B&N removed download option on all books in "My Nook" library

[bean]

There's a big social ill of using DRM; check Cory Doctorow's many presentations. I felt that the trivial-to-remove B&N DRM was a fig leaf towards publishers and I could support it. I am not throwing good money at a company that betrayed its customers so.

Amazon is becoming both a monopoly and a monopsony in the ebook market so I am not supporting them. I am feeling dirty for having wavered over the Paperwhite; the screen was too good so I had one for a little while but it's gone now and when I had it I still didn't buy books at Amazon.

The evilness of Adobe DRM is an even deeper and more complex topic and yet... I feel I might need to look at Kobo as having no good options left. Although I only have Linux (and Android, rooted of course) so I am not 100% how that will work. I might need to press the banking terminal-only Windows machine into a DeDRM role as well. Yuck! That would mean I need to touch Windows more than once a month.

I have stolen most of my books I had since B&N's betrayal and I don't feel good. It is absolutely and totally ridiculous that I can download anything I want to read via a trivial Google search and don't need to fight DRM. But, I want the authors to get money.

So the question remains: where do we go now?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bean

So the question remains: where do we go now?

I suggest that you should only buy DRM-free ebooks. Either direct from Publishers/Authors or from Amazon/Kobo/B&N/Google when the book is DRM free.

Personally, I long ago decided to only buy ebooks without DRM or with DRM that I can remove. If you don't want to do the latter, the former is your best choice.

[Apache]

If you like science fiction, Baen is also available and none of their books have DRM.
Apache

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by bean

There's a big social ill of using DRM; check Cory Doctorow's many presentations. I felt that the trivial-to-remove B&N DRM was a fig leaf towards publishers and I could support it. I am not throwing good money at a company that betrayed its customers so.

Amazon is becoming both a monopoly and a monopsony in the ebook market so I am not supporting them. I am feeling dirty for having wavered over the Paperwhite; the screen was too good so I had one for a little while but it's gone now and when I had it I still didn't buy books at Amazon.

The evilness of Adobe DRM is an even deeper and more complex topic and yet... I feel I might need to look at Kobo as having no good options left. Although I only have Linux (and Android, rooted of course) so I am not 100% how that will work. I might need to press the banking terminal-only Windows machine into a DeDRM role as well. Yuck! That would mean I need to touch Windows more than once a month.

I have stolen most of my books I had since B&N's betrayal and I don't feel good. It is absolutely and totally ridiculous that I can download anything I want to read via a trivial Google search and don't need to fight DRM. But, I want the authors to get money.

So the question remains: where do we go now?

As a linux user, I am happy to give Amazon money for leaving the door open to easily DeDRM my books. All you need is an E-Ink Kindle.

The alternative is using ADE or Kindle4PC under WINE, but it is not so easy to extract the keys, since python does not always want to install under WINE.

Kobo at one point had a linux build of Kobo Desktop -- it seems to have been abandoned. You can try installing that in WINE too, but I don't believe it works very well.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

As a linux user, I am happy to give Amazon money for leaving the door open to easily DeDRM my books. All you need is an E-Ink Kindle.

The alternative is using ADE or Kindle4PC under WINE, but it is not so easy to extract the keys, since python does not always want to install under WINE.

WINE will run Calibre for Windows, though, which has its own Python and will find K4PC or ADE. You can use the portable version and you only have to do it once.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Kobo at one point had a linux build of Kobo Desktop -- it seems to have been abandoned. You can try installing that in WINE too, but I don't believe it works very well.

I spent a moderate amount of time trying to get Kobo Desktop to run under WINE and couldn't get it to work, but I'm not sure if that's a measure of the difficulty of the task or of the limitations of my abilities.

[Jane12]

Originally Posted by Jane12

I really wanted B&N to succeed. I wanted their brick-and-mortar stores to survive, and if publishers insist on DRM, then B&N's social variety was preferable (IMO) to Amazon and Adobe's.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

What exactly is so bad about Amazon & Adobe DRM? Also, B&N DRM was based on Adobe's system.

The problem I have with Adobe DRM (regular Adobe, not B&N-flavored Adobe) is I don't care for Adobe Digital Editions, and I find the whole rigmarole with authorizations and .ascm files bothersome.

Amazon's DRM seems pretty seamless, but you're locked in to Kindles and Kindle apps. Not a problem if you like them, but I don't.

With B&N's DRM, I can read B&N books on Bluefire Reader and Mantano, both of which I find preferable to the Kindle app. At one point I fervently hoped that Sony and Kobo would enable the password option, making it possible to read B&N books on their devices, but those hopes have been dashed.

Now it doesn't matter because B&N isn't doing social DRM anymore. Now they're worse than Amazon and Adobe!

[Apache]

With Alf's help I can read my DRM books on the ereader of my choice.
Apache

[gbm]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

WINE will run Calibre for Windows, though, which has its own Python and will find K4PC or ADE. You can use the portable version and you only have to do it once.



