
I won’t buy ebooks anymore - dijit
https://dustri.org/b/i-wont-buy-ebooks-anymore.html
======
Turukawa
I've written two novels, formally published in the UK, self-published in the
US. Books available on Amazon, and DRM-free on my website
[https://gavinchait.com](https://gavinchait.com).

Both novels were stolen and uploaded to ZLib within the first week of release:
[https://b-ok.cc/s/gavin%20chait](https://b-ok.cc/s/gavin%20chait)

Here's how I - as author - experienced it:

\- Within the first week someone buys the book via Amazon using a stolen
credit card;

\- Book is uploaded to ZLib;

\- I complained to Amazon, raising both the issue of the stolen work and the
stolen credit card;

\- No response from Amazon, although they were quick to reverse the charge
(I'm assuming as soon as the card is reported stolen);

\- I complained to ZLib using their DMCA reporting tool;

\- ZLib care about as much as Amazon, and my novels are still up.

I made it as easy as possible to read my work on my website and pay me direct.
I released it as a DRM-free epub for use on any device or platform. You can
even buy anonymously. Still doesn't matter. Folks like the OP won't support
writers.

And, while this won't stop me writing, it makes it impossible to afford to
write as often as I'd like. Two years after my second, I'm still trying to
save up enough to afford to write my third.

Thanks OP.

~~~
rekabis
Sounds like you are employing a reactive, defensive and antagonistic approach
to eBook “piracy”. Which puts you into the very position you described - at a
loss, angry, and frustrated; instead of fuelling your sales and playing a
direct hand in your success. Unfortunately I don’t have the article on hand,
but about a year ago I ran across a description of how an author _dramatically
enhanced_ his sales by leveraging eBook “piracy” in order to drive people to
official channels.

Yes, he actually released his eBooks for free onto the piracy sites - with a
twist: he included the entire first portion (quarter or third, cannot
remember) of the book, gave info on where to buy the full copies (with zero
recriminations - just the facts!), and then repeated those same early chapters
to plump out a fully-sized eBook. He then flooded all the file sharing
networks with this copy so as to make it difficult to find legitimately
complete copies.

The entire first quarter or third was used to get readers heavily enough
invested into his novel to _want_ to run out and buy the official copy -- he
_justified_ the effort and expenditure to his readers, and they responded
(mostly) positively by actually doing so!

Granted, there was a lot more to it than that, but this was the basics, and it
pushed a lot of people towards not just his eBooks but also his physical
sales. And there are probably many other strategies out there as well that
utilizes the “piracy” platforms to your benefit instead of leaving you tilting
impotently at windmills.

~~~
amp10
With all that effort there is little time to focus on actual writing, so one
can imagine the quality of that work.

There is a reason real authors and musicians have agents (who are actually
reachable unlike the YouTube service ...).

The actual profession is a full time job.

~~~
CharlesW
> _The actual profession is a full time job._

But the actual professional isn't 100% writing, just as being an independent
software developer isn't 100% coding. Half of your time (or more!) may be
spent on other aspects of the profession.

~~~
enitihas
Other aspects are communicating, researching, not a deep dive into human
psychology to ensure people don't pirate your software.

------
wilwade
I refused to buy Amazon ebooks when I learned that I didn't own them. I only
owned a right to read them (dependent on many legal things).

The price of an ebook has so far been the same as the price of a physical
book. Considering the resale value of a book is on average about 50% of the
original price, the real price of an ebook for the user with this limitation
should be ~50% less than the cost of the paper book. (Not taking into account
shipping costs, etc...)

This became real to me when my aunt died. She had purchased thousands of
dollars worth of ebooks. Had she purchased physical books, those books would
have been donated or resold. At a loss to the publisher, but a gain to the
original purchaser and secondary purchaser. (or estate in this case).

Unless I as the purchaser am at least partially compensated for this loss of
value by a price decrease, I cannot buy ebooks with a resale limitation.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The resale value of most books is nowhere near 50% of the original price. The
more popular the title and the bigger the print run the less it's worth -
until you get to remainder mountain title like 50 Shades of Grey, which are
literally worthless, except perhaps as fuel for a wood stove.

I had a library with thousands (and thousands) of books. When I moved I
decided to get rid of many of them, because decluttering. Long story short -
by the time you've allowed for post/carriage, listing time, packaging, and so
on, you're more likely to be left with 5-10% of the nominal cover price - and
that only after endless hours of work.

I donated most of mine, and I still got complaints from the local recycling
facility that they were worthless because they were "too obscure" (i.e. pop
science, math, stats, and such.)

~~~
michaelmrose
The average paperback book weights between 1 and 2 pounds and would cost 2.75
-> 3.25 in shipping for media mail in the US. In addition amazon would take
0.99.

Pulling up a few random books for example [https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-
Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/...](https://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-
Watts/dp/0765319640/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1590509557&sr=8-1)

I see I can buy it new for about $11 although I wouldn't be surprised to pay
$15 in a physical store. Selling it could get me about 10 but I would have to
pay about a buck to amazon and around 3 to ship it for a net of 6.

This is 40% - 55% of original value.

Perhaps more importantly lending or giving them in person arguably gives them
the same $10 worth of value. Shipping it to someone produces $10 worth of
value for 3.

A book that is shared 3 times has produced $30 worth of value. A book that is
shared 10 times has produced $100 worth.

An ebook that you might not be able to read in 10 years is SUBSTANTIALLY less
valuable than the physical book.

Adding this value proposition back in and removing DRM that strip actual
ownership both laudable goals in themselves are entirely at odds. Artificial
scarcity is broken by design and unfixable.

------
kayodelycaon
Let me get this straight, the author has a bad experience with one website
selling ebooks, so they decide they’ll never buy ebooks ever again?

In real life, this would be the equivalent of getting one bad meal at a
restaurant chain in a city you’ve never been to before, so you stop eating at
that chain anywhere else, despite positive experiences in the past.

