DRM Handcuffs

[Chi Cygni]

Last night I finally introduced my husband to Apprentice Alf. They had some 20 minutes conversation and now I'm a happy woman. What the heck, the netronix EB600 that died on me in 2010 died together with books I bought for it, luckily not too many - unfortunately it uses some rare DRM that nobody made a disinfectant for. That ain't gonna happen again. And no, in my country it's not illegal for me either, for personal purposes. Anyway, yesterday I was so ecstatic I wanted to kiss calibre's bottom


/to underline here again: calibre DOES NOT REMOVE DRM/

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Chi Cygni

Last night I finally introduced my husband to Apprentice Alf. They had some 20 minutes conversation and now I'm a happy woman.

I love a happy ending.

[Chi Cygni]

and they lived happily ever after

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Chi Cygni

Last night I finally introduced my husband to Apprentice Alf. They had some 20 minutes conversation and now I'm a happy woman. What the heck, the netronix EB600 that died on me in 2010 died together with books I bought for it, luckily not too many - unfortunately it uses some rare DRM that nobody made a disinfectant for. That ain't gonna happen again. And no, in my country it's not illegal for me either, for personal purposes. Anyway, yesterday I was so ecstatic I wanted to kiss calibre's bottom


/to underline here again: calibre DOES NOT REMOVE DRM/

To append to this, some one makes a third party plugin for Calibre that does remove DRM. But in the technical aspect of it, the plugin is doing the DRM removal, and not Calibre itself. When you attempt to load a book in to your Calibre library, it passes the info on to the plugin, which runs the ebooks through a series of DRM removal scripts, and the DRM free copies are what actually gets moved into Calibre.

While, legality does vary from area to area, the forum rules themselves prevent me from saying any more about the plugins. We don't want to cause problems for the forum. Legality of such things on a international level are murky. You have the legality to consider for the country the servers are based, as well as those in which the officials for the site (IE, Canadian website, where the admin lives in US has to comply with both US and Canadian law).

[BillSmithBooks]

I still believe that the best -- and perfectly legal -- form of protest is to only buy DRM-free books and make a lot of noise about the issue. Let publishers who use DRM know that you will NOT buy their books until they get with the program.

If readers voted with their wallets to catapult DRM-free books to the top of the best-seller lists and wrote more articles drawing attention to the issue, publishers would fall into line. Once they realize that DRM actually COSTS them a huge number of sales, they will change their policies.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

I still believe that the best -- and perfectly legal -- form of protest is to only buy DRM-free books and make a lot of noise about the issue. Let publishers who use DRM know that you will NOT buy their books until they get with the program.

If readers voted with their wallets to catapult DRM-free books to the top of the best-seller lists and wrote more articles drawing attention to the issue, publishers would fall into line. Once they realize that DRM actually COSTS them a huge number of sales, they will change their policies.

True Bill but I am not willing to forego the books I need and want to force the issue. If I could not remove the drm I might act differently.....

[Daveoc64]

I think that it's hard for people to simply not buy books that have DRM.

What you can do though is to reward publishers that offer their books without DRM by continuing to buy from them.

[xg4bx]

publishers like Angry Robot use the lack of DRM as a selling point. they advertise their books as DRM free, sensibly priced ($4.75) and no region limitations.

coincidentally, despite having some acclaimed authors and titles on their roster, their books don't appear on pirate sites very often. correlation doesn't imply causation but it is a noticeable coincidence.

[sabredog]

I treat DRM the same way as any household pest. For cockroaches, baker crickets and nasty spiders I use Mortein or Raid. For DRM, I have Alf in a Can...

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

I still believe that the best -- and perfectly legal -- form of protest is to only buy DRM-free books and make a lot of noise about the issue. Let publishers who use DRM know that you will NOT buy their books until they get with the program.

That's what I do, but I understand it's not going to work for everyone. I read a lot of fanfic, which means I'm at no risk of running out of quality writing I enjoy, and I don't mind wading through the digital slushpile of self-released total unknowns to find the occasional gem.

Also. my tolerance for formulaic plots and clichéd characters is fairly high, and my tolerance for bad grammar is not too low. And I don't mind reading a dozen starter-samples to find something I might like to buy.

[afa]

The best way to protest DRMed ebooks is to buy print.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by afa

The best way to protest DRMed ebooks is to buy print.

Not really. They want print to be the only option. Digital books and a new suitable and modern distribution system is beyond most publishers ability to cope with.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by afa

The best way to protest DRMed ebooks is to buy print.

I did that with CD. Got the cd to make drm-free mp3. Too bad, p-books cant' be converted to e-books that easily.

I think that it's hard for people to simply not buy books that have DRM.

Yes, when you want to read a particular book that do have DRM.. Well.On the other hand, i would be more hesitant to buy if i couldn't just take off the drm.

[TFeldt]

Must admit that I'm rather shocked at anyone calling the removal of DRM unethical or immoral. The basic fact that we have DRM on our products means we've bought the darn thing in the first place, pirates don't have to bother with DRM at all.

Thus I'd rather call authors of DRM-removal software the moral and ethical backbone of any market economy system since they encourage people to actually buy products even if they are encumbered by inane copy protection schemes. The people who never have to worry about DRM are pirates and pirates alone (and the people who refuse to buy DRM encumbered products in the first place, bless them for their principles).

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by sabredog

I treat DRM the same way as any household pest. For cockroaches, baker crickets and nasty spiders I use Mortein or Raid. For DRM, I have Alf in a Can...

Carol