DRM in BN store

[gweeks]

Is there any way to tell if a book has DRM on it or not when looking at the book in the BN store? I don't mind buying a book from them if I can be sure it doesn't have DRM on it. I refuse to give them money for something that is broken by design. I know some of the books don't have DRM. I didn't see any way to tell which were which. Fictionwise always made it explicit.

Greg Weeks

[Asawi]

I would be surprised if they didn't all have DRM on them. And BN's own DRM at that, so not the standard Adobe DRM.

[jbcohen]

I wouldn't be that concerned about the matter Greg, its a simple matter to remove the DRM, thus what does it matter if it has DRM in it or not.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Asawi

I would be surprised if they didn't all have DRM on them. And BN's own DRM at that, so not the standard Adobe DRM.

Actually, some of the B&N books do NOT have DRM on them - often the free short stories and PubIt! stories aren't DRM'd. Also some, but not all of the B&N Classics books aren't DRM's - but I can't see a pattern with those.

You can tell AFTER you've bought the B&N nookbook by loading it into a reader and seeing if a DRM prompt comes up.

I'm not sure how to tell PRIOR to buying though - I don't know that the information is on the product page in any way.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I wouldn't be that concerned about the matter Greg, its a simple matter to remove the DRM, thus what does it matter if it has DRM in it or not.

I absolutely refuse to give them money for a product that is broken by design. It's not a matter of how easy it is to strip off or not.

Greg Weeks

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I'm not sure how to tell PRIOR to buying though - I don't know that the information is on the product page in any way.

That's what I want to find out. Of the free books I've gotten from BN it's a mixed bag of DRMed and not.

Greg Weeks

[anamardoll]

Greg,

I completely respect your position and I wouldn't mind knowing in advance as well. I wonder - maybe it would be possible to tell the DRM status from the sample that almost all NookBooks let you download?

Has anyone tried downloading a sample and checking to see if it's DRM'd? I believe the "Little Women B&N Classics Series" nookbook is DRM free, so that could serve as a good test.

I'm not at my home computer or I'd run the test myself now.

[jbcohen]

I believe that B&N's reader the Nook and Nook Color can read epubs and therefore you can buy non-DRMed boosk from ebooks.com, I believe it is.

[ATDrake]

Samples are always non-DRM, so they're not going to be of any help.

The only DRM-free titles out of all the B&N Classics that have been offered free are Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, and Dracula which everyone gets free for having a B&N account, whether or not they have the CC info necessary for DRM in their account. Presumably this is so people can try out the free books on the Nook app without having to commit to entering payment information.

The erotica offerings from Samhain have always been non-DRM*. Possibly some other publishers who've likewise chosen the DRM-free option will be consistently DRM-free.

But aside from that, unfortunately there's really no way that I've noticed that one could tell just from the product page or sample download, short of acquiring the actual book and testing it in a non-Nook app.

*At least the freebies they offer each month, which are not special editions only for the purpose of being offered free, which leads me to believe that the rest of their regular catalogue is non-DRM.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I wouldn't be that concerned about the matter Greg, its a simple matter to remove the DRM, thus what does it matter if it has DRM in it or not.

always an interesting response

never a clue on how this is actually done though

from what i've been able to google it certainly doesn't sound all that easy

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Kurt

never a clue on how this is actually done though

See Apprentice Alf's Blog. Usually, the easiest approach is to add the appropriate 3rd party Calibre plugins to strip DRM on import to Calibre.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

The only DRM-free titles out of all the B&N Classics that have been offered free are Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, and Dracula which everyone gets free for having a B&N account, whether or not they have the CC info necessary for DRM in their account. Presumably this is so people can try out the free books on the Nook app without having to commit to entering payment information.

You already knew this (obviously!) but for others reading, I can confirm this. I checked through my library and I have many (most?) of the B&N Classics - only the three "free" ones were DRM-free.

Several of my PubIT books are DRM-free, but it seems to vary widely.

.....re: DRM, there's also the I Heart Cabbages blog.....

[gweeks]

Well, the Liad series books by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are DRM free in the BN store. They are the only books I've actually purchased through the BN store as I could verify with the publisher that they were DRM free before purchasing. All of the other books I've purchased from BN have been through the fictionwise store front as they make it obvious which ones have DRM and which ones don't.

Greg Weeks

[VicLavigne]

I've downloaded about 30 books from B&N, and the majority have DRM. The exception were a few classics (but no firm rule here, some classics have DRM and some don't) and a few of the free epubs.

The only way I could tell which had DRM was to try to remove it. If the DRM removal gave me an error message, then it didn't have it.

Vic

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

See Apprentice Alf's Blog. Usually, the easiest approach is to add the appropriate 3rd party Calibre plugins to strip DRM on import to Calibre.

Hey thanks

Seems to have done the trick
I could even view a library book i had tried to install on "The Book" several months ago (yes, it will be deleted once read)