~~~
read_if_gay_
You raise a valid point, but I have had a similar experience and I think
ebooks indeed are in their golden age of piracy right now, like movies before
Netflix came along or video games before Steam.

Libgen has _everything_ and it's so much easier than dealing with online
retailers and Adobe's bullshit. If you know stores that sell DRM-free ebooks
I'd be very interested.

~~~
kayodelycaon
I’ll leave finding DRM-free ebooks as an exercise for the reader. There are a
number of small publishers offering their books without DRM. Some genres are
easier than others.

Tor went DRM-free many years ago. I know their catalog is on Amazon.

~~~
read_if_gay_
Sorry, I just realized that question was poorly stated. It misses an important
point: there has to be a decently sized catalog. It doesn't need to rival
Libgen, but it should be something that covers most of your bases. Sorry for
kinda moving the goalposts here, but right now, most of the time, looking for
a particular book you can't get your hands on it DRM free without going to
Libgen. That's the thing which has to change.

~~~
input_sh
If you're looking for tech-related ebooks, check out ebooks.com. There's 49185
in their technology category that's DRM-free, including O'Reilly books.

------
framebit
FWIW, I'm not "buying" ebooks or audiobooks anymore because I found out about
the magic of digital access via a library card. This is certainly not a new
thing, but since it'd been years since I engaged with the public library it
was new to me!

I've been tearing through material lately, all through the library app (Libby,
which I think is a rebrand of Overdrive), and it's still magic to me that I'm
getting all of it for free. Sure, it comes with the normal library
restrictions (popular stuff has long hold waits, sometimes tough to find a
specific book vs. any book, etc.) but the sheer amount of books available that
spark my interest is really cool.

I fell out of the habit of reading actual books for awhile, and diving back in
has been like reconnecting with a long lost friend.

~~~
octygen
I'm in the same boat. I do wonder how much author X makes when I borrow
his/her ebook or audiobook on Overdrive. Any thoughts from anyone?

~~~
therealdrag0
My impression is it's similar to physical books. Libraries buy/rent them per
copy and loan them out at an equal rate. So authors should get paid similarly
to if a citizen bought it from the store. Except if the library already
acquired the book, then them leasing it to you does not give the author any
money.

------
nils-m-holm
DRM is ridiculous.

I have/had some 20 books on the market, all of them also as ebooks (PDF) and
not a single one of them is DRM'ed. I refuse to sell ebooks on Amazon, because
their ebook format is not open. This year I will publish my first EPUB book.
Also without DRM.

However, most authors just don't know and/or don't care. Either because they
do not know anything about DRM or because they only care about sales, and with
some publishers DRM is not an opt-in. Unfortunately!

So, yes, I understand the frustration expressed in the article! Look closely
before you buy any ebooks!

------
ansible
I used to really worry about this sort of thing, and would only buy ebooks
from vendors like O'Reilly or Baen because they were DRM-free, and I could
read them forever.

These days, I can't be arsed to worry about any of that. I just buy what I
want from where-ever (Google, Amazon, etc.). Why? Convenience of course.

Really, how many of these books am I ever going to read again? Tech books in
the old days (1990's) would last you a few years at least (my copy of TCP/IP
networking from O'Reilly was well-used) but these days? Everything is changing
so fast.

So I just buy them, enjoy them, and don't worry about having access to them in
the future. A few true classics I have purchased multiple hard copies of over
the years anyway. If I end up purchasing electronic something for a 2nd time,
I might make more effort to ensure continued access.

------
altacc
Yes, pirating media is often easier than buying media that compensates the
author and distributor. Didn't we all know that?

DRM and other protection instruments are widespread in digital media and I
don't think a good answer to this problem has been found yet, which addresses
ease of access & use and also adequate compensation to creators.

We still want an equivalent to physical ownership of media but that's applying
old thinking to a modern technology, so frustration is understandable. Truly
owning digital media is increasingly rare concept. Being able to sharing
individual media items more so. Typically we merely rent temporary access
through a defined ecosystem. I don't know what the answer is, beyond
acknowledging the limitations of both physical and digital media and not
expecting the best of both worlds to be possible.

~~~
Sargos
>Truly owning digital media is increasingly rare concept. Being able to
sharing individual media items more so. Typically we merely rent temporary
access through a defined ecosystem. I don't know what the answer is, beyond
acknowledging the limitations of both physical and digital media and not
expecting the best of both worlds to be possible.

I think within 5-10 years digital media like ebooks, games, movies etc will
transition to being represented by ERC-721 tokens which brings with it the
benefits of physical media (permanent ownership, sharability, etc) while also
being easy to store, transport, read digital items. The main benefit is that
you can buy your ebook/game/movie in one store/ecosystem and even if that
system goes out of business your purchase will still be valid at other stores
and platforms. You own the item itself and are not renting it from a certain
store.

~~~
altacc
This idea has been around for a while, it was trialled during the early days
of digital media services when they were trying to preserve the level of DVD
and Blu-Ray sales. But it didn't take off widely. It seems to have hung around
as Walmart's Disc to Digital, but stopped at the end of last year.

