Who Really Owns Your E-Books? Switching from Kindle to Kobo

[John F]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You still can at the moment. But Amazon is trying to prevent it and we're discussing what that would mean in the future.

I think Amazon will add/enable a new DRM.
And then that DRM will be defeated.
Then I think Amazon will add/enable another DRM.
And that will be defeated.
After that, Then I think Amazon will add/enable yet another DRM.
And then it will be defeated.
...

There may be some more formats thrown in at some time.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You still can at the moment. But Amazon is trying to prevent it and we're discussing what that would mean in the future.

Ah, ok

I can see (hope) this will be an issue that authors themselves may take up. It would only take one or two big name authors to throw their weight behind the issue of digital ownership and DRM to really get the ball rolling. If authors started to threaten to use other platforms (heck they could even collaborate to set their own up) Amazon would soon change their tune.

Having said that it is a difficult one, everyone has understood from the year dot that it is illegal/ immoral to buy any sort of copyrighted media (be it a VHS, DVD, book or ebook) and to then copy it for the purpose of distribution, but you've always had the freedom to pass on your copy of said media to someone else. It's a whole new(ish) area of technology that everyone is dealing with and some sort of middle ground will have to be found. On the same note one of the downsides to me of ebooks is the inability to have a secondhand market.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cellaris

Can't you already buy e-books from places other than Amazon and read them on whatever brand device you prefer, including Kindle? That's what I do. And that's regardless of what changes Amazon makes regarding DRM.

Only if those ebooks do not have DRM. If I purchased a DRMmed ePub or borrow one from a library, I would need to remove DRM before I could send it to a Kindle device either over USB or using a Send to Kindle option. And note that my personal stance is that I do not remove DRM from loans whether they be library, Kobo Plus or Kindle Unlimited.

Originally Posted by cellaris

The only e-books (if they put obstacles in the way of DRM removal) that you wouldn't be able to read on other devices would be the ones that Amazon has exclusivity on. And you have two options: either you read them on their devices or you don't read them at all (because you won't be able to buy them elsewhere and you won't be able to remove the DRM). But this last option that you all repeat ("if I can't remove the DRM I won't buy books from Amazon again") doesn't provide any solution to the problem you are so worried about. What you are proposing is simply to give up reading certain e-books on an e-reader. Which is fine as a personal decision, as long as you are clear that it doesn't solve the problem.

For me, there are so many books that I want to read that having some of them unavailable due to Amazon exclusivity and unbreakable DRM is not a big deal. I will simply read other books.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cellaris

That's exactly what I said. You either read them on a Kindle device or you don't read them at all. There is no other solution no matter how many times you think about it.

Does 'Kindle device' include the various ereading apps from Amazon? Amazon's cloud reader? Etc. And please note that Amazon already sells enough ebooks that do not work on their Kindle devices.

[cellaris]

Effectively I am referring to books in ePub format with DRM that you can buy elsewhere (Kobo, Google, or any other site) other than Amazon (I am not referring to books from public libraries or subscriptions). And that you have to remove the DRM before sending them to Kindle e-readers.

Regarding "Kindle devices", I am referring to Kindle e-readers, but the argument can also be extended to the kind of applications and services you mention, because anyone who says they won't buy a book from Amazon that they can't remove the DRM from is not going to read it on these sites either.

[cgsmom]

It is very interesting to follow along with the evolution of DRM. I don't know how many people know that Amazon used to sell ebooks in different formats. I used to read on a PDA with Pocket PC software and the Microsoft reader app. I bought books from Amazon in the LIT format. When Amazon bought Mobipocket and turned it into Kindle, all of my LIT books vanished. I emailed Amazon about it and was completely ignored. Those orders even disappeared from my order history. Luckily I found the ConvertLIT program and was able to save them. So you can see why I don't trust Amazon to make sure my books are safely stored on their servers.

As others have said, I also have more books than I could possibly read in my lifetime, so I could stop buying if I had to. I also love playing with new devices. Right now I have 2 Kindles and 2 Nooks. A Kobo is probably in my future so I am not worried, but interested.

[cfrizz]

I don't worry too much about them ever developing a DRM scheme that will be unbreakable, because I think there will always be someone willing to take up the challenge to break it.

