John Scalzi Lock-In not downloadable in epub format

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

Tor is one of my publishers (as well as one of those for my friend, John Scalzi). The irony here is that Tor, unique even among divisions of Macmillan (its parent publisher), releases all its books DRM-free now (Tom Doherty, the publisher of Tor, is a silent partner in Baen Books, one of the pioneers in DRM-free ebooks from traditional publishers).

Kobo needs to get its act in order: if the publisher wants the book to be DRM free, and if the author (as John does) wants it to be DRM free, then there should be no hassles in getting a DRM-free ePub simply and directly downloaded to your computer.

Rob

Any chance you could let John know that his two newest eBooks now come with DRM if you buy them from Kobo? And on top of adding in DRM, Kobo has made a huge mess to the eBooks coding. I would think that Kobo is breaking the contract with Tor by not having them be DRM free and unmodified.

It's not just John's eBooks that are getting the kepub treatment. I checked out another ePub from Tor published after John's eBooks and it too got the kepub treatment. It's because Tor is needlessly producing ePub 3 eBooks and Kobo sees that as we need to make sure these eBook get read via our ePub 3 renderer. So Kobo gives them the keoub treatment and voila, crap!

Please tell anyone in the higher up at Tor and at Kobo that they need get Kobo to stop this kepub modification to any ePub. I cannot buy any new Tor eBooks from Kobo as it will be chock full of kepub goodness and DRM. So much for being sold without DRM.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by robko

How about so they could have a renderer capable of rendering vertical text for the Japanese market which they wouldn't have been able to do with the Adobe renderer.

I hadn't thought of that.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Any chance you could let John know that his two newest eBooks now come with DRM if you buy them from Kobo? And on top of adding in DRM, Kobo has made a huge mess to the eBooks coding. I would think that Kobo is breaking the contract with Tor by not having them be DRM free and unmodified.

It's not just John's eBooks that are getting the kepub treatment. I checked out another ePub from Tor published after John's eBooks and it too got the kepub treatment. It's because Tor is needlessly producing ePub 3 eBooks and Kobo sees that as we need to make sure these eBook get read via our ePub 3 renderer. So Kobo gives them the keoub treatment and voila, crap!

Please tell anyone in the higher up at Tor and at Kobo that they need get Kobo to stop this kepub modification to any ePub. I cannot buy any new Tor eBooks from Kobo as it will be chock full of kepub goodness and DRM. So much for being sold without DRM.

I hate to interrupt a good rant but perhaps it's time to toss a little bit of common sense into this discussion.

Lock In is only available as a kepub. That does not mean that it has any kind of DRM. Just as epub does not mandate DRM, kepub does not mandate DRM. I'm not certain whom but someone once mentioned that Kobo applies DRM at the request of the publisher.

It does mean that you can download it to your computer using the Kobo Desktop application with a file name such as: 2236ed94-0c86-4930-abb1-db422cb1f452 which does lack human readability. On the other hand, simply copying the file to a different location and then renaming the copy to, say, Lock In.epub gives you a file that opens without issue in ADE, DLReader and a couple of other epub readers I have on hand. Open the file with Sigil and it has both a toc.ncx and nav.xhtml files which makes it an example of what some sites refer to as epub2/3.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

I think the problem for Kobo is if the publisher supplies an epub3, there is no simple way for Kobo to tell if the file does not actually use any epub3 features and would display OK in the Adobe renderer as an epub 2. So Kobo have to be cautious and assume the file will only render OK using their kepub renderer, hence no ADE download option.

In this case the book, like all Tor books, is DRM-free (or should be) so ADE is largely irrelevant, it's not the only ePub reading software out there. There's no reason Kobo can't offer a DRM-free download of the ePub3 and could even have a button marking as such (like they have for an ADE or DRM-free ePub now) No one is saying not to have a kePub available that will for sure work on Kobo devices & apps, but it doesn't need to be exclusively that.


From Kobo's perspective I can see why they're doing it like they are. I'm sure the process for publishers to get books into the store is largely automated and they have no way of knowing if the book is something that uses ePub3 features or not so if it's labeled as one they're taking the approach of treating it like it uses some of them. From a support aspect I can see why they wouldn't want to be fielding questions about why a book may not work properly in software people are using for ePub2's.


From a Tor perspective I wonder why they're putting out ePub3's at this point when they publish simple linear fiction and AFAIK none of the books need or make use of any ePub3 features. Perhaps there's a good reason to move to an ePub3 workflow already?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

That was the original reason that Kobo avoided using Adobe DRM internally, yes. But I don't know why that would have to extend to having a couple different rendering engines.

Have you tried reading a tategaki (vertical, read top to bottom, next column is on the left) Japanese document using an epub2 renderer? Add in furigana just to make things more fun. I suspect that moving into the Japanese market and being purchased by a Japanese company (Rakuten) necessitated adding an epub3 renderer.

[RobertJSawyer]

DNSB, you're making a technical distinction, and it's valid as such, but you're glossing over the philosophical point, which is that the INTENT of publishers and authors offering books devoid of digital rights management is that the AVERAGE user can easily download the book file and use it. It shouldn't be a scavenger hunt to find something with a nonintuitive name squirreled away somewhere; it shouldn't require expert knowledge (which knowing to rename a .kepub to .epub is); it should be easy: download to your desktop with one click, and open with the app of your choice without modification. THAT, my friend, is common sense.

