So how is it done??

[tym]

So its impossible, last I knew, that converting any ebook from amazon was simply impossible.

Yet a Week after a major new release maybe a tad bit more, its out in the wild in epub. Did someone figure out how to convert Amazon Stuff?? Or someone else??

[Karellen]

It's not "impossible" to convert store bought epubs. People have been doing it for years. There are plenty of threads about it here in this forum.

It's a bit disappointing that a new release is being uploaded to sites for free distribution as the author misses out on remuneration for their hard work, but unfortunately that is what happens, just like piracy for tv shows and movies.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Karellen

It's not "impossible" to convert store bought epubs. People have been doing it for years. There are plenty of threads about it here in this forum.

Or Kindle ebooks, but likely that's what you meant.


Also ARCs, paper editions etc of anything that might be popular is pirated. Sometimes for sale. Google Playstore Books used to have simply scanned copies as PDFs. Now pirates OCR too.

[Sirtel]

It's entirely possible to convert Kindle books. Many of us here do it regularly.

Edit: I mean converting, of course, not uploading stuff to pirate sites.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tym

So its impossible, last I knew, that converting any ebook from amazon was simply impossible.

Yet a Week after a major new release maybe a tad bit more, its out in the wild in epub. Did someone figure out how to convert Amazon Stuff?? Or someone else??

I've converted lots of Amazon eBooks to ePub. I've done so using either calibre or KindleUnpack. It's actually very easy to do. Converting eBooks from Amazon has never been impossible once KF8 was reverse engineered.

What is this major new release? According the libraries I frequent online, the most major new release us the Britney Spears autobiography based on the wait lists.

[ownedbycats]

Not impossible. Unfortunately, pirates as well as legitimate customers are able to read online posts.

(Interstingly, whenever I search reddit to see if anyone's kicked up a fuss about the new DRM, I see my thread frequently linked to in piracy subreddits. Sigh.)

[theducks]

I just bought a 99 cent boxed set at the big A in AZW3 and it converted to EPUB in seconds. Note I do have a registered K4nt, even tho I now prefer my Kobo Libra2 as my daily reader.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Not impossible. Unfortunately, pirates as well as legitimate customers are able to read online posts.

(Interstingly, whenever I search reddit to see if anyone's kicked up a fuss about the new DRM, I see my thread frequently linked to in piracy subreddits. Sigh.)

And even if DRM was unbreakable, the Pirate can use camera, page turner and OCR if they hadn't already scanned an ARC after cutting off binding.

DRM is pointless. Inconveniences ordinary consumers more than pirates. HDCP and DRM adds a small amount of cost to anything with HDMI, or a video disc. Zero protection. Just point HD camera at screen in dark room. Some movies/video is pirated in the studio or broadcaster or projection booth.

Amazon ditched Adobe years ago, not for more security, but simply to cut costs. They don't pay anyone for their DRM, because it's theirs.

[binaryhermit]

I mean, a camera taking pictures of every page and enough man-hours of OCR duty could create an ebook if push came to shove.

I believe someone got their hands on a copy of one of the Harry Potter books (IIRC the last one) before release, took pictures of every page using their phone, and there was an unofficial ebook before release day via crowdsourced manual OCR.

EDIT: I assume for ebooks of sufficiently old print editions (AKA old enough there's not a text file of the book from the production process) they do more or less exactly what Quoth described

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

I believe someone got their hands on a copy of one of the Harry Potter books (IIRC the last one) before release, took pictures of every page using their phone, and there was an unofficial ebook before release day via crowdsourced manual OCR.

I seem to remember the camera used was a Canon DSLR and the original images had the camera serial number in the EXIF information. Oops.

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

EDIT: I assume for ebooks of sufficiently old print editions (AKA old enough there's not a text file of the book from the production process) they do more or less exactly what Quoth described

A lot of the older books get converted to PDF where you are viewing the images of the pages with a hidden OCRred layer to allow for search. All too often when the PDF is converted to an epub, what you get is the abysmal OCRred text layer which in most cases is totally unreadable.

[John F]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

...

EDIT: I assume for ebooks of sufficiently old print editions (AKA old enough there's not a text file of the book from the production process) they do more or less exactly what Quoth described

If I needed to do it, I think I would cut the binding and feed it through a scanner.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

EDIT: I assume for ebooks of sufficiently old print editions (AKA old enough there's not a text file of the book from the production process) they do more or less exactly what Quoth described

Pirates for ARC and new releases, because the crazy big publishers do paper first. The publishers do it for their old releases, even sometimes to be able to reprint paper. They don't want to print a facsimile and won't have the original plates.

You can now buy a camera based scanner cheap enough on Amazon that has lasers for page curl and automatically capture an entire book the way Google does it. Their auto scan & page turner is pretty fast. So they can digitise rare/library books. They often don't proof the OCR if it seems OK for search. See Google Books (not the one on the Playstore).

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by DNSB

A lot of the older books get converted to PDF where you are viewing the images of the pages with a hidden OCRred layer to allow for search. All too often when the PDF is converted to an epub, what you get is the abysmal OCRred text layer which in most cases is totally unreadable.

I had a paid for EPUB of A Canticle for Leibowitz that I purchased from Kobo that was so atrocious that I ended up sticking with an unofficial OCR'd EPUB I found online. The OCR'd one was clearly crap from a CSS/internals perspective, but at least the thing was readable! The EPUB from Kobo (no longer available--they must've yanked it) felt like the days of trying to read a novel in .txt format in Notepad.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I seem to remember the camera used was a Canon DSLR and the original images had the camera serial number in the EXIF information. Oops.

I can't remember if it was this series or something else entirely, but I recall that a publisher accidentally confirmed a specific leak was the real one by sending a DMCA takedown notice against it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

I had a paid for EPUB of A Canticle for Leibowitz that I purchased from Kobo that was so atrocious that I ended up sticking with an unofficial OCR'd EPUB I found online. The OCR'd one was clearly crap from a CSS/internals perspective, but at least the thing was readable! The EPUB from Kobo (no longer available--they must've yanked it) felt like the days of trying to read a novel in .txt format in Notepad.

The copy that was on Kobo could have been an illegal copy.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is legally available as an eBook in the UK but not in the US.