[GUI Plugin] ScrambleEbook: Getting help with copyrighted books

[JSWolf]

To be honest, I don't think the plugin should handle cases where the eBook fails epubcheck. If the plugin fails when the eBook passes epubcheck, sure, fix it. But not if the eBook fails to validate.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

To be honest, I don't think the plugin should handle cases where the eBook fails epubcheck. If the plugin fails when the eBook passes epubcheck, sure, fix it. But not if the eBook fails to validate.

But, one of the points of ScrambleEbook is to be able to share broken books with others to work out what is wrong with them. And there are plenty of books that fail epubcheck that will work fine on lots of ereaders.

[jackie_w]

• Maintenance upgrade for python3 compatibility.
• Plugin icon updated to be more visible when using calibre's Dark mode.

Plugin should now work with both calibre current production version (v4.15) and calibre python3 beta versions v4.99.x.

If any problems, please report them here.

[mirage]

I notice that some of the metadata in the opf file of an epub does not get scrambled.

<dc:creator id="id">... ...</dc:creator>
    <dc:identifier>isbn:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>google:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>goodreads:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>amazon:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>kobo:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>calibre:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>uuid:...-...-...-...-...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier id="uid">...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:source id="src-id">urn:isbn:...</dc:source>
    <dc:description>*removed*</dc:description>
    <dc:publisher>... </dc:publisher>

I replaced the unscrambled data with periods myself. But post-scramble, the original data was still there. Maybe this is because it was info that had been inserted by Calibre actions generated by me, at least in some cases? More specifically, the identifiers came when I used the "Edit metadata" window to download the book's metadata

Anyway, I thought I'd point it out. Had I not looked within the file, I'd have unintentionally posted unscrambled identifying data.

I'd vote for scrambling the <dc:description> content instead of removing it, at least if the amount of work is not disproportional to the value of preserving that data.

No need for anyone to do any of this on my account, of course. Mainly I wanted to alert people that opf content may not get scrambled, so be aware.

[JSWolf]

Not scrambining OPF content is not a problem.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by mirage

I notice that some of the metadata in the opf file of an epub does not get scrambled.

<dc:creator id="id">... ...</dc:creator>
    <dc:identifier>isbn:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>google:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>goodreads:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>amazon:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>kobo:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>calibre:...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier>uuid:...-...-...-...-...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:identifier id="uid">...</dc:identifier>
    <dc:source id="src-id">urn:isbn:...</dc:source>
    <dc:description>*removed*</dc:description>
    <dc:publisher>... </dc:publisher>

I replaced the unscrambled data with periods myself. But post-scramble, the original data was still there. Maybe this is because it was info that had been inserted by Calibre actions generated by me, at least in some cases? More specifically, the identifiers came when I used the "Edit metadata" window to download the book's metadata

Anyway, I thought I'd point it out. Had I not looked within the file, I'd have unintentionally posted unscrambled identifying data.

I'd vote for scrambling the <dc:description> content instead of removing it, at least if the amount of work is not disproportional to the value of preserving that data.

No need for anyone to do any of this on my account, of course. Mainly I wanted to alert people that opf content may not get scrambled, so be aware.

The MR Moderator team decided it would not be necessary to scramble OPF Title, Author or any identifier codes e.g. ISBN, MOBI-ASIN.

They did request that some calibre metadata was removed including calibre custom metadata and description to be on the safe side.

Here are a couple of relevant Mod posts:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=63
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=120

If you run the plugin from the commandline there is an option to set stricter rules for metadata removal. In all honesty I'm not sure how many users ever do this.

[mirage]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

The MR Moderator team decided it would not be necessary to scramble OPF Title, Author or any identifier codes e.g. ISBN, MOBI-ASIN.

They did request that some calibre metadata was removed including calibre custom metadata and description to be on the safe side.

Here are a couple of relevant Mod posts:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=63
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=120

If you run the plugin from the commandline there is an option to set stricter rules for metadata removal. In all honesty I'm not sure how many users ever do this.

Thanks for clarifying this.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

…
If you run the plugin from the commandline there is an option to set stricter rules for metadata removal. In all honesty I'm not sure how many users ever do this.

Can I suggest you copy this post to post #2 in this thread.

Curious - what are the options for stricter rules, I don't have the PI installed.

BR

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Can I suggest you copy this post to post #2 in this thread.

There's already a link to that whole thread in post #1. Nevertheless, I've done as you requested and placed a link to its commandline instructions post in post #2 of this thread.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Curious - what are the options for stricter rules, I don't have the PI installed.

This is what you see if you run from the commandline. The 3 asterisked buttons are not visible when run as a plugin via the calibre GUI

The boxes already checked in the [Change rules*] pop-up widget are the default "MR scramble rules".

The [View metadata *] button lets you peek at the OPF's content for <package> tag and <metadata> section, Before vs. After scrambling.

[BetterRed]

I used the old standalone scrambler a bit in calibre 3 times, and I'd forgotten you had to scrap it when calibre 4 was released - I assumed there'd be cmdline options.

There was an inkling of an idea behind wanting know about the options. Looks like if I uncheck everything, except "Remove some descriptive metadata", it might get rid of dc:description, dc:subject and dc:identifiers, but leave the the book unscrambled - which is what I was hoping for.

BR

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I used the old standalone scrambler a bit in calibre 3 times, and I'd forgotten you had to scrap it when calibre 4 was released - I assumed there'd be cmdline options.

There was an inkling of an idea behind wanting know about the options. Looks like if I uncheck everything, except "Remove some descriptive metadata", it might get rid of dc:description, dc:subject and dc:identifiers, but leave the the book unscrambled - which is what I was hoping for.

The main purpose of the CLI these days is to scramble (to MR rules) a book which is just in the OS rather than visible to the calibre GUI. The number of users who actually do this is probably miniscule. The ones who actually also edit the scramble rules - even smaller. As you can see from this thread, there has been a lack of discussion about it in the 5 years since initial launch.

Having said that ... Did you try temporarily installing the plugin and running it from the commandline using a test book with edited scramble rules as per your inkling? Did it give you a modified OPF which you'd be happy with? If so, there is still some standalone residual code in the plugin which could be very simply hacked in your personal copy of the plugin's scrambleebook.py file to permanently remember your new personal scramble rules.

If you want to pursue this then let me know and I can tell you what needs to be done. However, IMHO, if you wanted to go down the hack-an-existing-plugin route I suspect hacking one of Modify Epub's metadata options might be more fruitful, especially if you want to bulk modify OPFs.

[BetterRed]

Thanks, I'll install the PI in a portable to see if it behaves as I suggested, but I won't be hacking it or Modify. Hacks and elaborate customisation are yet more clutter I don't need.

Truth is, I will probably continue to do what I do now: delete the superfluous DC metadata (description, subjects etc) with Sigil's metadata editor when I'm doing final edits.

BR

[jackie_w]

Unfortunately, due to unexpected issues at home, I am unable to provide any support for this plugin for the forseeable future.

Hopefully the current version will continue to work OK in calibre 5.xx

[cyphar]

Does there happen to be a GitHub repo I can sent PRs to? I want to add support for CJK scrambling (which should be fairly trivial -- you just have to handle which Unicode blocks are which kind of CJK character and then just pick one from the same block). Since jackie_w said they're unable to work on this for the forseeable future maybe it should be put somewhere where more than one person can try to work on it?

[PeterT]

Or you can just edit the plugin you've downloaded from here... A plugin is just a zip file of the source code.

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