[Joques]

Kobo is sadly losing me as an ebook customer. This nonsense about non-downloadable books is one of two final nails in the coffin. The other one is at least for me, in Norway, a selection that just gets poorer. Google Books is my new go-to destination. Never any non-downloadable nonsense, and a vastly better selection.

[Joques]

RobertJSawyer, could you kindly let Scalzi know that he just made a sale today of his entire back catalog based on his epic takedown of this misogynist:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/09/2...-in-five-acts/

(Now I just hope those books are any good - Redshirts look hilarious )
(Bought on Google Books because, well, that's where I could get them.)

[Joques]

Originally Posted by Joques

Kobo is sadly losing me as an ebook customer. This nonsense about non-downloadable books is one of two final nails in the coffin. The other one is at least for me, in Norway, a selection that just gets poorer. Google Books is my new go-to destination. Never any non-downloadable nonsense, and a vastly better selection.

... at the same time, I have enough self-awareness to realize that I'm part of a tiny portion of Kobo's market, and that they probably make more money by locking customers into their ecosystem like this. So it'll probably only get worse as time goes by. I only hope that we the specialist end user nerds will still have options in the future.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

DNSB, you're making a technical distinction, and it's valid as such, but you're glossing over the philosophical point, which is that the INTENT of publishers and authors offering books devoid of digital rights management is that the AVERAGE user can easily download the book file and use it. It shouldn't be a scavenger hunt to find something with a nonintuitive name squirreled away somewhere; it shouldn't require expert knowledge (which knowing to rename a .kepub to .epub is); it should be easy: download to your desktop with one click, and open with the app of your choice without modification. THAT, my friend, is common sense.

Thing is, the code in the ePub has been heavily modified. It very well may not display properly in a number of different ePub renderers. It's not what we expect to get when we buy it. When we buy Lock In, we expect to get the code as it came from the publisher. We don't expect to get Kobo heavily modifying it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Joques

RobertJSawyer, could you kindly let Scalzi know that he just made a sale today of his entire back catalog based on his epic takedown of this misogynist:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/09/2...-in-five-acts/

(Now I just hope those books are any good - Redshirts look hilarious )
(Bought on Google Books because, well, that's where I could get them.)

The books of John's that I have read have been good. So I think you're in for a treat.

[Eric Carroll]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

it shouldn't require expert knowledge (which knowing to rename a .kepub to .epub is); it should be easy

My implicit point exactly. The intent of TOR is clear. I want to support it.

The fact that I am hypertechnical and can get around all of this is not the point. Kobo is attempting to lock me in to their ecosystem and defeat the intent of the publishers (and presumably the authors).

They didn't start this way. Its not clear they intend to be this way. But it is the resulting direction.

So I am letting them know with my wallet not withstanding how much I love their ereaders. A voice of one, I know.

I just changed my buying to ebooks.com as it is in CDN $ and lets me download epub.

Thanks for dropping in Robert and expressing the author's perspective. I am off to vote with my wallet and purchase your latest from ebooks.com. If you can pass the word, maybe the publisher can apply some pressure.

[Great responses in this thread btw, thank you to all.]

[6charlong]

Please pardon me if this is a dumb question but I find DRM technology confusing.

I know the Harry Potter books I own are watermarked for copyright protection. I was able to use Calibre to convert them from ePub to Kindle when I bought a Kindle K3 without disturbing the copy protection. Adobe DRM worked by downloading an ACSM file that acted as a loader; you opened the ACSM and it validated your ownership of that book and then downloaded the actual book, but if Kobo enables a "download" option they would have to download the actual book. Apparently Kobo has some concern about preserving copy protection if they download the book file with just their in-house DRM.

So I was wondering if it's possible for Calibre to convert a kePub book to a ePub book the way it converted a Sony copy of Harry Potter to a Kindle version? Apparently the Tor books don't have DRM so if Calibre can convert to an earlier version of ePub, then would it work to solve the problem?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Please pardon me if this is a dumb question but I find DRM technology confusing.

I know the Harry Potter books I own are watermarked for copyright protection. I was able to use Calibre to convert them from ePub to Kindle when I bought a Kindle K3 without disturbing the copy protection. Adobe DRM worked by downloading an ACSM file that acted as a loader; you opened the ACSM and it validated your ownership of that book and then downloaded the actual book, but if Kobo enables a "download" option they would have to download the actual book. Apparently Kobo has some concern about preserving copy protection if they download the book file with just their in-house DRM.

So I was wondering if it's possible for Calibre to convert a kePub book to a ePub book the way it converted a Sony copy of Harry Potter to a Kindle version? Apparently the Tor books don't have DRM so if Calibre can convert to an earlier version of ePub, then would it work to solve the problem?

You can strip the DRM off of Kobo kepub. But then you are left with a mess. You then use Modify ePub to remove the kepub internals. But again, it's not the same as the real ePub. I've not yet checked to see if the resulting ePub looks OK in ADE.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Joques

RobertJSawyer, could you kindly let Scalzi know that he just made a sale today of his entire back catalog based on his epic takedown of this misogynist:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/09/2...-in-five-acts/

(Now I just hope those books are any good - Redshirts look hilarious )
(Bought on Google Books because, well, that's where I could get them.)

Books are good. You're in for a world of fun.