As for Amazon, I have never had one of their devices, I stopped buy my books from them and converting them to epubs and just get them from Kobo.

Corporations are always trying to tell us that we must buy everything but own nothing. I will continue to ignore that BS and do what I have to do to make sure that everything I buy I have a way to own it out right.

I have enough books to read and reread for the rest of my lifetime.

[DNSB]

If nothing else, you end up with the people who display the book on their computer screen and do screen captures of each page with an automated process being used most of the time. Some of those people are content with making an ebook from those images while others will use OCR to generate a text based ebook. A couple of years back, one of my grandnieces found that quite a few of her university textbooks were available that way though the pirate sources only discounted the university bookstore's ebook prices by about 50%.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If nothing else, you end up with the people who display the book on their computer screen and do screen captures of each page with an automated process being used most of the time. Some of those people are content with making an ebook from those images while others will use OCR to generate a text based ebook.

Yes, but as time and effort increases and quality of results decreases fewer people will bother trying.

Amazon has significantly increased the complexity of their DRM over time. They are not quite up to Apple’s level, but they are getting there.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Yes, but as time and effort increases and quality of results decreases fewer people will bother trying.

Amazon has significantly increased the complexity of their DRM over time. They are not quite up to Apple’s level, but they are getting there.

I thought no one bothered with Apple DRM because they don't have any exclusive content? I.e. why bother when the same books can be had from other stores with much weaker DRM.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

It is very interesting to follow along with the evolution of DRM. I don't know how many people know that Amazon used to sell ebooks in different formats. I used to read on a PDA with Pocket PC software and the Microsoft reader app. I bought books from Amazon in the LIT format. When Amazon bought Mobipocket and turned it into Kindle, all of my LIT books vanished. I emailed Amazon about it and was completely ignored. Those orders even disappeared from my order history. Luckily I found the ConvertLIT program and was able to save them. So you can see why I don't trust Amazon to make sure my books are safely stored on their servers.

As others have said, I also have more books than I could possibly read in my lifetime, so I could stop buying if I had to. I also love playing with new devices. Right now I have 2 Kindles and 2 Nooks. A Kobo is probably in my future so I am not worried, but interested.

And when Amazon stopped selling eBooks before the Kindle, many people lost access to their eBooks because Amazon even took them down from user's accounts. So for DRM that relies on the computer hardware, if the computer was upgraded/changed/etc, the eBook was no longer accessible.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And when Amazon stopped selling eBooks before the Kindle, many people lost access to their eBooks because Amazon even took them down from user's accounts. So for DRM that relies on the computer hardware, if the computer was upgraded/changed/etc, the eBook was no longer accessible.

Ummm...you just paraphrased what cgsmom said in the post that you quoted. Are you ok?

Shari

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Yes, but as time and effort increases and quality of results decreases fewer people will bother trying.

Amazon has significantly increased the complexity of their DRM over time. They are not quite up to Apple’s level, but they are getting there.

I'm not sure what you mean by quality of results? Removing the DRM from an ebook, as far as I know, had never caused a quality loss. If you are referring to the screen capture technique? One example I recently saw was taken from a 4K HD screen with the pages being 1600x 2133 pixels which is pretty decent resolution. Yes, this meant the image only ebook was rather massive at ~240MB but the OCRred version was about 900KB.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'm not sure what you mean by quality of results? Removing the DRM from an ebook, as far as I know, had never caused a quality loss. If you are referring to the screen capture technique? One example I recently saw was taken from a 4K HD screen with the pages being 1600x 2133 pixels which is pretty decent resolution. Yes, this meant the image only ebook was rather massive at ~240MB but the OCRred version was about 900KB.

Even the highest resolution screen capture is far inferior to the original reflowable e-book format for text-based books. I would not settle for that myself.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Even the highest resolution screen capture is far inferior to the original reflowable e-book format for text-based books. I would not settle for that myself.

A 7" e-ink screen has a resolution of 1264x1680 pixels, an 8" e-ink screen has a resolution of 1440x1920. So those screen captures have a noticeable higher resolution than my Sage approximately that of a 9" 300 PPI screen.

Oddly, I agree that the screen capture results are inferior but that is due more to not being able to search the ebook. The OCRred flavour is much closer to the original ebook in that sense. And on yet another hand, I do not approve of the whole piracy thing.