~~~
Sargos
The key difference is that ERC-721/NFTs are a neutral platform not owned or
controlled by anymore. Those systems were run by a corporation that could pull
the rug out from under you at any time which means no company in their right
mind would risk their success building on a system that could be turned off or
used to coerce them at any time in the future. You can build on top of ERC-721
since you know it will be around in the future and it's stable, like HTTP
before it. Neutral systems are a prerequisite for large groups of stakeholders
to cooperate.

------
srg0
I bought a book with Adobe DRM once. It was a relatively obscure book, and I
wanted to support the author. Downloaded the file. Installed Adobe ebook
software. Then something went wrong. I had to uninstall and reinstall Adobe
software, and after that I couldn't open my new book anymore. Had to break the
DRM. I never bought any other e-book with Adobe DRM again. It was obvious that
the user experience was the last thing Adobe cared about.

I also avoid Google Play Books. E-books are just one of too many things Google
does. IMO Google won't think twice before switching off the service.

I do buy some Kindle titles though. At least it works, books are linked to my
Amazon account, and Kindle is core business for Amazon. I bet it will stay
around longer.

------
tgb
I bought a ebook from Kobo, having never heard of them before and thinking
they'd be the small competitor to Kindle that offers a better experience.
(Oops, they're owned by a big conglomerate.) I stupidly bought the ebook using
my google account to sign-on. Then to read the book, I had to enter my google
account username and password _into their app_! Their desktop app is clearly
an electron-type web-based thing but they don't have an in-browser reader so
there's no secure way of letting them do single-sign on. Here's hoping this
app I know nothing about didn't steal my password - the only solace being that
a desktop app can screw you over regardless if it wants to.

~~~
fredsir
If you buy from the kobo store, you can just go to your "library" on the
website and download the DRM free files and then use whatever app you want to
read the books.

~~~
tgb
So that's round-about but going to "My Books" (which seems to be their new
"library") downloading it gave me a .acsm file which can be opened with Adobe
Digital Editions software which will then download the epub. So it works, but
surely there's a saner way!! Also note that you can't download the book from
the book's page (which only points you toward their app), but only by clicking
the dropdown menu on the My Books page.

Thanks for pointing me to it!

~~~
fredsir
I guess they sell some books in obscure formats. All the books I've bought has
been straight epub.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I've done every step the author has done, in multiple flavors. I have the
Kindle for PC app running under Wine on my Linux laptop, so that I can get
ebooks I buy off Amazon decrypted and converted to EPUBs. I have the requisite
suite of DeDRM tools and Calibre plugins so that I can strip the DRM off books
I buy on my Kobo. At one time I had an Android VM so that I could pull the
decryption key out of my Nook app and decrypt those books as well. It's a
massive pain in the ass on every front, and I despise having to do it.

There _is_ hope on this front, however. People need to understand this. The
e-book manufacturers implement DRM at the behest of the publishers. Publishers
can also request that the books they sell _not_ be DRM-encumbered. You'll see
that listed on the product page. See below:

[https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/lightspeed-magazine-
issue-7...](https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/lightspeed-magazine-
issue-73-june-2016-people-of-colo-u-r-destroy-science-fiction-special-issue)

> Download options: EPUB 2 (DRM-Free)

Or you may see a note like this on Amazon:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ME0TBFE/ref=dbs_a_def_r...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ME0TBFE/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0)

> At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights
> Management Software (DRM) applied.

It's not _easy_ to find books that are DRM-free, but this does show that
pressuring the publisher _works_. I think this is the route to go if we want
to make DRM-free books the norm. Pressure the publisher, not the platform.

~~~
criddell
As far as I know, there's no crack for Amazon's KFX format.

There is a workaround to download the book in an older format that can be
cracked, but when you do so you don't get the newer features that are present
only in KFX files.

If cracking DRM sounds like a fun project, check out the thread here:

[https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/issues/38](https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/issues/38)

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
That's correct. My version running in WINE is locked at Kindle for PC v1.24, I
think.

I can't really think of any "newer features" I would need in the books I'm
converting, anyway. 95% of the books I buy are works of narrative fiction or
nonfiction, and I buy them on Amazon for the purposes of converting to an EPUB
and reading them on my Kobo eReader.

~~~
criddell
The big one for me is the option to set ragged-right. I'm not a fan of full
justification.

The other changes only in KFX include hyphenation, ligatures, kerning, and
pop-up footnotes. Amazon's Bookerly font is also exclusive to KFX and it's
quite a nice font IMHO.

~~~
Veedrac
It's weird that this has anything to do with the ebook. My e-reader gives
those options (and many more) for plain epubs.

------
MrGilbert
We have downloadable music existing without DRM. Music industry tried before
and failed. I pay an extra price for FLAC-quality downloadable content without
DRM on it. And I hope that the movie industrie will take this road some day,
too.

BTT, there are a lot of books where you aren't forced into DRM. DRM creates
real world issues for customers, as the shut down of DRM servers in the past
showed.

If you put DRM on your book, I won't buy it. It's as simple as that. Which
doesn't mean I illegally download it from "somewhere on the interwebz". I
simply won't read it at all.

