/misused without your knowledge?
alexnewman 10mo ago
I believe every book I buy I’m allowed to backup in any format I want. Come and get me
asplake 10mo ago
As the author of five books (and my most recent one entirely self-published), I haven't yet worked out how I feel about this or how to respond. My current compromise is to charge more on the DRM-free LeanPub.
- criddell 10mo ago
  How do you evaluate if the DRM is working as intended?
  - asplake 10mo ago
    Sales on Amazon are working as intended. DRM there is not a variable I can control.
    - deleted 10mo ago
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- wrxd 10mo ago
  Out of curiosity, what’s the ratio between sales on Amazon and the DRM-free option?
  - asplake 10mo ago
    Amazon wins by miles, almost to the point of incomparability. For all my issues with Amazon, that’s fine by me: compared to all other platforms, that’s where the reviews and other forms of social proof are.
- freedomben 10mo ago
  Genuine questions here, not rhetorical or trying to imply anything with them. Why charge more on a DRM free site? Do you think people buying from there are doing so that they can share the book illegally? If someone wants to share the book illegally, I would imagine they'll just download it from one of the pirate mirrors out there and not bother paying you at all. My guess is you're probably just reducing the number of people willing to pay the price. Classic supply and demand curve against price.
foormanek 10mo ago
Nobody with sane mind cares. You may buy Kindle, but then you jailbreak it right away. You can "buy" Kindle e-books, but then you exfiltrate these right away. When you stand your ground, what can Amazon allow you or not allow?
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  Spoken like a techie, with the attitude NYers have to the "flyover states". Only tech-savvy people who are morally OK with pirating and jailbreaking are "sane"?
  - watwut 10mo ago
    > Spoken like a techie, with the attitude NYers have to the "flyover states". Like you mean, when people from what you call "flyover states" demonized cities so much, that they are ok sending armies into them? Lets be real, the overwhelming majority if derision and toxicity flows the other way.
  - foormanek 10mo ago
    Hardware I pay for should be mine. If I do not jailbreak it, it is still theirs, despite me paying for it. They cheat, not me. Same goes for e-books, they can cut me off, they can (and do) change contents on the fly. I keep exfiltrated books for myself, and that is right.
- freedomben 10mo ago
  Sure, if you don't mind playing a stupid cat and mouse game with one of the largest corporations on the planet, go for it. I did it for a bit and got real tired of the drag. Now if a book is available from a DRM free source, I buy it. Otherwise something else
- WolfeReader 10mo ago
  You're financially incentivising them. You could do the same process with Kobo, without rewarding Amazon at all.
jrm4 10mo ago
Haha, what a headline. The internet "allows" ePub and PDF downloads for ALL books. Adjust yourselves accordingly.
- everdrive 10mo ago
  Amazon deserves a lot of criticism in the general sense, but this can only be seen as a positive move. Most importantly, if they set an industry standard, others might follow. Fundamentally, I prefer a physical book to a digital one. But, the primary reason I'd never even entertain a digital book is the lack of ownership. Ownership is incredibly important, and we need to celebrate victories when they happen.
  - freedomben 10mo ago
    I agree this is a positive step, but this is like notch 1 on a scale of 0 to 100, 0 being maximum abuse of your customer. I think it's downright evil not to allow this for DRM free books, which they have been doing for many years now. It is positive that they reduced the level of evil by a little bit, and I'll give them credit for that, but this movement is so minor in the scope of things that it does not sway me whatsoever to go back to buying from their Kindle store
  - jrm4 10mo ago
    Why? Genuine question. What's to "celebrate?" This is like "celebrating" a ketchup company removing the rat hairs.
  - TheCoelacanth 10mo ago
    It's a positive move, but too little, too late. These same publishers have already been available DRM-free from other stores for a long time.
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  Not every person likes sailing under the Jolly Roger, matey.
  - 10mo ago
yanhangyhy 10mo ago
time to pick up my e-book reader again..
deleted 10mo ago
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cft 10mo ago
All ePub and PDF downloads are here: https://open-slum.org/ https://open-slum.org/
barbazoo 10mo ago
First think I do and have ever done after having had to buy a book from Amazon: Pull it into Calibre and remove DRM. These days I don’t buy from them but the same with Kobo which is a better company to begin with.
- criddell 10mo ago
  The latest version of Amazon's DRM can't be reliably removed by the DeDRM package. I still use a Kindle eReader (an Oasis) but I now buy books from Kobo because those are easy to strip DRM from.
sometimez 10mo ago
Recently signed up for Littler Books for the sole reason they offered everything in epub, pdf and Word doc. Sad this is not the standard for paid content.
