Harry Potter on Kindle - DRM yes, but is it watermarked as well?

[sourcejedi]

Via Teleread:

the versions Pottermore pushes back into those other e-book stores’ reader platforms are not DRM-free... Update: Charlie Redmayne claims that the DRM is only applied because Pottermore does not have any way to watermark e-books that get uploaded through other e-book stores.

but MobileRead posters point out that the Kindle files include the watermark notice, which gives an (ostensibly) unique identifier.

Is anyone interested in resolving the apparent inconsistency?

It'd just take a couple of people who've downloaded the first Harry Potter book in Kindle format. Post here with the serial number shown in the watermark notice, and then they can be compared. [I suggest replacing a few digits in the middle with X's, just in case].

[frostschutz]

Well, considering that DRM of Kindle & Co is long broken, it'd be stupid not to watermark the books, as all you'd have to do to get a watermark free pirateable copy would be to do the same thing everyone's been doing for years, remove DRM.

So it has to be watermarked. Otherwise they could just as well not do it for their own versions. But then again that's assuming there's any point to the watermark in the first place which there probably isn't. So...

[fjtorres]

There is no conflict to resolve.
The books are processed by Amazon as personal document ebooks.
Pottermore watermarks each book sold then sends the watermarked file to Amazon who add it to the user's Kindle cloud. Then, like every other DRM'd ebook, it gets individually converted and encrypted at sync time to the device or app it is intended for.

So yes, you get both Pottermore watermarking and Kindle encryption.

Considering that the user's entire Kindle account (with multiple apps and gadgets and infinite number of syncs and downloads) only counts as one Pottermore download it is a reasonable setup.

[sourcejedi]

The smart move, of course, was made last year by bringing in Charlie Redmayne [...]

I spoke to Redmayne again to clarifiy this because it wasn't clear who was applyng that DRM, and on whose insistence. Redmayne explained that when a user chooses to download an e-book on their device, Pottermore sends that retailer a message to deliver the file to the chosen device (or in Google's case the cloud). The retailer then supplies the file through their own eco-system. DRM is applied because Pottermore never has access to the file to watermark it.

In Redmayne's words: "The file that goes onto the Kindle (or other device) is governed by the DRM of that device. But that is only because we have not been able to watermark it. The retailer applies whatever DRM system they operate. Going forward we'll look into this to see if we can do it differently."

-- 2012-03-28 / "Pottermore gets its wand on" / futurebook.net / Philip Jones.


Maybe the Kindle (/B&N/etc) watermark only identifies the book as being from the Kindle (etc) store. But that's just speculation, hence my question.

[Remembered to add - if you post a (partial) serial number for comparison, remember to say whether it's US or UK, as well as which book it is & where it came from.]

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There is no conflict to resolve.
The books are processed by Amazon as personal document ebooks.
Pottermore watermarks each book sold then sends the watermarked file to Amazon who add it to the user's Kindle cloud. Then, like every other DRM'd ebook, it gets individually converted and encrypted at sync time to the device or app it is intended for.

So yes, you get both Pottermore watermarking and Kindle encryption.

Considering that the user's entire Kindle account (with multiple apps and gadgets and infinite number of syncs and downloads) only counts as one Pottermore download it is a reasonable setup.

Amazon doesn't add DRM to your personal ebooks, so you are wrong.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Amazon doesn't add DRM to your personal ebooks, so you are wrong.

But they are *at Pottermore's request* adding it to the Potter books.
You reported that yourself.

The rest of the mechanisms are the same as for personal docs.

To me, the key is that, unlike Kindle books, but just like personal docs, there appears to be no limit to the number of simultaneous Kindle Devices/apps in your account the Potter books can be simutaneously synched to. (There is at least one report of 12 downloads in the HP ebooks thread.)

You have always been able to authorize other people to send you personal doc/ebooks; the difference here is Pottermore gets authorized when you give them your Kindle account info and a DRM yes/no flag gets toggled.

The Kindle Cloud has been shown to have lots of tweakable settings on both file-by-file, device/app, and user account basis. There's probably all sorts of minimal effort variants they can accomodate as the industry explores new business models.

[tomsem]

Unfortunately the Kindle editions have a couple of (minor) formatting issues, at least for the copy of Book 1 that I have):
- KF8 has broken drop-caps (it drops too far down)
- the first 5 chapters left-justify the image at the start of each chapter, the rest center justify the image
- the first 5 chapters apply a different paragraph style to the first paragraph than the rest of the chapters.

Since the copy is 'personalized', Pottermore has no way to correct these errors. If they had sent one copy to amazon, that each customer got a copy of, instead of hundreds of thousands of 'personalized' copies, they could easily have fixed this when this was brought to their attention, and customers could have downloaded the update at their convenience. Now we're all stuck with a broken Kindle edition.