------
chooseaname
This was a rabbit hole they needn't traveled into. Buy the DRM version (if
that's all they could find), _then_ download a deDRM'd version from the
internet. There are plenty of places to do this, Google being one
(intitle:index.of blah blah and such).

~~~
the_greyd
+1 I'd also recommend sending the author a note to take their ebook elsewhere
in the future.

------
bredren
I buy ebooks largely out of convenience. I’ll be laying in bed and want to
continue the The Witcher. There are plenty of pirated copies of this but I’m
not going to trouble myself so I just buy this thing I’ll spend weeks falling
asleep in front of.

Occasionally I’ll try to get something from the library but it has a seven
week waiting time on it. Forget it. I buy that then also.

Sometimes I want to remove the DRM from something, I buy a fair amount of
ebooks I should be allowed to make this call.

In the past I’ve used caliber to do this.

Unfortunately the DeDRM plugin is broken on Catalina. As far as I can tell you
have to boot macOS into safe mode and disable SIP to get it working.

The eBook market kinda sucks. Not every book is available, for example a
friend and I wanted to read Inca Gold as sort of a joke together. He bought
the book used in hardcover, this particular novel is not available in the
Kindle Store. I clicked the notify publisher they should publish this as an
ebook link then I found a copy floating around on the web.

The other thing is pricing. eBooks cost much more than regular books and I can
not understand why except because it is convenient. Frankly the device is
convenient. Not a lot about the systems that support ebooks feels convenient.

Even supporting services like Goodreads feel clunky and stale at this point.

I largely blame Amazon for half hearted support of kindle. Their flagship
device has a micro usb on it.

~~~
Synaesthesia
I was able to use deDRM with Catalina, that said my SIP is probably disabled
(Hackintosh).

Thankfully a lot of sellers are selling books without DRM. I just bought a
number of political books from Haymarket and Verso and that was the case.

------
x775
This is a distribution and not a format problem.

A poor experience with what sounds like a poor distributor, and, perhaps by
extension, a poor and limiting DRM, should not be considered representative
for an otherwise neat format (.epub).

If sales are done right, the experience is seamless, as the author himself
finds to be the case with other distributors.

~~~
fastball
Honestly I think the emphasis here is on "buy".

Doesn't sound like the author is gonna stop reading ebooks, just that he's
gonna pirate them (he mentions how easy it is to get a DRM-free book on Z
Library).

------
djsumdog
I have a lot of Google/Nook/Amazon ebooks that I still need to get around to
removing the DRM from. Over the past year I've honestly just started pirating
books. I'll try to buy merch off the author's website or support their
projects (podcasts, patreon, etc.) so I can contribute something to them if
they have such avenues.

Kobe has some DRM free books, but not a lot of authors publish there.

I'd really like to buy DRM free books. I'd even pay twice as much for them. I
started going down the eBook route when I was moving and travelling very
minimally, and now I rarely read paper books. I prefer the ebook format, but
wish there was a Bandcamp for eBooks.

------
namelosw
I subscribed to O'Reilly Safari and Packt. They provide web pages and mobile
apps. Because I don't own the books so it seems I cannot download them, but
the apps are not very nice. I would avoid them when I can, so I just use those
books as manuals to refer to when I have to read them.

On the contrary, I spend quite some money on Manning Publications and Pragprog
to buy some PDFs and read through my PDF viewer and I'm pretty happy about it.

I know it's not a fair comparison at all, since I didn't buy books from
O'Reilly and Packt. But the point is just to illustrate DRM + apps really
destroy the experience.

------
CogitoCogito
Considering the author already strips the DRM from the purchased e-books and
also apparently knows about Z library, a simple solution seems to be the buy
the e-book, ignore it and then download the same e-book from Z library.

I also feel the frustration though. I won't buy e-books unless it either has
no DRM or if I know I can strip it easily afterwards.

~~~
kotutku
The author usually gets <5% share from the book price. I guess it's much
better (although not legal) to just skip buying the book and send a donation
directly to the author.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Not all authors will accept such donations because it puts them in competition
with their publisher.

See Charles Stross: [https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2009/03/reminde...](https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2009/03/reminder-why-theres-no-tipjar.html)

~~~
panzagl
They also acknowledge that many people work on a book besides the author.

------
judge2020
I wish ebooks would follow the movie industry with Movies Everywhere and start
offering an ebook copy of the physical books you buy. I love the convenience
of having things electronic, but having the physical medium is a great backup
if/when these services decide to shut down.

------
anotherevan
Very title of the article has an error. If it has DRM, you're not buying it,
you are leasing it.

Agree or not with the use of DRM, I object to buttons that say "Buy Now"
instead of "Lease Now" on web-sites.

------
Pxtl
For the record: HumbleBundle frequently does eBook bundles. Obviously that's
niche - generally comics, programming books, stuff like that, and you're just
buying a bundle and not getting to peruse a library. However, all their ebooks
are DRM-free.

I've bought into a few ebook kickstarters, and the books came in open files
visibly watermarked with my KS email address. That seems a reasonable
approach.

For KS, from the author's perspective this is ultra-high-risk. Their book
isn't even on store shelves yet, and yet they're selling DRM-unencumbered
copies. Meanwhile if I want to buy a 60-year-old book that's obviously
available on every pirate site, the seller will still foist DRM onto me.

So I think we're getting there. There are new businesses working with DRM-free
ebooks, since the encumbered ones are basically pirated instantly anyways.

------
acomjean
OReilly had DRM free books to buy. I bought a bunch.

But Piracy killed it, so now its subscription service, or available on kindle
(I don't use). Some authors seem to have deals to give away their books and
sell them at the same time: e.g.:
[https://www.tidyverse.org/learn/](https://www.tidyverse.org/learn/)

I buy some DRM free books from Manning. They put a footer on each page,
saying, licensed to: xxxxxxx@yyyyy.com to discourage me from sharing. It
doesn't bother me.

Manning also seems to be going a sort of subscription route too. They have
"live book" where you buy access to parts of books you want with tokens. Its
kinda interesting how they're trying to do micropayments.

[https://www.manning.com/livebook-program](https://www.manning.com/livebook-
program)

~~~
kyleee
Did piracy really kill OReilly's previous business model? I was sad when they
morphed into a weird subscription service

~~~
acomjean
I can find a specific reference, but it they made a bid deal of being DRM free
a decade ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2368560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2368560)

If ebook sales where working well, I suspect they wouldn't have gotten rid of
them.