1970-01-01 10mo ago
This is all very interesting news. From a sales standpoint, they're nearly admitting they cannot manage DRM properly and at Amazon scale. From a copyright standpoint, antipiracy will be extremely hard to enforce. The only middle ground is targeting honest buyers, and we all know how well that works. We should not expect this to be a permanent change. Perhaps it will be more of a very short, DRM-free golden age until another Amazon executive comes down and ends this experiment.
- wrxd 10mo ago
  This is not about making all books DRM-free. It's about allowing downloads for the ones that are already DRM-free, if the publishers opt-in
  - 1970-01-01 10mo ago
    Thanks, I missed the key detail!
daft_pink 10mo ago
So weird. They lock it down so you can’t put stuff on their device, but now you can buy drm free on some other device?
kgwxd 10mo ago
Thank you great exalted one! We don't deserve your endless generosity.
misterbishop 10mo ago
This is a step in the right direction. Now publishers need to take it up. DRM-free is a precondition for me buying digital books personally. Practically no major digital bookstore offers it.
shevy-java 10mo ago
I think we should not allow Amazon to control our digital life. Same with Google etc... just look how bad youtube has gotten. I try to find a video xyz, using the search term xyz, and after like 5 results, random videos show up. That is not a "search", that is propaganda and an attempt to retain people on the platform - but I am already on the platform playing BACKGROUND MUSIC of some DJs. Why is Google wasting my time when I want to FIND something? And what is even worse - that leaked onto the search engine too. The search engine has been ruined by Google deliberately so in the last some years.
beej71 10mo ago
Well, it's a step in the right direction. I will never pay for an ebook that I cannot permanently possess. And DRM is pointless. At some point the words become visible and therefore are copyable.
nullorempty 10mo ago
I could see them buying the rights to popular free or DRM-free books and bringing them into their store, along with all the consequences that would entail. Not to mention the spying they'll do - Whatcha reading?
hereme888 10mo ago
I have zero qualms removing DRM or downloading pirated version of media I have previously purchased. I don't let those laws (corporate opinions) degrade my quality of life.
caseysoftware 10mo ago
I've "collected" 500+ Kindle titles over the years and stopped buying from them completely when they blocked downloads earlier this year. When they enable these downloads, I'm going to export the ones I didn't get last time and continue NOT buying from them. Fool me once..
butlike 10mo ago
Wow it took this long to adopt epub?
- Finnucane 10mo ago
  Amazon adopted epub several years ago. Publishers provide files to them as plain epub files. What they sell is an epub file in a proprietary wrapper. The wrapper exists, in part, to provide the DRM. If they remove the DRM, they can remove the wrapper and give you a plan epub file.
zenethian 10mo ago
Too little too late. I’ve already ditched Amazon for ebooks in favor of Kobo’s ecosystem. It’s not flawless but it’s not soul sucking either.
mrlonglong 10mo ago
How do I know if any of the books I already have are DRM free? And how to get the epub or PDF?
motbus3 10mo ago
Well... Lots of companies are snitching their customers now
poemxo 10mo ago
I thought they already allowed this. Is this a reversal on a recent restriction?
drnick1 10mo ago
I'll never use Amazon for anything that isn't physically delivered to my door. They can keep their Fire tablets, TVs, and other spyware.
epage 10mo ago
Is there a way to check the DRM status before purchase?
wosined 10mo ago
Amazon is hostile to your property rights. Don't buy from them.
Snacklive 10mo ago
Recently i bought a book from Kindle because i couldn't find it in any other platform and I'm so happy it only cost me 1$ because i haven't been able to download the ePub version, none of the methods on the internet have worked for me or they need to use a physical kindle device. God it's so frustrating i just want to read a 1$ book on my Kobo
- derwiki 10mo ago
  What book?
user3939382 10mo ago
Oh and will it silently edit those as well? Fuck Amazon
Bridged7756 10mo ago
I have a kindle. And it's really good, I've never read as much. Ive never bought a single thing from its store, only sideloaded though. And seeing the recent events im more worried about Amazon pulling the plug on side loading stuff. Turns out it's not that complicated to jailbreak your kindle though, so that's what I'm doing this weekend.
Joel_LeBlanc 10mo ago
It's an interesting move by Amazon, and evaluating DRM effectiveness is crucial, especially if you're considering investing in digital assets that use it. In my experience, the best approach is to analyze user feedback and sales performance post-implementation. I've found that tools like the Digital Real Estate Analyzer (DREA) can really help streamline the due diligence process, especially for assessing the potential stability of a digital asset. It’s all about understanding how these changes impact both the market and user experience.

