Kindle 3 and Library Books

[DiamondDave]

I don't ride horses.

You can rationalize it all you want--wrong is wrong when it comes to copying someone else's stuff without their permission. I'm not saying I've never done it, because heaven knows I have, but it's a whole different circumstance when you're the guy who owns the stuff that's being copied.

Does your one act of piracy matter? No, not really. But it's the cumulative impact of hundreds of thousands of them that matter.

[abookreader]

eh, I remove DRM from all the books I buy and back them up to my own storage system and quite frankly I don't give a crap that the rules are rules. Yep, I am awfully casual about it. Thanks for noticing.

As for Overdrive. I own a Sony Pocket Reader for the checkouts but I far prefer reading from the Kindle. Derive from that what you will and make a guess at my actions but I don't keep the Library books. I read and delete. Last night I looked down at my speedometer and found myself doing 62 in a 55mph zone.

I'm a wild, wild woman. Maybe I can get a cell next to Lindsey Lohan.

[luvmy4brats]

Originally Posted by abookreader

eh, I remove DRM from all the books I buy and back them up to my own storage system and quite frankly I don't give a crap that the rules are rules. Yep, I am awfully casual about it. Thanks for noticing.

As for Overdrive. I own a Sony Pocket Reader for the checkouts but I far prefer reading from the Kindle. Derive from that what you will and make a guess at my actions but I don't keep the Library books. I read and delete. Last night I looked down at my speedometer and found myself doing 62 in a 55mph zone.

I'm a wild, wild woman. Maybe I can get a cell next to Lindsey Lohan.

Can we share a cell? The only difference is I have a nook...

[Barty]

Hmm, I thought you could only remove drm from books you bought because you have the key (credit card number)

I have no problem with removing drm from books you bought yourself. But if people do this with library books, that will make publishers not want to sell to libraries, and we'll all be worse off.

[E7218]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I've decided to buy a Sony Touch, so I won't have to worry about removing DRM, but it's good to know that it is possible to remove it.

[FF2]

New to Kindle3.

I'd like to ask a question but not get too involved in the drm-removal/piracy debate.

From what I've seen my library system lends books in epub and/or pdf format. The book I quickly "borrowed" does not appear to be very large so I think it is not the book but a link to use from an appropriate reader - an "acsm" extension.

Can this type of "book" be read on my computer? Some Windows' version of a reader like there is a kindle-desktop application?

Is stripping the drm required if I wanted to read on my Kindle3?

[TheKindleWorm]

Originally Posted by FF2

New to Kindle3.
From what I've seen my library system lends books in epub and/or pdf format. The book I quickly "borrowed" does not appear to be very large so I think it is not the book but a link to use from an appropriate reader - an "acsm" extension.
Can this type of "book" be read on my computer? Some Windows' version of a reader like there is a kindle-desktop application?
Is stripping the drm required if I wanted to read on my Kindle3?

Your library probably provides some software to read the ebooks on your computer. You can read .PDF files on the Kindle but yes you would need to remove the drm protection to read them on your Kindle. ePub files cannot be read on a kindle so you would need to remove the drm and also convert the file to a kindle friendly format like .mobi

[grooks]

The acsm file is kinda of like a license that allows you to download the epub/pdf ebook. Opening an acsm file (do not save it) will open the ebook and automatically save it to your computer. When you get books from the library it is easier to open the book rather than save it.

Any epub or pdf borrowed from the public library will not be readable on your K3. One would need to remove the DRM and convert (for epubs) for the K3 to open the ebook.

[DiapDealer]

From what I've seen my library system lends books in epub and/or pdf format. The book I quickly "borrowed" does not appear to be very large so I think it is not the book but a link to use from an appropriate reader - an "acsm" extension.

The ascm file is basically a key file that allows you to download the purchased (or borrowed) book with Adobe Digital Editions.

[jlmwrite]

Originally Posted by FF2

From what I've seen my library system lends books in epub and/or pdf format. The book I quickly "borrowed" does not appear to be very large so I think it is not the book but a link to use from an appropriate reader - an "acsm" extension.

Can this type of "book" be read on my computer? Some Windows' version of a reader like there is a kindle-desktop application?