~~~
aplusbi
They still sell DRM free books, just through other stores like Google Play.

The reason they switched to subscriptions was because of the cost of running
an ebook store and the low ROI.

------
glxxyz
I don't buy physical books anymore. It's just stuff to get dusty and clutter
up the place. Reading on a tablet is great- carry it anywhere, also has
search, highlighting, bookmarks etc.

I prefer no DRM but I don't complain about the hassle of removing it- I'm too
busy reading.

~~~
fortran77
I stay on the "happy path." I have a Kindle e-paper reader. I buy a book, I
can read it. It's probably DRMd. But it doesn't get in my way. I agreed to the
price and I know I may or may not be able to read the book 5 or 10 years from
now. I accept that.

I realize this may not be the experience or purchase model for everyone, but
for a large segment of the reading public, it "just works."

------
chx
Yes, I have been a Linux zealot once. I have been a "no DRM here" zealot once.

I am now running Windows 10 + WSL and I begrudgingly accept if I want to
support the authors while reading on an eReader I need to accept the DRM'd
ebooks. I am getting too old to struggle with being a zealot. There are better
things to spend my time on.

You can download the DeDRM tools from
[https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/](https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/)
linking to github, no crazy sites involved.

Ps.: Funnily enough, my device is actually called a Not-eReader. It's lovely
because it doubles as an emergency HDMI monitor.

~~~
akho
DRM-using publishers tend to pay authors less than non-DRM ones do, and
certainly less than you can donate to them (I assume the full price of the
book). So if your intention is to support authors, pirating and finding a way
to pay the author in a different way is more efficient.

Nobody does that, of course.

~~~
chx
I have yet to find a way to pay authors directly. One way I can support the
authors is pirating the book, reading it once, deleting it and then purchasing
a physical copy and donating it to the library. The end result is the exact
same as if I had read the physical copy and donated it: I read the book, I
paid for one copy and it doesn't take space which I do not have.

------
kristianc
Is this communication style a function of being involved in FSF, or does FSF
just naturally attract very angry people?

It's not unreasonable that people should be compensated for work that they've
spent months or years of their life working on.

~~~
cmiles74
I am surprised by this comment; the article seemed clear that the author
didn't mind paying for the book. Their issue was that the book was advertised
as an EPUB file but then came wrapped in proprietary DRM.

~~~
matt_heimer
Their title is literally "I won't buy ebooks anymore". They've stated their
intent to only pirate books. And they bought it with the intent of giving
copies to their friends in the role as a "library". If they had stated a
preference to only buy DRM-free books that would have been different but they
literally link to a book pirating website in the article.

------
josephernest
Are you me? I could have written the exact same blog article! I have the same
experience this month, I ended spending hours to be able to use an e-book I
bought, and I also finally needed to convert it multiple times, install shady
software, etc.

I didn't find an online shop meeting these criteria:

* really big catalogue (of the size of Fnac.com, etc.)

* EPUB with no DRM

I also sent an email to the (French) publisher/editor of the book to narrate
the awful user-experience. Maybe you can do the same ;) If enough readers
contact the publishers to say they won't buy ebook anymore with such a poor
user experience, it might help.

------
jccalhoun
I only buy ebooks that I know I can break the drm on. The first thing I do
when I buy a book from amazon is to run it through calibre with dedrm plugin
so I know I will always have a drm-free copy.

------
ojagodzinski
> Having DRM on books is a fucking dystopia nightmare that shouldn't even be a
> thing and I hope that the EU will pass laws to nuke them from orbit

Learn polish ;)) there is no DRM on polish ebook sites. You just pay and get
links to PDF/EPUB/MOBI formats of ebook. There is only watermark protection,
example site:
[https://virtualo.pl/ebook/heban-i150038/](https://virtualo.pl/ebook/heban-i150038/)
but it is similar in all publishing houses.

------
gnu
Relevant: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)

------
neya
This article resonates with me so much. I recently purchased an e-Book on
Wiley too. Atleast, the author got an EPUB with DRM in it, which is pretty
easy to remove using de-DRM tools (open source). However, what I got from my
purchase from Wiley was some stupid proprietary format that requires me to
install some crapware called Vitalsource. There is nothing out there that will
de-DRM for you and you are forced to install this crapware wherever you intend
to read this - be it on your mobile or desktop. I thought ok, no biggie, let
me seek a refund ASAP, but Wiley explicitly disallows refunds, probably this
is the reason.

In their entire website, they refer to these things as "E-Books", but it is
anything but. It's a proprietary viewer. There is a small "i" icon next to
them in the listings, which I presume they must have added recently that now
states these things aren't actually E-Books (in fine print). Clever huh?

Either way, I don't understand the point of DRM. People can still make copies
if they're determined to, and studies have shown that giving away ebooks
actually increases sales. If these sort of publishers go bankrupt, no one will
shed a tear. Because, you know, don't fuck your customer maybe?

~~~
andyzweb
I had a script to de-DRM books from VitalSource. It “printed” each page one at
a time to a PDF and then concatenated the individual PDFs into a single file.

------
jonahbenton
Everyone writing about what they think and what they did about it.

I think authors should get paid, and I should have free use over the artifact.