634 points by captn3m0 10mo ago

sapphirebreeze 10mo ago

[dead]

Flimm 10mo ago

Can anyone find even one DRM-free ebook on Amazon Kindle?

criddell 10mo ago
All Tor books (the publisher, not the privacy tool) are DRM free.
metaphor 10mo ago
I've noticed a lot in the SFF genre, including my current fiction read: Joe Abercrombie's latest release The Devils[1]. You'll see something like the following on the bottom of book details: > At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3CB76TV https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3CB76TV
NetMageSCW 10mo ago
There are thousands.

deleted 10mo ago

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nottorp 10mo ago

For all three DRM-free titles?

literalAardvark 10mo ago
Not even, it's opt-in.
NetMageSCW 10mo ago
There are thousands.

cwillu 10mo ago

But only if the author/publisher explicitly go in and permit it. This isn't announcing that pdf's and epub's are now available for everything that was drm-free, this is announcing that they will _permit_ pdf's and epub's to be available.

inquirerGeneral 10mo ago
[dead]
_heimdall 10mo ago
That seems reasonable enough to me though. It should be the publisher's choice what formats of the book they are willing to sell.
- makeitdouble 10mo ago
  Having the action prominent and potentially with the default reversed would still leave it to the publisher's choice. We can understand why they do it this way (they only need the option to exist, and can afford to apply dark patterns to it), but we don't need to excuse Amazon. Especially when they don't give a shit about what we think in the first place.
  - _heimdall 10mo ago
    Oh I wouldn't expect Amazon to care what I think, especially with regards to digital books as at least I am not a customer. I'm also not going to write off everything they do as evil only because of who they are though. Defaulting to disabled vs enabled would be reasonable too, though I don't know enough publishers or independent authors to know which option would be more often selected to pick a default.
codazoda 10mo ago
I'm a self-published author. This is the default setting for new books uploaded without DRM. It's gated behind an "I understand" checkbox. I plan to allow my books to be downloaded as PDF and ePUB. It makes sense not to do this retroactively.

deleted 10mo ago

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tgsovlerkhgsel 10mo ago

How many books are actually available DRM-free? This reads a bit like "Amazon will provide free land, construct a paddock and provide feed for life if you order a unicorn, except unicorns don't exist".

PaulRobinson 10mo ago
Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the above a lot more, and much more besides.
- sallveburrpi 10mo ago
  Mildly sad is also that you seem to fault GP for not “exploring” more, instead of the insane practice of DRMing everything in the first place. I never have purchased DRM protected media and never will - I’d rather pirate everything digital and but physical hard copies.
  - PaulRobinson 10mo ago
    I don’t actually think it’s their fault, and if they feel I’m faulting them, that wasn’t the intention. I think it’s sad that what we thought everyone saw as a nonsense is now so normalised that alternatives are just disappearing from view. Everyone should be encouraged to explore. Piracy is your preferred option, but when that became more mainstream we actually ended up creating the market for more DRM, in the form of iTunes, Spotify and others. I’m not sure I want the future of digital media to be entirely subscription-based like that. What might be a better solution is showing that media creators can achieve more of their own objectives through releasing media without DRM. This only works if their objectives are not entirely around making money from media sales, and more aligned to influence, or audience building. I’m actually surprised at this point that musicians - given they don’t make money from streaming services and see them as tools to build audiences for live tours where they really make their money - don’t just jump over already.

