The Kobo DRM-free epub fiasco

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There was a multiple eBook import fail. I only imported five Amazon eBooks at one time because there would be a DRM removal fail. Some reported they had to import one eBook at a time.

I had to do one at a time which is why I saved them in the My Kindle file. I thought it was just me but with the new forum rule change we were able to discuss it openly. It turns out others had a similar problem. Paul thought it was a timing issue.

It's fixed now

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There was a multiple eBook import fail. I only imported five Amazon eBooks at one time because there would be a DRM removal fail. Some reported they had to import one eBook at a time.

Well, yeah -- and like I said, I never noticed it which means... that I didn't seem to have that issue.

I don't mean to imply no one else did either, clearly it was a problem for some people.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well, yeah -- and like I said, I never noticed it which means... that I didn't seem to have that issue.

I don't mean to imply no one else did either, clearly it was a problem for some people.

I am glad I had the issue. At first I thought it was a problem with my setup. So I started over with Kindle for PC and I downloaded all of my Amazon eBooks. I'm glad I did as I did end up with some updated versions. I created a new library to put in all of my Amazon eBooks. I did have some of them fail to have the DRM removed. Finding out it was because I was trying to add in too many at a time, I did five at a time and it worked. And it also meant I had the latest versions of all of those eBooks. I know there were updated because I had more KF8 eBooks then I did previously.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I am glad I had the issue. At first I thought it was a problem with my setup.

It was. You were using Windows.

More seriously, I am only speculating, but I use Calibre on Linux and never experienced the error. I presume eschwartz was also using Linux and also did not experience this error, so ......

I also disagree with your earlier comments about Amazon's walled garden. If you have at least one Kindle on your account you can download the azw3 or mobi file directly to your computer and import straight into Calibre. No need for ADE or Kobo for Desktop or any other such programs.

[eschwartz]

Indeed, linux FTW!

Interesting that calibre and plugins would run better on linux.

I was going to suggest the possibility, but backed out because one linux user is a coincidence.
Two is verging on a trend...

[murg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Indeed, linux FTW! ...

FTW? Oh: First Towards Windows...

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Please note, that that's only my personal opinion. I have no special insight or inside info. But it makes sense to me. New format ... in-house drm/fulfillment for said format. What need have they for Adobe once that format starts becoming the norm for submission instead of the exception?

It's okay, I understood. I was thrilled with your post because I hadn't considered the Adobe factor, and that insight was a welcome lightbulb going on in my head. Your hypothesis makes a lot of sense -- and bodes ill for my poor little RMSDK Sony

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Personally I but note that Amazon works fluidly on all generic platforms other than linux, and is readily strippable.
So does Google Play books.
Kobo and Nook, not anymore.

What does this mean: "Amazon works fluidly on all generic platforms other than linux"? Not being snarky here. I am new to Kindle and am trying to learn.

Frankly, I find all the ebook gardens maddening. I had hoped that as ebooks matured everyone would move toward a single open garden with a universal format. Instead things seem to be moving in the opposite direction with existing gardens building higher walls and bricking up gateways between each other. It's confusing, and I would like to learn more about the different gardens, especially pros and cons of each.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

What does this mean: "Amazon works fluidly on all generic platforms other than linux"? Not being snarky here. I am new to Kindle and am trying to learn.

Frankly, I find all the ebook gardens maddening. I had hoped that as ebooks matured everyone would move toward a single open garden with a universal format. Instead things seem to be moving in the opposite direction with existing gardens building higher walls and bricking up gateways between each other. It's confusing, and I would like to learn more about the different gardens, especially pros and cons of each.

Assuming you are willing to use the apps/devices they provide, Amazon is the most hassle-free vendor, and they provide those apps on Android/iOS/OSX/Windows, which are all the major platforms, as well as providing an E-Ink device.

Every other vendor is more or less the same, except they provide less.

iBooks is iOS only.
GPB is Android/iOS only until you start doing awkward things with multiple programs per device and managing your library yourself in ADE.
Kobo and Nook are both washouts, dropping support for all kinds of stuff, and usually required the same clumsy reliance on ADE as well.

Amazon has an It Just Works mentality... assuming you use their apps/devices, which are available everywhere.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Amazon has an It Just Works mentality... assuming you use their apps/devices, which are available everywhere.