Interestingly if you take the watermarked, 'DRM-free' ePub and run it through kindlegen, the same errors result. I guess we can therefore fix the problem ourselves, but we should not have to. Pottermore was not sweating the details.

[fjtorres, the other difference is that personal documents do not participate in Popular Highlights, but these do. Everything you purchase from Amazon is 'personal' in that you don't automatically get updates/corrections—amazon stores a specific version/bag of bits with your account. This just happens to be a 'version' that only you have.]

[HansTWN]

Has anyone tried downloading the epub from the Pottermore site and then convert the result with Calibre and sideload it to the Kindle (as they are supposed to be DRM free)? How does that look?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Has anyone tried downloading the epub from the Pottermore site and then convert the result with Calibre and sideload it to the Kindle (as they are supposed to be DRM free)? How does that look?

You can convert it with kindlegen, and it looks identical to the Kindle file Pottermore sends to Amazon (including watermark and some minor formatting issues, at least in Book 1). I assume that kindlegen is what is in fact used in the workflow between Pottermore and Amazon.

But why sideload when you can link your Amazon account with Pottermore and get exactly the same result, integrated fully with your Kindle library? (the only reason is to be able to fix the minor formatting issues before converting)

AFAICT calibre only supports KF8 read only, i.e. will not create KF8. So if that is important (i.e. you are using Kindle Fire or Kindle for Android) then you should just use kindlegen. There are some scripts here that will let you break out the mobi or kf8 as separate files, so you can save space on the target device.

Note as of at least a few days ago (I keep checking), Amazon hasn't updated Personal Documents to support KF8, so they need to be side-loaded.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tomsem

You can convert it with kindlegen, and it looks identical to the Kindle file Pottermore sends to Amazon (including watermark and some minor formatting issues, at least in Book 1). I assume that kindlegen is what is in fact used in the workflow between Pottermore and Amazon.

But why sideload when you can link your Amazon account with Pottermore and get exactly the same result, integrated fully with your Kindle library? (the only reason is to be able to fix the minor formatting issues before converting)

AFAICT calibre only supports KF8 read only, i.e. will not create KF8. So if that is important (i.e. you are using Kindle Fire or Kindle for Android) then you should just use kindlegen. There are some scripts here that will let you break out the mobi or kf8 as separate files, so you can save space on the target device.

Note as of at least a few days ago (I keep checking), Amazon hasn't updated Personal Documents to support KF8, so they need to be side-loaded.

The reason would be DRM. I wouldn't need to disinfect the files and would have the joy of having publisher supplied DRM-less books. I wouldn't want to support a Re-DRMing of the books when they come to the Kindle via Amazon.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Unfortunately the Kindle editions have a couple of (minor) formatting issues, at least for the copy of Book 1 that I have):
- KF8 has broken drop-caps (it drops too far down)
- the first 5 chapters left-justify the image at the start of each chapter, the rest center justify the image
- the first 5 chapters apply a different paragraph style to the first paragraph than the rest of the chapters.

I just looked at the copy of Book 1 that I have on my Fire, and I'm not seeing the problems with the image at the start of each chapter that you mention--for me, they are all centered. The drop-caps at the start of the chapters are down a little bit too low, but to tell you the truth, I didn't notice that until you pointed it out. When I look at the book on my K4NT, I do see the justification problem in the first 5 chapters, but no drop-caps.

Shari

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by shalym

I just looked at the copy of Book 1 that I have on my Fire, and I'm not seeing the problems with the image at the start of each chapter that you mention--for me, they are all centered. The drop-caps at the start of the chapters are down a little bit too low, but to tell you the truth, I didn't notice that until you pointed it out. When I look at the book on my K4NT, I do see the justification problem in the first 5 chapters, but no drop-caps.

Shari

The image centering issue is only with non-KF8 devices, not Fire (which has the drop caps that aren't lined up correctly).

Drop caps are not possible in the older mobi format (Topaz, yes), a different paragraph style is substituted.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by tomsem

The image centering issue is only with non-KF8 devices, not Fire (which has the drop caps that aren't lined up correctly).

Drop caps are not possible in the older mobi format (Topaz, yes), a different paragraph style is substituted.

Ah...ok. I mis-understood you. I thought that all of the things you mentioned applied to the KF8 (Fire) version.

Shari

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The reason would be DRM. I wouldn't need to disinfect the files and would have the joy of having publisher supplied DRM-less books. I wouldn't want to support a Re-DRMing of the books when they come to the Kindle via Amazon.

I like the use of the term "disinfect."

Hopefully the method you described would work for easy sideloading (download direct from Pottermore, calibre it, ??????, profit). Or, at the least, there is going to be some kind of plugin that can fix some of the wonky formatting issues.

[HarryT]

The UK editions I bought for my Kindle don't appear to have any problems. They look absolutely fine to me.