TheSilva 10mo ago

Too little too late, already ditched the whole ecosystem after so many years and devices.

bambax 10mo ago
Same. I'm done.
- freedomben 10mo ago
  Yep, never again. I tried to take a pragmatic position with the DRM, and it is just not possible. I buy the crap out of DRM free stuff, but if it's not DRM free, it's not for me
misterbishop 10mo ago
The only previous option was not paying for books. This change at least creates the potential for a path to pay for books, if publishers accept it.
- TheCoelacanth 10mo ago
  No, these publishers were already available DRM-free from other stores.
paradox460 10mo ago
Same here. Switched to a Boox, installed koreader, set up sync thing. It's insane how much better a reading experience this is

ggm 10mo ago

So Gutenberg and the internet archive could monetise click through links or an affiliate program? No disrespect intended, if this meant we could fund them with Amazon pitching in some vig I'd think about it. Mind you, they'd probably make more with direct donation per person, but Amazon could drive many multiples more via the store.

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IlikeKitties 10mo ago

The current experience of using a Kobo Libre Color, Koreader, any webdav mounted in koreader and pirating everything on annas archive et. al. cannot be beat by any commercial offering. Unsuprisingly my copy of 1984 has never been deleted from my NAS

Suggger 10mo ago
You are essentially a distributed Fahrenheit 451 node.
stringsandchars 10mo ago
> pirating everything on annas archive et. al. cannot be beat by any commercial offering While I understand people pirating movies - there are hundreds of movies I'd happily pay to watch, but which are literally unavailable to me because of some arbitrary 'regional' restriction imposed by the distributors. But I can't think of a single book that isn't available in most parts of the world - certainly they're available wherever a Kobo is for sale. So how are new books going to be published in the future, if people like you don't pay writers for their work? Would you like your work to be pirated, so you wouldn't be able to even buy another Kobo?
- spidermonkey23 10mo ago
  I feel like if the platform is unwilling to give you access to books you posted for, you should be able to download them from arrr without authors or publishers being affected financially - buy first pirate later.
- IAmBroom 10mo ago
  People have been writing for much longer than writing has been a profession. And their work has been published by the means of the day, which pre-Gutenberg in the West meant hand-copying. It's not immoral in any way to make a living off of your own creations, but - artists gonna art.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 10mo ago
  >Would you like your work to be pirated, Imagine being so good at writing, that people out there are trying to get a copy of it that they can upload to The Pirate Bay. Hell yeh, I'd love that... seems like reaching the big leagues.

internet_points 10mo ago

At least better than completely disallowing it I guess.

strawhatdev 10mo ago

I wonder if this is in response to Bookshop.org's DRM free e-book shop. I buy a lot of e-books and have completely switched over because of that feature.

gizzlon 10mo ago
Cool, but quite a small subset are DRM-free. OTOH. its seems like all the audiobooks on libro.fm are DRM-free? https://support.libro.fm/support/solutions/articles/48000695411-why-should-i-choose-libro-fm- https://support.libro.fm/support/solutions/articles/48000695...
jwalton 10mo ago
Bookshop.org has a DRM free section? Where do I find such a thing?
- m01 10mo ago
  It's at least available as a search filter. On the book listing it seems to show "Type: Ebook (DRM-free)". Maybe there's a better way.
habosa 10mo ago
I’m waiting for Bookshop.org to offer an integration with any hardware reader for most of their books. When they do, I’ll switch to whatever that reader is.
- BeetleB 10mo ago
  Eh? Not sure what you mean. I picked a random book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/hemlock-silver-t-kingfisher/0220022c0a495082?ean=9781250342041&next=t&listref=get-it-now-in-ebook-the-biggest-novels-of-the-year https://bookshop.org/p/books/hemlock-silver-t-kingfisher/022... It's DRM Free, and available as an ePub. Other than Kindle, what device does not accept ePub?
  - habosa 10mo ago

syntaxing 10mo ago

Just get a kobo instead. The price difference between with ads and a new kobo is minimal. Not worth the Amazon headache with a locked down device.