I spent a moderate amount of time trying to get Kobo Desktop to run under WINE and couldn't get it to work, but I'm not sure if that's a measure of the difficulty of the task or of the limitations of my abilities.

A Kobo update back in September broke kobo desktop in wine. I can get it to do every thing but sync, I may not have given it enough time.

bernie

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

As a linux user, I am happy to give Amazon money for leaving the door open to easily DeDRM my books. All you need is an E-Ink Kindle.

The alternative is using ADE or Kindle4PC under WINE (...)

I respect that we're not allowed to discuss details of DRM-removal here, but let me say that I do not have a Kindle device, have a Windows machine, do not use WINE, and have un-DRM'd any ebooks I've bought from Amazon very easily. This, BTW, as far as I know is legal where I live, and I do it with a legally bought Windows program that sells for about $30 -- it produces un-DRM'd .mobi files, which I can then convert to .epub with Calibre (which I hate) if I want to.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

I respect that we're not allowed to discuss details of DRM-removal here, but let me say that I do not have a Kindle device, have a Windows machine, do not use WINE, and have un-DRM'd any ebooks I've bought from Amazon very easily. This, BTW, as far as I know is legal where I live, and I do it with a legally bought Windows program that sells for about $30 -- it produces un-DRM'd .mobi files, which I can then convert to .epub with Calibre (which I hate) if I want to.

Happy that it works for you, but you don't need to buy anything if you have a Windows PC. Just install the free "Kindle for PC" program, download Kindle books to that, then remove DRM using Alf's plugins for Calibre. There are a lot of people out there charging money for stuff that you can get for free. Nothing wrong with that of course, but you didn't have to spend $30.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Happy that it works for you, but you don't need to buy anything if you have a Windows PC. Just install the free "Kindle for PC" program, download Kindle books to that, then remove DRM using Alf's plugins for Calibre. There are a lot of people out there charging money for stuff that you can get for free. Nothing wrong with that of course, but you didn't have to spend $30.

Maybe not wrong for charging, but usually those "for pay" programs are plain-old verbatim ripoffs of Alf's tools with no credit given. The only reason they're not "wrong" is because the ripoff artists are protected by the fact that Alf's contributors can't really go after them even if an (L)GPL license had been affixed to their code.

They're both equally breaking the law in locations where the distribution of DRM-removal software is considered illegal. But only one of them is a blatant (and unethical) ripoff in ALL jurisdictions.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Maybe not wrong for charging, but usually those "for pay" programs are plain-old verbatim ripoffs of Alf's tools with no credit given. The only reason they're not "wrong" is because the ripoff artists are protected by the fact that Alf's contributors can't really go after them even if an (L)GPL license had been affixed to their code.

Yes, my meaning was more along the lines of "there's nothing wrong with charging for something that's worth the money". Eg I use a commercial video conversion program, even though I know I could get a free one, because I like the GUI of the commercial one. I agree with you that ripping off someone else's work and re-selling it without acknowledgement is unethical at best, and probably infringes copyright.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, my meaning was more along the lines of "there's nothing wrong with charging for something that's worth the money". Eg I use a commercial video conversion program, even though I know I could get a free one, because I like the GUI of the commercial one. I agree with you that ripping off someone else's work and re-selling it without acknowledgement is unethical at best, and probably infringes copyright.

Ah... we're on the same page then.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

usually those "for pay" programs are plain-old verbatim ripoffs of Alf's tools with no credit given.

If that is the case with the one I bought I regret to have supported a ripoff artist, but I bought it 2 years ago and hadn't been aware of a free alternative, and $30 had seemed a reasonable enough price. There are two files alfcrypto.dll and alfcrypto64.dll in the program directory, so it seems the program may indeed be Alf-based. It's a standalone tool, though (which I prefer), not a Calibre plugin, so maybe they built their own application around the decryption routine? Still, they should at least have credited the source, if they used it

(BTW, I gladly use free software -- LibreOffice, for instance -- but I'd as gladly pay money for a tool that lets me convert ebook formats without having to bother with Calibre's patronizing approach to library-building...)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

If that is the case with the one I bought I regret to have supported a ripoff artist, but I bought it 2 years ago and hadn't been aware of a free alternative, and $30 had seemed a reasonable enough price. There are two files alfcrypto.dll and alfcrypto64.dll in the program directory, so it seems the program may indeed be Alf-based. It's a standalone tool, though (which I prefer), not a Calibre plugin, so maybe they built their own application around the decryption routine? Still, they should at least have credited the source, if they used it

Alf's tools can be used standalone, as well as in the form of Calibre plugins. Look on Alf's site for details. There's also the point that you're probably missing the regular updates to the tools that appear on Alf's site by using your "alternative" version; there have been a fair number of updates to them in the course of the last two years.