John Scalzi Lock-In not downloadable in epub format

[Eric Carroll]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Kobo definitely didn't start out like this and according to their About Us page aren't supposed to be doing this.

And that is why I have, until now, exclusively purchased my ebooks from Kobo.

[Eric Carroll]

Originally Posted by DNSB

My procedure is to take the original file if it is not DRMed, rename it to something humanly understandable, suck it into Calibre, run the ModifyEpub plugin to remove Kobo's added items, open it in Sigil, though Calibre's internal editor would also work and finish the cleanup.

That's tough to read let alone do. It shouldn't be this hard...

[Eric Carroll]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

They say they're going to fix it:



http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/0...ownload-issue/

Interesting. Kobo customer service sure is not aware of that. Too bad, this is a good answer.

Note the commentary in this article is exactly what I experienced. So the customer service script needs to be changed if this is actually the answer.

Kobo CS has described this issue not as a problem but as a feature. According to second hand reports from several sources, the reason people cannot download the ebooks is that they are Epub3 format.

There has been no pattern to the ebooks that are afflicted, with both DRMed ebooks and even DRM-free titles from Tor Books blocked from being downloaded at Kobo but still readily downloadable at other ebookstores.

Thanks for the link. This response from Kobo comes two days after I posted this item and cites exactly the same book, so its hot off the press.

Hey cool: this article from the Dear Author blog cites this thread!

[Eric Carroll]

Originally Posted by Eric Carroll

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.

Well, I get to virtually eat this posting.

Red Planet Blues is not available on ebooks.com. But it is available on Kobo using Adobe DRM so clearly it is not a TOR title. But I did buy it anyway.

[Eric Carroll]

John Scalzi's Human Division is a TOR DRM free title.

It shows as not supported for blackberry, which customer service says indicates it is not downloadable.

But I put it in my preview, and it shows as EPUB (DRM Free) which I believe means it would be downloadable if I bought it.

Now I could have sworn this was not downloadable when I initially looked, so I went to ebooks.com and bought it as DRM free epub.

This example appears to show a TOR book from May 2013 as downloadable, but a TOR book from Aug 2014 as not downloadable.

So not all TOR books are impacted.

Next step is to look at the epub authoring.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Eric Carroll

Interesting. Kobo customer service sure is not aware of that. Too bad, this is a good answer.

Note the commentary in this article is exactly what I experienced. So the customer service script needs to be changed if this is actually the answer.



Thanks for the link. This response from Kobo comes two days after I posted this item and cites exactly the same book, so its hot off the press.

Hey cool: this article from the Dear Author blog cites this thread!

I also cited this thread when I covered this issue on Thrusday. Your gripe was the final straw; it pushed me to post the oboK plugin.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Eric Carroll

That's tough to read let alone do. It shouldn't be this hard...

From my point of view, it's not that hard. Most of the process is automated.

[Eric Carroll]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I also cited this thread when I covered this issue on Thrusday. Your gripe was the final straw; it pushed me to post the oboK plugin.

Cool! Thank you!

Of course, the first rule of DRM Fight Club is we don't discuss DRM Fight Club.

[Eric Carroll]

Originally Posted by DNSB

From my point of view, it's not that hard. Most of the process is automated.

Not hard for me. Not hard for you. Others however...

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Eric Carroll

Not hard for me. Not hard for you. Others however...

My feeling is that the ones for whom it would be truly difficult are not likely to be found among the posters here. Most of the people I know who own ereaders get their ebooks from the on-line store and neither know nor care about what format they are in. For that group it would be hard.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Eric Carroll

John Scalzi's Human Division is a TOR DRM free title.

It shows as not supported for blackberry, which customer service says indicates it is not downloadable.

But I put it in my preview, and it shows as EPUB (DRM Free) which I believe means it would be downloadable if I bought it.

Now I could have sworn this was not downloadable when I initially looked, so I went to ebooks.com and bought it as DRM free epub.

This example appears to show a TOR book from May 2013 as downloadable, but a TOR book from Aug 2014 as not downloadable.

So not all TOR books are impacted.

Next step is to look at the epub authoring.

Not all Tor books are impacted because not all Tor eBooks are ePub 3. The ePub 2 eBooks are not converted to kepub. it is the newer ePub 3 eBooks from Tor that get converted to kepub. Kobo does this so it gets read with the Access renderer in Kobo eInk Readers.

[JSWolf]

Question, is there any easy way to tell which eBooks in the Kobo Desktop library are DRM free when you have them all mixed in with ones that do have DRM?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Not all Tor books are impacted because not all Tor eBooks are ePub 3. The ePub 2 eBooks are not converted to kepub. it is the newer ePub 3 eBooks from Tor that get converted to kepub. Kobo does this so it gets read with the Access renderer in Kobo eInk Readers.

Not quite right, Jon. Epub 2 books are also converted to kepub. Those are the ones that can be directly downloaded to your Kobo ereader or a Kobo app (Windows, Mac, iOS and Android), sync your reading position across multiple devices, etc.

The difference is that epub2 ebooks are also available as downloadable epubs readable on any epub2 software/device while epub3 ebooks are not. What would make sense to me would be Kobo changing their system to treat epub3 ebooks with a toc.ncx as epub2.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Question, is there any easy way to tell which eBooks in the Kobo Desktop library are DRM free when you have them all mixed in with ones that do have DRM?

You can try an older version of obok -- it did not show kepubs that were not DRMed in it's list.

[ForsCream]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Question, is there any easy way to tell which eBooks in the Kobo Desktop library are DRM free when you have them all mixed in with ones that do have DRM?

Similar question.

I've got Obok plugin to process my kobo books, the DRMed files are well handled, but I can't get my DRM-free kobo books turned to normal EPUB files.

Any suggestions?

I checked this thread and someone mentioned change the extension and use Calibre to re-convert to clean the mess codes, I didn't make it however.