icedrift 10mo ago
Thing is Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you don't mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and add koreader.
- stringsandchars 10mo ago
  > Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you don't mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and add koreader. Because Amazon were increasingly locking-down their systems - and also because they are all-round shits - I decided to abandon the ecosystem having been a customer since the days they only sold books. I have owned two Paperwhites, two Oasis devices, and a Kindle Scribe. I sold all of them last year and bought a Kobo Libra Colour. I get WAY more joy from reading on the Kobo. I love buying books from the Kobo store (yes I know they also have DRM) - and I'm buying and reading WAY more on the Kobo than I was at the end of my time with Amazon. Every time I buy yet another book on the Kobo Store I feel the thrill of sticking it to the horrible, anti-user shits at Amazon.
- syntaxing 10mo ago
  How so? Just looking online, the prices between a Kindle and Clara BW is minimal (the Clara BW is actually cheaper). I don’t see how the hardware is better when they use the same exact screen…
- WolfeReader 10mo ago
  Try actually using a Kobo reader sometime.
- wishfish 10mo ago
  I've had both. Kobo is fine hardware-wise. And light years better on software than Kindle. One huge example: I have 1000+ books in Calibre. Took the time to tag them all into their respective categories. Kobo recognizes those tags and my book collection is sorted. With Kindle, I'd have to sort by hand on device. It ignores Calibre tags. For this feature alone, I'd never go back to Kindle. Sure, I might be able to replicate it with jailbreaking + KOReader. But the Kobo worked this way out of the box.

embedding-shape 10mo ago

Hah, they actually did a slight rollback! When I first heard about them stopping the downloads, I immediately downloaded all the books I purchased from Amazon and went from buying ~1 book per week to 0. Seems a lot of us doing so had some sort of effect. Unfortunately, it seems like this will be chosen by the publisher, so of course probably most of the books won't be downloadable at all, and Amazon can now point their finger at the publisher instead of taking the blame themselves. Publishers was probably always the reason behind the move, but at least now Amazon have someone else to blame, which I guess is great for them.

Finnucane 10mo ago
It’s pretty unusual for Amazon to put any other entity’s interest ahead of it’s own, so they can be presumed to have some business reason for it, like the number of people who’ve decided not to buy from them any more.
ay 10mo ago
I have bought more than 600 books over a decade or so; But after they decided the ebooks were actually just license to read, I did exactly the same as you, and now rather than happily buying from them, actively discourage everyone in my social circle from using kindle. I am not going back, whoever they decide to blame.
- ashton314 10mo ago
  What do you do now? I’ve been buying physical books off of Abe Books—not a bad thing at all—but I’d like to use my jailbroken kindle again because the form factor is so convenient.
  - JimmyBiscuit 10mo ago
    Not the guy but you can just buy your ebooks from someplace else and use calibre to convert/send them to your kindle. Im kinda cheeky and use Amazons Send-to-Kindle service to send ebooks in epub format to my kindle via wifi

monomial 10mo ago

Do yourself a favor and go get a Kobo reader, install KO Reader on it and never look back.

mapontosevenths 10mo ago
I like to be able to price shop, but I do want to support the authors. So I use Kobo & Kindle, then buy it wherever it's cheapest usually. Then I use epubor ultimate to convert to epub and read it on my generic e-ink reader. Some folks object to the licensing or whatever with epubor (unattributed GPL?) but it works, it's easy, and when Amazon tightens up the DRM they always find a way around it eventually.
- freedomben 10mo ago
  Dang, it's unfortunate they don't support Linux

drpixie 10mo ago

What's amazon's angle on this? Because it's not believable that they wouldn't have an angle. So the real question is - how is amazon going to enshitify drm-free books? Are they trying to wipe out gutenburg, standard-ebooks, etc? Are they trying to be the youtube of drm-free? The place where everyone goes, and that becomes crap due updating Ts&Cs - inserting ads or charges?