Is stripping the drm required if I wanted to read on my Kindle3?

The .ascm is a small download. Get the free Adobe Digital Editions for your PC, and when you open the .ascm file, ADE will download the rest of the book in an EPUB format to read inside ADE. Your library website probably has a link to ADe somewhere, but it's on the Adobe website.

And yes, reading that book on your Kindle would require stripping the DRM and converting it to MOBI format.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Barty

Hmm, I thought you could only remove drm from books you bought because you have the key (credit card number)

I have no problem with removing drm from books you bought yourself. But if people do this with library books, that will make publishers not want to sell to libraries, and we'll all be worse off.

Why would the publisher care if I read it on my desktop, or phone, or on my Kindle? As long as I don't keep the book past its return date I don't see a problem.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by carld

Why would the publisher care if I read it on my desktop, or phone, or on my Kindle? As long as I don't keep the book past its return date I don't see a problem.

Only Amazon cares that you read library books on your kindle.

[lso802]

I've googled to no avail. Used the python script and can't seem to get it to work on Windows 7. Could someone please PM me a good site with a good tutorial on how to get library books onto the kindle? I could buy the nook, but I love the Kindle 3 and don't really need 2 ereaders.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by carld;

Why would the publisher care if I read it on my desktop, or phone, or on my Kindle? As long as I don't keep the book past its return date I don't see a problem.

The publisher may not see things that way, meaning they don't want to rely on the honor system, which is why DRM exists in the first place.

[cjottawa]

Originally Posted by DiamondDave

You all are very casual about removing DRM--you're basically making an illegal, pirated copy of a book. I understand that most of you probably don't care, and that you probably think DRM is absurd, and I don't entirely disagree with you--but those are the rules.

I found this MR post rather lucid:

Originally Posted by Ken Irving

Here's the basic problem. When I pay for a digital edition, I neither own it nor control it in the way I do a copy of the print edition. A print book I can keep for the rest of my life, lend it to a slow-reading friend for six months (and then another friend, and another, until I run out of literate friends), sell it used at a yard sale, or sell it for a profit to a collector if it happens to be a first edition of a well-known book.

The digital edition (if I follow all the rules and laws that apply in my country) may be good for the life of the company I bought it from, the company that runs the rights server, or the device I must read it on - whichever comes first. I can lend it, once, for two weeks, to someone who has the same reading device I do, and I can't legally resell it to anyone for love or money. And the formatting of said ebook may be way south of that of the print book, due to garbled scans, lack of editing, etc., or so my experience so far tells me. So if the publisher selling it wants to price it the same as, or for more than, the print edition, I'm paying the same price and getting much, much - MUCH - less. And the publisher is getting much, much more, while probably at the same time (as we've seen in the U.S.) trying by hook or crook to trick most authors (except for the "cream" who have tough agents, large sales, and a fleet of lawyers) into accepting the same royalty for a digital book that they would be getting for the print edition, even though the publisher's costs on an ebook do not include typesetting, printing, binding, warehousing, spoilage, shipping, etc. The record of certain agency-model publishers in that last respect is pretty shoddy, as we can see from a series of recent confrontations with the Authors Guild.

So while Amazon and other ebook sellers don't necessarily have pure motives for wanting to put ebook prices at a level that will maximize their cash flow, and perhaps allow them to monopolize the digital market, the publishers are the ones with the truly unclean hands in situations like this. They shouldn't let Amazon fix the prices (as Apple did with iTunes), but they should understand that trying to fix prices at print levels under the pretext of protecting their print business and acting as white knights for the very people - their authors - they are screwing will just squeeze both themselves and their authors out of the e-market for sure, and possibly out of a segment of the print market as well...

There's an implication that we don't "own" but we've paid for the right to use the content.

It could be argued, along with the right to use the content, is the right to use it on whatever device we want, however, whenever, so long as we aren't making duplicates and spreading them around.

Of course the publishers are going to disagree and this will probably have to go to court before it's settled.

The "copyright tax" on blank media in Europe gave tacit approval to make backup copies where a similar initiative failed in Canada because the content creators saw the precedent and didn't want to give that tacit approval to make duplicates through a mandatory tax on blank media.