I mostly download the books I read from illegal sources. Sad to say but I can’t pay all books I buy. Also it’s really complicated to get DRM-free material but if someone could recommend me some store I will be very thankful
Are you looking for fiction? It isn’t perfect, but the kobo store has information near the bottom of every book’s page letting you know what level (if any) of DRM that a book has, so you can factor that in to your purchase decision. For drm-free files, you can download epub files directly once you purchase. Outside of that, I use Project Gutenberg, Baen, and a few other niche publisher websites. Basically, if you want to purchase content that you can use freely you just have to make the best of a bad situation.
versobooks.com/ for critical theory.
This article has some fair criticism. I like ebooks in an abstract sense, but I find myself avoiding certain authors/publishers because of DRM. When end-users start to alter their purchase decisions based on technical considerations, there is something deeply wrong with the status quo.
I’m not a big reader but when I do I only buy DRM free ebooks or ones that I can de-DRM. Calibre with a plug-in for example can automatically remove the adobe DRM. I still have to pay for the eBook though since the plugin uses my adobe private key to remove the protection. Not perfect but at least I know I’m really buying a book and not renting it.
Yeah, Calibre is a fantastic tool.
Can you share the name of the plugin please?
I think it was dedrm
The most annoying thing is that it’s hard to support writers if you collect the epub on libgen or similar.
I’m not going to buy eBook on Amazon and I don’t want to hoard physical copies.
z library is a good resource i use to get eBooks for free, i imagine if you want to support the writer you should buy the physical copy
That’s getting harder to do. I read Stross’s blog sometimes, and he talks about how publishing works. A few years back he started talking about how there were no more “paperbacks”, and I didn’t know what to think of that. But yeh, they don’t really exist anymore at all, if you go into a bookstore. It’s all hardback and “trade paperback” (itself an excuse to sell a slightly larger paperback for $22, apparently). Obscure stuff isn’t even printed at all anymore. And only the most popular authors ever get hardback publishing… and the runs are small.
If he had a tip jar, I’d maybe Paypal him something, but there’s even a blog post about why he doesn’t have one.
last time I asked about ordering a specific book at the bookstore they said they couldn’t do it.
The book was an published in the UK and with the brexit it was too expensive (iirc) to order small quantities to europe…
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Anyone who had to move to another home and had to transport boxes with half a ton of books, at least has the wish to have them in an e-book reader.
The argument isn’t against the concept of e-readers, rather about the problems with DRM.
There are always problems with DRM, e-books are no exception. It is an implementation of the industry to benefit them, the creator himself is that he has fewer benefits, on the contrary. Many times it prevents the general public from accessing the works in a simple way, hindering the author’s attempt to become known. But as they say, where there is an impediment, there is a trap to surround it, this also applies to e-books. Download e-books from Amazon or others big companies, certainly isn’t an option. Search the homepage of the Author, often he has books which he sell himself, classic authors are often in the web as public domain, but never in Amazon.