So I wired together some machinery to take a downloaded Kindle file, turn it
into a PDF (using the underlying Calibre tooling), and send that to my
Remarkable tablet.

I should make it available, think it would be useful to others (under terms
that the PDFs are for personal use only- authors need to get paid).

------
tluyben2
I don't mind buying ebooks, movies, music but it has to be simple. With DRM is
less good, but even DRM, as long as it's simple. I had the same experience as
the author with a book I bought in Spain; they had ebooks so I bought this
one. The process was so convoluted and annoying (and only worked on Windows
which I don't have here) (also; I am a technical person/programmer; how is a
'normal' person supposed to do this?) that I definitely won't buy again from
them.

I think unlike the author though, I was not attempting to remove the DRM; the
process of getting to read the book _with_ DRM was many steps (downloading
adobe crap, etc) and the endresult was something with DRM that could be opened
in another Adobe program but no-where else.

The most annoying part is books 'disappearing' or becoming unreadable like
what happens on Amazon; like there are books that I bought which are limited
to n devices (all mine and my account!) or they just suddenly cannot be read
anymore (and cannot be downloaded again). What else can I do then just
download illegally?

------
betimsl
Instead, buy a printer. It's cheap and you can print anything you want,
including books. It's much easier to read on paper and with a highlighter, you
will annotate and remember much more.

This works -- especially -- in a country where you have to wait ages for a
book to arrive by post, not to mention silly countries like mine, where you
have to pay tax on books.

------
macspoofing
Yeah. DRM sucks if you want to lend your bought content, or if you're hoping
to have it around for long periods of time (e.g. 10 years+). When I buy
electronic copies of Xbox games, I'm under no illusion that I will be able to
play them in 10-20 years. I see them as long-term rentals. I've made my peace
with that because I have an entire library of games, movies and music on media
like floppy disks, VHS, cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, that I never felt the need
to use again and are cluttering up my basement. If I get nostalgic about some
content, there's always an electronic copy around somewhere on the internet,
usually legal and available for a few bucks.

Having said that, I do agree with the shitty ergonomics and usability of DRMed
content. If someone went out of their way to pay for a book or a movie, they
aren't the kind of people to go and pirate that - so don't punish them.

------
zigzaggy
I buy ebooks because I have intermittent low vision. Large print books worked
ok, but the lighting is never right. The ereader has freed me up to read when
and where I want to instead of under very specific conditions.

I am also _think_ I am sensitive to the "renters economy" issue. I think I
preferred owning them, but I'm not sure why. I've had to dispose of books in
various ways in the past for running out of space etc. And I have had books
lost or stolen, or borrowed and never returned, so many time. Now I can
actually read the books I buy regardless of the quality of my vision. I don't
have to worry about running out of space or carrying huge heavy boxes. So I
don't know if I really don't like the new way or if I'm just resistant to
change.

------
projektfu
The place where e-books leave me lacking when they have DRM is the ability to
loan them or transfer them. It is a lot easier to get a friend to read an
important book than to get them to buy it. But I can’t lend the kindle copy,
which is the format I can read best.

~~~
pfranz
It depends on if it's "allowed" for that specific book, but Amazon has had a
system for lending ebooks to friends and family for years.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GJUXNRAHSH6LX6FA)

~~~
projektfu
That functionality is enabled for about 1 in 20 titles in my collection, and
sufficiently well hidden that I can't imagine most people know it exists.

E-book publishers don't see the value in lending. Look at how they are
clamping down on the number of copies available to libraries. To them, every
loaned book is a lost sale.

~~~
pfranz
I agree it's not widely used and not known about. What surprised me is that I
know older family members, who are otherwise fairly technically illiterate,
who actively share ebooks using their Kindles. Another older family member,
where their local library is very hands on with helping them. They both know
way more than I know about what's possible and how to do it.

Another, I believe separate program, is family sharing (it's not a loan you
can both read it simultaneously). I'm not sure if that's a separate privilege
the publishers must opt-into, but I have used it the one time I tried.

------
captn3m0
Sometime last year, I was researching the OPDS spec and the upcoming release.
I found that it’s all linked to DRM ultimately. Check the Readium specs if
you’re interested.

I was so disheartened to see DRM being pushed with an open standard. It’s the
whole EME thing again.

------
johnchristopher
I don't understand why someone with such a pedigree feels the need to fake he
just learned of DRM ebooks.

This is disingenuous and doesn't bring much food for thoughts at the table.

Is the outrage porn card being played to garner attention for something else ?

------
pjettter
Get burned once...

When you pet a snake and get bitten, you don't pet snakes anymore. But since
you already were afraid of snakes (who isn't), you don't have to test petting
it to find out it bites.

So the author doesn't have the eBook instinct. e-book. In other words:
"electrified book", "less of a book", "not a real book".

Then, he's not using standard tested consumer channels like Amazon Kindle etc,
so then he's on his own. He doesn't need to brag about having to set up a VM
and going to darknet to hire a Korean hacker gang and buying a DM cracking
botnet to crack DRM. He was just being cheap.

------
samclearman
[https://medium.com/@samclearman/stop-paying-for-e-books-
and-...](https://medium.com/@samclearman/stop-paying-for-e-books-and-start-
stealing-them-efb293e9a64c)

------
zajio1am
Or just buy ebooks without DRM. Last time when i bought ebooks, the eshop just
offered epub/mobi/pdf for download, directly from browser, with only 'social
DRM' (info about buyer on separate page in ebook).

------
waynenilsen
This is very shortsighted. People are motivated by wealth. Paper books cannot
be copied for free but ebooks can, same thing with music. The creators must be
compensated or the content that you enjoy would cease to exist.