SoKamil 10mo ago

I hope they will allow me to download e-books that I uploaded through their upload site. I do backups but better be safe than sorry.

p0w3n3d 10mo ago

So much for your master’s mercy

wrxd 10mo ago

This was unexpected. They lost me as a customer when they stopped allowing me to download books I bought and I'm in the Kobo (+ BookLore) side now and I am not coming back. I wonder how many books are actually DRM-free and are going to be affected by this change. I suspect relatively few, but I would be happy to be wrong

NikolaNovak 10mo ago
For me it appears highly genre-correlated. High percentage of science fiction books come with a small statement "this book is drm free on request of publisher / author". Zero of my photography, music, computer science or graphic novels came with such a tag.
- delecti 10mo ago
  Yeah, Tor Books publishes without DRM, and they seem to be one of the bigger SFF publishers these days. John Scalzi, George R.R. Martin (though not the ASoIaF books), Robert Jordan, Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, and a bunch of other SFF authors I recognize. I'm sure there are others, but all the once I've noticed have been from Tor.
  - freedomben 10mo ago
    Indeed, and I love Tor for this. Brandon Sanderson has also come out against DRM. I already loved the man's books, now I love the man too
- m463 10mo ago
  same here. I've also purchased some books that are available as serials on the web for free. I would imagine those publishers would be aligned with making them .epub
DennisP 10mo ago
I bought a Kobo for the same reason but when it came to buying books, none of the books I wanted to buy were on Kobo's store.

partomniscient 10mo ago

They're still going to take note of what you're reading and possibly brand you as a non-ultra-capitalist disruptor. Amazon can get fucked. I still buy physical media from them once a year (November) when availabilty and rest of the world can't compete price-wise. Yes I recognise the hypocrisy of said actions and minimise it as much as possible. Non-US based. Many physical media producers (e.g. Disney) no longer produce stuff for our 'region'.

icqFDR 10mo ago

I’d advise anyone buying e-books on Amazon to think it through carefully. My account was banned recently because, years ago, I ordered two paper books that Amazon said would be split into two shipments. Both books arrived without any issues, but later Amazon refunded me for one of them, claiming that one package never arrived. This happened 4–5 years ago. Apparently, during a recent review, they decided this counted as fraud and banned my account. As a result, I can no longer log in and lost access to all my Kindle e-books. They also remotely wiped my Kindle, so my entire library is gone. I appealed the decision, but I’ve been waiting for over six months with no resolution.

jgbuddy 10mo ago
I work at Amazon and can escalate this if you're interested. Let me know the order ID and I'll see what I can do.
wrxd 10mo ago
Unfortunately bad press is likely going to be the only thing to give you your account back. You should write a blog post and let the internet and the media do its magic
- arcanemachiner 10mo ago
  Pretty much what I was going to say. I think Twitter (or whatever social media people use these days) would be a more appropriate place to put the company "on blast".
  - onemoresoop 10mo ago
    That's not a sensible solution for us all.
sheepscreek 10mo ago
That is truly insane - sorry that you’re unable to access the books that you rightly purchased. Though I highly doubt this alone was the reason for an account ban. Is it possible your credentials were stolen/misused without your knowledge?

alexnewman 10mo ago

I believe every book I buy I’m allowed to backup in any format I want. Come and get me

asplake 10mo ago

As the author of five books (and my most recent one entirely self-published), I haven't yet worked out how I feel about this or how to respond. My current compromise is to charge more on the DRM-free LeanPub.

criddell 10mo ago
How do you evaluate if the DRM is working as intended?
- asplake 10mo ago
  Sales on Amazon are working as intended. DRM there is not a variable I can control.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
wrxd 10mo ago
Out of curiosity, what’s the ratio between sales on Amazon and the DRM-free option?
- asplake 10mo ago
  Amazon wins by miles, almost to the point of incomparability. For all my issues with Amazon, that’s fine by me: compared to all other platforms, that’s where the reviews and other forms of social proof are.
freedomben 10mo ago
Genuine questions here, not rhetorical or trying to imply anything with them. Why charge more on a DRM free site? Do you think people buying from there are doing so that they can share the book illegally? If someone wants to share the book illegally, I would imagine they'll just download it from one of the pirate mirrors out there and not bother paying you at all. My guess is you're probably just reducing the number of people willing to pay the price. Classic supply and demand curve against price.

foormanek 10mo ago

Nobody with sane mind cares. You may buy Kindle, but then you jailbreak it right away. You can "buy" Kindle e-books, but then you exfiltrate these right away. When you stand your ground, what can Amazon allow you or not allow?