You know, if you're willing to hold the other vendors to the same limited standard that you're requiring of Amazon, they're just as hassle-free. Barnes & Noble and Kobo have always worked fine if you're willing to limit yourself to their devices or apps, which are available on all the same platforms as the Kindle apps. If I want something that works great on a proprietary device and isn't portable without running it through Calibre first, both Kobo and Amazon fit the bill. If I never cared to move a Barnes & Noble book from either the app or a NOOK in the first place, then none of the download link or DRM stuff would have made a difference. As it is, I can retrieve the books from the NOOK app just as easily as I can with Amazon, with the added bonus that they're still unmangled epubs.

You can certainly argue that even though both Kobo and Barnes & Noble promised to make their books available to other platforms, they both failed in various ways. Not only did Amazon not try, though, they actually took active steps to prevent using their ebooks on other platforms. I'm not going to begrudge them the original mobi thing, since epub wasn't really viable yet. Once it was, though, and the capabilities of their new devices moved beyond mobi, a consumer-friendly company would have just moved to epub. Instead, they just wrapped the same information in a proprietary shell to make portability more difficult instead of less. That's not some sort of fluke, either, as they did the same thing to PDF. Instead of just delivering a PDF to a device that already supports PDF(!), they wrap it up and call it "Print Replica", which is just like a PDF, except you can't use it on other devices (or even use the table of contents on a Kindle).

Apparently, the big mistake that Barnes & Noble and Kobo made was in not training their customer base to have low enough expectations. Amazon certainly proved that to be a much better strategy for commercial success.

I don't have any problem with you buying whatever you want from Amazon, but if you're going to compare other stores to them, hold everybody to the same set of standards.

[JSWolf]

Now if you want your eBooks DRM free, Amazon is no less of a hassle then ePub with ADE.

With both you have to download, move to Calibre and then put the eBook on the device with maybe a conversion. So basically, it's no more difficult with ePub or Kindle.

[DrNefario]

Kobo and B&N seem to trying to copy Amazon without doing half as good a job of it. I think that's my main issue.

They used to have the advantage of relative openness, through ADE, and now they don't.

[dgatwood]

Fascinatingly, I contacted Kobo and asked what the status of fixing this bug was, and they said that the bug that caused this problem was fixed last year.

Perhaps it was a problem with their ingest process that is fixed now, and Tor just needs to resubmit the same content through the process again to get it fixed. Might be worth dropping Tor an email. Either that or Kobo customer support really needs to read their emails more carefully.

With that said, their first response had nothing to do with the question I asked, so it would not be a surprise if their second response didn't, either.

Incidentally, the Nook folks fared equally badly when I asked this question, giving an answer that was equally unrelated to the question I asked, so it looks like nobody actually reads our emails before sending a canned response. I'm pretty sure I could put together an Eliza bot that would do better than these companies' customer service reps do. They definitely fail the Turing test, on average, which is probably a big part of the reason why so many trivially fixed bugs never actually get fixed.

I'll give Amazon some credit. They at least appear to pass on the feedback to the actual developers if you sound like you know what you're talking about. (Whether they actually do or not is another question, because the bugs still never seem to get fixed, but at least they say that they did.)

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

Perhaps it was a problem with their ingest process that is fixed now, and Tor just needs to resubmit the same content through the process again to get it fixed.

If that were the case, why does the bug happen with a brand new book which can only have been submitted by Tor a few weeks ago - like Elizabeth Bear's latest, which has been reported in this thread as suffering from the bug?

[darryl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Now if you want your eBooks DRM free, Amazon is no less of a hassle then ePub with ADE.

With both you have to download, move to Calibre and then put the eBook on the device with maybe a conversion. So basically, it's no more difficult with ePub or Kindle.

If you have a Kindle on your account the process is:

1. Download file from Amazon to Computer.
2. Load into Calibre.
3. Load drm-free copy to device.

With ADE:

1. Download acsm file to Computer.
2. Load acsm file into Digital Editions, which then downloads the ebook file.
3. Load into Calibre.
4. Load drm-free copy to device.

It was pointed out to me on another thread that the direct download to your computer option from Amazon is not available unless you have a Kindle on your account. In this case, the first step becomes to open your Kindle for PC application, which will sync and download your EBook file to your Kindle for PC application. Otherwise the steps are the same. You don't need to download both an .acsm file and an epub file. Granted, not a significant difference but a difference nevertheless.