5 ms·

I'm one of these Kindle-owners. I want to correct a misconception: it's not inherently DRM-encumbered. Books you buy from Amazon can have DRM or not, depending

by kemayo 12y ago

I'm one of these Kindle-owners. I want to correct a misconception: it's not inherently DRM-encumbered. Books you buy from Amazon can have DRM or not, depending on the publisher[1]. Books you buy from other stores will work fine on Kindle so long as said other stores aren't using DRM themselves. Admittedly, if you buy a book in EPUB format from another store you'll have to convert it to one of the formats Kindle supports. Amazon provides a program to do so, and independent stores like Baen[2] tend to give you a choice of formats anyway. (Kindle not supporting EPUB natively seems pretty blatantly designed to avoid competition, since it's the non-Amazon industry standard at this point. No argument there.) [1]: http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/01/amazon-quietly-lets-publishers-remove-drm-from-kindle-ebooks/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/01/amazon-quietly-lets-publish... [2]: http://www.baenebooks.com/ http://www.baenebooks.com/

ghshephard 12y ago
Thanks - I had no idea that I could purchase books from Amazon.com that did not have DRM. This even more strengthens the responsibility for DRM to be on the publishers hands - simply by eliminating the DRM from their books, I could purchase their books from any publisher, and read them on any device - which would eliminate my need to go to Amazon for a new book. I wonder how much discussion has gone on with the publishers about eliminating DRM on their content. The music publishers certainly went that way...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- swetland 12y ago
  To the best of my knowledge (I'd love a pointer to details if I'm wrong), the reason Kindle has DRM at all is entirely due to publisher demands for it.
- rmc 12y ago
  Yep. DRM is totally optional. I sell ebooks on Kindle Store which are based on OpenStreetMap data. CC licence (at the time) meant that I couldn't use DRM. Not a problem.
MichaelGG 12y ago
And not only that, but you can email them directly to your Kindle. So a third-party store could just ask for your Kindle email, have you add it to the whitelist and "then" provide a fairly streamlined experience.
- kemayo 12y ago
  Baen do indeed do that: http://www.baenebooks.com/t-ereaderinstructions.aspx#kindle http://www.baenebooks.com/t-ereaderinstructions.aspx#kindle

by kemayo 12y ago

ghshephard 12y ago

Thanks - I had no idea that I could purchase books from Amazon.com that did not have DRM. This even more strengthens the responsibility for DRM to be on the publishers hands - simply by eliminating the DRM from their books, I could purchase their books from any publisher, and read them on any device - which would eliminate my need to go to Amazon for a new book. I wonder how much discussion has gone on with the publishers about eliminating DRM on their content. The music publishers certainly went that way...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
swetland 12y ago
To the best of my knowledge (I'd love a pointer to details if I'm wrong), the reason Kindle has DRM at all is entirely due to publisher demands for it.
rmc 12y ago
Yep. DRM is totally optional. I sell ebooks on Kindle Store which are based on OpenStreetMap data. CC licence (at the time) meant that I couldn't use DRM. Not a problem.

MichaelGG 12y ago

And not only that, but you can email them directly to your Kindle. So a third-party store could just ask for your Kindle email, have you add it to the whitelist and "then" provide a fairly streamlined experience.

kemayo 12y ago
Baen do indeed do that: http://www.baenebooks.com/t-ereaderinstructions.aspx#kindle http://www.baenebooks.com/t-ereaderinstructions.aspx#kindle