IAmBroom 10mo ago
Spoken like a techie, with the attitude NYers have to the "flyover states". Only tech-savvy people who are morally OK with pirating and jailbreaking are "sane"?
- watwut 10mo ago
  > Spoken like a techie, with the attitude NYers have to the "flyover states". Like you mean, when people from what you call "flyover states" demonized cities so much, that they are ok sending armies into them? Lets be real, the overwhelming majority if derision and toxicity flows the other way.
- foormanek 10mo ago
  Hardware I pay for should be mine. If I do not jailbreak it, it is still theirs, despite me paying for it. They cheat, not me. Same goes for e-books, they can cut me off, they can (and do) change contents on the fly. I keep exfiltrated books for myself, and that is right.
freedomben 10mo ago
Sure, if you don't mind playing a stupid cat and mouse game with one of the largest corporations on the planet, go for it. I did it for a bit and got real tired of the drag. Now if a book is available from a DRM free source, I buy it. Otherwise something else
WolfeReader 10mo ago
You're financially incentivising them. You could do the same process with Kobo, without rewarding Amazon at all.

jrm4 10mo ago

Haha, what a headline. The internet "allows" ePub and PDF downloads for ALL books. Adjust yourselves accordingly.

everdrive 10mo ago
Amazon deserves a lot of criticism in the general sense, but this can only be seen as a positive move. Most importantly, if they set an industry standard, others might follow. Fundamentally, I prefer a physical book to a digital one. But, the primary reason I'd never even entertain a digital book is the lack of ownership. Ownership is incredibly important, and we need to celebrate victories when they happen.
- freedomben 10mo ago
  I agree this is a positive step, but this is like notch 1 on a scale of 0 to 100, 0 being maximum abuse of your customer. I think it's downright evil not to allow this for DRM free books, which they have been doing for many years now. It is positive that they reduced the level of evil by a little bit, and I'll give them credit for that, but this movement is so minor in the scope of things that it does not sway me whatsoever to go back to buying from their Kindle store
- jrm4 10mo ago
  Why? Genuine question. What's to "celebrate?" This is like "celebrating" a ketchup company removing the rat hairs.
- TheCoelacanth 10mo ago
  It's a positive move, but too little, too late. These same publishers have already been available DRM-free from other stores for a long time.
IAmBroom 10mo ago
Not every person likes sailing under the Jolly Roger, matey.
- 10mo ago

yanhangyhy 10mo ago

time to pick up my e-book reader again..

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

cft 10mo ago

All ePub and PDF downloads are here: https://open-slum.org/ https://open-slum.org/

barbazoo 10mo ago

First think I do and have ever done after having had to buy a book from Amazon: Pull it into Calibre and remove DRM. These days I don’t buy from them but the same with Kobo which is a better company to begin with.

criddell 10mo ago
The latest version of Amazon's DRM can't be reliably removed by the DeDRM package. I still use a Kindle eReader (an Oasis) but I now buy books from Kobo because those are easy to strip DRM from.

sometimez 10mo ago

Recently signed up for Littler Books for the sole reason they offered everything in epub, pdf and Word doc. Sad this is not the standard for paid content.