~~~
sn41
Very few content-creators get a fair royalty. DRM is mostly about publisher
wealth, not creator wealth.

I think selling books for 25 cents etc. can result in massive sales. There is
a middle-ground between selling overpriced editions with small changes in
between, and outright piracy. Digital formats allow large-scale distribution,
so pricing copies for under a dollar makes piracy not that attractive, when
following the law and your conscience comes so cheap.

But somehow publishers want it all - the large scale distribution possibility
of the digital medium, and the margins of the print medium.

~~~
Zenbit_UX
You need to consider perceived value, most of the books I buy are $9.99-14.99
and if I saw a new book come out for $0.25 my first reaction would be Wtf,
then probably: did a child write this?

~~~
justaguyhere
Maybe a middle ground, like what Louis C.K did. He was selling his videos for
$5 at one point, if I remember correctly - directly from his website, cutting
out the middlemen. Yes, one can buy it and send it to all their friends, but
the price is low enough that many people would just buy it..

------
ashtonkem
My opinion on ebooks is entirely driven by weight. I move often, and am
usually stuck with the heavier lifting tasks in my household. Books in dead
tree format are _heavy_ , and I'd prefer not to move them.

------
mark_l_watson
I understand the sentiment. When I buy a book now I first decide if I will
ever want to loan it to someone, and if yes, then I buy a physical book.

For the books I write I now only sell eBooks but under a Creative Commons
Share and Share Alike license and I encourage people to share with friends.
Writing books is a lot of work and I want them to be widely available. Then,
you may ask, why not just put PDFs in the public domain? The answer is that I
do enjoy getting some revenue from writing, so it is a compromise.

------
MintelIE
Ever since Amazon deleted its first books remotely from people's Kindles, I
haven't bought any ebooks, digital music downloads, movies aside from on
physical media, or software which is downloaded and delivered digitally.

I do have numerous shelves in my home devoted to Laserdiscs, vinyl, CD's,
tapes, and of course many many books. But I don't have any room for media
which I don't physically own, nor media which can be taken away as easily as I
can download it.

------
lytefm
I've had my "no more DRM" experience when my ebook reader crashed on a
vacation, required a reset and wouldn't let me read the DRM protected books
afterwards. I'm still buying eBooks without DRM. At least in Germany, it's
common to only have a watermark instead. DRM on eboos is utter trash, it just
makes everyone's life harder but can easily be removed by anyone who puts some
effort into installing the required tools.

------
NaOH
Anyone here who gives away some of their books, consider also the Little Free
Library if it’s in your area.

[https://littlefreelibrary.org/](https://littlefreelibrary.org/)

Previous HN discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8237696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8237696)

------
lstodd
It's 2020 and we're for some reason discussing DRM.

It was repeatedly shown for the last 20+ years that DRM can not work, is
detrimental for sales, author popularity and income.

Late Jim Baen of baen.com realized that in 1999 and since then sold DRM-free
multiformat books with usually first 1/3 to 1/2 of the text available free.
And it works just fine since then.

------
diego_moita
The author has a very good point: buying ebooks is a crappy consumer
experience.

If that wasn't true, dead-tree books would be as rare as Compact Discs.

~~~
gilbetron
Click on my kindle icon for "store", find book, click buy, have it seconds
later. Alternatively, go to amazon.com and find book, click buy, shows up on
my kindle seconds later.

~~~
falcolas
Kindle has definitely made it as friction free as possible. The lock-in used
to be moderately annoying, but I have a phone that can natively handle other
formats (not to mention the kindle app), so I just don’t care anymore.

------
chrisbennet
I only "buy" (1) ebooks to read on the plane. You can't _practically_ (2) loan
ebooks and I like to share them with my friends.

(1) You don't actually buy them, you lease them.

(2) For example; Kindle books can only be loaned for 14 days. I guess if you
vacationing on the beach, you could probably read it that quickly. Most people
only have some weekend or evening time.

~~~
ubermonkey
I dunno about you, but both my wife and I read books is much less than two
weeks most of the time, and we both work full time and have other hobbies.

~~~
fullstop
Not OP, but my children seem to have a "Kindle Activity Detector" and suddenly
want to play whenever I sit down to read. They're only children once, the
books can wait.

But, hey, I finished Worm and that's about a million words!

------
zozbot234
> The advertised format was epub, an open standard, useable on a large number
> of supports. But surprise-surprise, to get the file, I needed either a
> specific kind of tablet ... or to use Adobe [] spyware.

How is this not bait-and-switch fraud? OP should file a complaint with their
local business regulator.

------
wilt
I have a heap of ebooks i got from amazon and find I need to break the drm and
convert them to pdf just to read them on my kindle. Really hate the situation
on one hand I want to support the author but I don't want to support amazon
for the bs that doesn't work.

------
Havoc
Also one of the reasons I’m gonna take back my old kindle from a family
member. You need an old one to break the latest generation of DRM they
deployed.

The new ones - paper white etc pull the new format off the cloud which is
currently unbroken.

I definitely want a backup of all that stuff

------
theonlybutlet
I had this exact same discovery/dilemma 3/4 months ago. My windows partition
stopped working now so don't think I'm going down that road to buy a book
again. The Adobe digital editions hassle just really isn't worth it.