1970-01-01 10mo ago

This is all very interesting news. From a sales standpoint, they're nearly admitting they cannot manage DRM properly and at Amazon scale. From a copyright standpoint, antipiracy will be extremely hard to enforce. The only middle ground is targeting honest buyers, and we all know how well that works. We should not expect this to be a permanent change. Perhaps it will be more of a very short, DRM-free golden age until another Amazon executive comes down and ends this experiment.

wrxd 10mo ago
This is not about making all books DRM-free. It's about allowing downloads for the ones that are already DRM-free, if the publishers opt-in
- 1970-01-01 10mo ago
  Thanks, I missed the key detail!

daft_pink 10mo ago

So weird. They lock it down so you can’t put stuff on their device, but now you can buy drm free on some other device?

kgwxd 10mo ago

Thank you great exalted one! We don't deserve your endless generosity.

misterbishop 10mo ago

This is a step in the right direction. Now publishers need to take it up. DRM-free is a precondition for me buying digital books personally. Practically no major digital bookstore offers it.

shevy-java 10mo ago

I think we should not allow Amazon to control our digital life. Same with Google etc... just look how bad youtube has gotten. I try to find a video xyz, using the search term xyz, and after like 5 results, random videos show up. That is not a "search", that is propaganda and an attempt to retain people on the platform - but I am already on the platform playing BACKGROUND MUSIC of some DJs. Why is Google wasting my time when I want to FIND something? And what is even worse - that leaked onto the search engine too. The search engine has been ruined by Google deliberately so in the last some years.

beej71 10mo ago

Well, it's a step in the right direction. I will never pay for an ebook that I cannot permanently possess. And DRM is pointless. At some point the words become visible and therefore are copyable.

nullorempty 10mo ago

I could see them buying the rights to popular free or DRM-free books and bringing them into their store, along with all the consequences that would entail. Not to mention the spying they'll do - Whatcha reading?

hereme888 10mo ago

I have zero qualms removing DRM or downloading pirated version of media I have previously purchased. I don't let those laws (corporate opinions) degrade my quality of life.

caseysoftware 10mo ago

I've "collected" 500+ Kindle titles over the years and stopped buying from them completely when they blocked downloads earlier this year. When they enable these downloads, I'm going to export the ones I didn't get last time and continue NOT buying from them. Fool me once..

butlike 10mo ago

Wow it took this long to adopt epub?

Finnucane 10mo ago
Amazon adopted epub several years ago. Publishers provide files to them as plain epub files. What they sell is an epub file in a proprietary wrapper. The wrapper exists, in part, to provide the DRM. If they remove the DRM, they can remove the wrapper and give you a plan epub file.

zenethian 10mo ago

Too little too late. I’ve already ditched Amazon for ebooks in favor of Kobo’s ecosystem. It’s not flawless but it’s not soul sucking either.

mrlonglong 10mo ago

How do I know if any of the books I already have are DRM free? And how to get the epub or PDF?

motbus3 10mo ago

Well... Lots of companies are snitching their customers now

poemxo 10mo ago

I thought they already allowed this. Is this a reversal on a recent restriction?

drnick1 10mo ago

I'll never use Amazon for anything that isn't physically delivered to my door. They can keep their Fire tablets, TVs, and other spyware.

epage 10mo ago

Is there a way to check the DRM status before purchase?

wosined 10mo ago

Amazon is hostile to your property rights. Don't buy from them.

Snacklive 10mo ago

Recently i bought a book from Kindle because i couldn't find it in any other platform and I'm so happy it only cost me 1$ because i haven't been able to download the ePub version, none of the methods on the internet have worked for me or they need to use a physical kindle device. God it's so frustrating i just want to read a 1$ book on my Kobo

derwiki 10mo ago
What book?

user3939382 10mo ago

Oh and will it silently edit those as well? Fuck Amazon

Bridged7756 10mo ago

I have a kindle. And it's really good, I've never read as much. Ive never bought a single thing from its store, only sideloaded though. And seeing the recent events im more worried about Amazon pulling the plug on side loading stuff. Turns out it's not that complicated to jailbreak your kindle though, so that's what I'm doing this weekend.

Joel_LeBlanc 10mo ago

It's an interesting move by Amazon, and evaluating DRM effectiveness is crucial, especially if you're considering investing in digital assets that use it. In my experience, the best approach is to analyze user feedback and sales performance post-implementation. I've found that tools like the Digital Real Estate Analyzer (DREA) can really help streamline the due diligence process, especially for assessing the potential stability of a digital asset. It’s all about understanding how these changes impact both the market and user experience.