------
giarc
I've run into the situation where I want to buy an e-reader. I like the Amazon
paperwhite product but my public library doesn't support it (they support
Kobo). So if I want to get books from the library I need to buy a Kobo.

~~~
pfranz
Mine situation is arguably worse, it varies depending on the book. Some are
Kindle compatible, others require Adobe's software, and I believe yet others
only support Libby.

What's nice is that I'm able to get access to libraries that are a pretty far
drive. I can borrow those books without having to drive to one of their
libraries.

------
umvi
What a baby. There are only 2 steps:

1\. install DeDRM in Calibre[0]

2\. Strip DRM from epub

[0]
[https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/releases](https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/releases)

------
pnathan
I use Calibre to back up my Kindle library periodically.

I prefer not contributing to deforestation & pollution via paper. This leaves
me with specific niche or historical books to buy in paper form.

------
rciorba
The Pragmatic Bookshelf [https://www.pragprog.com/](https://www.pragprog.com/)
deserves a mention, as they're DMR free.

------
theagilecoder
I am building an app that enables book exchange based on geographical
proximity, think tinder for books. Do you think there is place in the world
for such an app ?

------
sneak
I've gone this route for books, music, tv, and movies.

Either I buy it without DRM, or I don't buy it.

Almost there with spyware, too. Creative Cloud is next on my list to replace.

------
dudul
Can anyone recommend websites where one can buy epubs without DRM? I only know
of technical ones like No Starch or Mannings. What about fictions?

~~~
matt_heimer
[https://www.libreture.com/bookshops/](https://www.libreture.com/bookshops/)

------
josteink
Not buying ebooks at all is a bit drastic.

I’d rather just research which sites sells DRM-free (or with easily removed
DRM, like Amazon) and stick to those.

------
tibbydudeza
Switched to Spotify and Netflix when they became available in my country as
pirating the content I wanted just took too much effort.

------
hengheng
Used paper books have become cheap.

"Affording the hassle of a bookshelf" is a thing nowadays, but I chose to
indulge in that kind of luxury.

~~~
falcolas
Storing them is less of an issue than moving them. You’ll get a good workout
on the other hand.

------
poletopole
This is why I bought a SV600. Very few platforms or publishers except for
example No Starch Press allow you to buy a PDF anymore.

------
rocky1138
This is the same experience I get when dealing with companies who have mobile
apps but are actually just websites, like Instagram.

------
bitwize
Sorry, but content protections including DRM are the "death and taxes" of the
online world. You will have to deal with them one way or another, because
without them, authors and creators -- especially small-time ones -- will not
be able to make a living doing what they love and so they will stop producing
output.

Learn to accept DRM, or go without. Anything else is snatching food from the
mouths of the children of authors, artists, and musicians.

~~~
hi_im_miles
I reject that the only way forward is to simply accept rent-seeking behavior
and move on. It's unreasonable to expect people to pay for a freely
reproducible good, and "doing something" about that implies state surveillance
and ultimately violence, which leaves me uncomfortable. Based on my
understanding of history, I actually believe it's the perpetuation of this
violence that created an underclass who can't afford anything in the first
place.

------
yarrel
I buy them if they are DRM-free.

ebooks.com, kobo.com and shashwords.com are good for this, as are Verso.

------
homarp
you don't need the chinese website, you can use github instead...

[https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools](https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools)

------
coliveira
Ebooks are a gimmick. I only buy them if they are deeply discounted (symbolic
value). The only books that I pay full price are real paper books that I can
read without a computer and keep in my library.

~~~
hi_im_miles
Ebooks are words arranged in a digital document. If that's a "gimmick", then
everything is a gimmick.

------
northisup
How is the zlibrary not just piracy?

------
takecarefnd
Your link has trojan in it!!!

ebook-converter-program

------
moonbug
entitled jerk.

------
gizzlon
TL;DR: He doesn't like DRM. Neither do I. Don't support it by buying anything
with DRM. There's lot's of ebooks without drm though[1].. so.. you know.. buy
those.

[1] Especially within technical fields. Also Norwegian ebooks :D

------
CtrlShiftI
relevant XKCD [https://xkcd.com/488/](https://xkcd.com/488/)

------
jonnypotty
I agree your experience has been shit, but work that an author spend months or
years of their life on has to have some sort of protection. People need to get
used to actually paying for digital services, but they won't when the
experience is as bad as this. Companies can not make dealing with their drm
more difficult than working around it.

~~~
dudul
Was the author reluctant to buying the book? He bought it. He just doesn't
want to have to use Windows and a whole suite of awful software because of the
DRM.

~~~
tgb
The author is pretty clearly reluctant to buy the book, based off the first
paragraph.

~~~
dudul
Really? The 1st paragraph is just about his friend trying to borrow the book,
and noboby having it, and the author eventually buying it. Is the problem that
people are trying to borrow books from their friends? This has been going on
for centuries.

~~~
tgb
I can't read that paragraph as anything other than "I tried to pirate it and
failed".

------
the_jeremy
My preferred way is to pirate everything, and support after the fact, usually
by buying copies to give to friends (though more than once it was just "buy
the DRM version and never touch it because nothing else was easily
available").

I like this because I make sure to support things I enjoy, rather than buying
something and finding out it was not as good as the reviews made it out to be.
It is a product of my entitlement, sure, but with the wealth of free content
available, I can't justify spending money up front anymore.

------
nihil75
I realized when I bought "The Catcher In The Rye" in digital form that I can
only buy it once. But I want to buy more copies of "The Catcher In The Rye",
Every time I visit Amazon.com I try to buy "The Catcher In The Rye" but it
won't let me because I already own "The Catcher In The Rye" and that's a real
shame because I really like "The Catcher In The Rye" and want to buy more
copies of "The Catcher In The Rye" whenever I see a copy of "The Catcher In
The Rye" which I cannot do in digital form.

