DRM removal tool was taken down from github. If you can, please download it from gitlab before its taken down too
The DRM removal tool to remove DRM from ebooks was taken down from github and will most likely be taken down from gitlab soon as well. The more archives we have the better so im sharing the gitlab in hopes some Datahoarder types will archive it and keep it shared via torrents etc https://gitlab.com/bipinkrish/DeGourou
Edit: does anyone here use https://radicle.xyz/ ? Its a p2p network built on top of git and could be a good way to host it while still being able to contribute to it besides making a .torrent for archiving
Because in circumstances like these and many many other digital stores your are not in fact buying the product, but a license to use the product in a very limited way.
Worthwile reading into: Hachette v. Internet Archive.
In short: Even lending only the amount of real copies that you own as digital copies (you own 1 real book, you get to lend 1 digital copy. Not more!) is too much for some greedy bastards and a compromise.
My local library is 25 miles away and only open 4 days a week, plus it's about 40 miles away from the city where I do all my shopping so it is really out of the way. There is a different library in the city where I run my errands, but they charge a hefty fee for non-residents.
Imagine spending years writing a book for the benefit of others, only to have it downloaded, stripped of it's licensing and given away to others for free and being robbed of compensation for the time you invested.
Imagine buying a physical book, reading it, and putting it on the bookshelf in your living room, only to have family members and friends borrow it and read it for free.
I recently listened to a decent podcast related to this very question (link)
Probably the wrong forum but I will say it’s… complicated. Physical books wear surprisingly fast, so popular books actually make money for publishers and authors, even by being in libraries.
I’m not of the opinion that DRM is good, but I do understand that writers have to make a living. But it’s the markets fault for not providing unobtrusive DRM or solving this economic problem in a way that doesn’t suck for end users.
I don't know, that's between them and the publisher.
E: weirdly enough, I happen to have just got a library card a couple days ago so I hopped on Libby and, sure enough, they have a finite number of copies of each book that you can "borrow". So pretty much the same as renting them from the library without the pfaff.
Imagine buying a book only to find out that you can't read it anymore because the store you bought it from decided to remove it from sale and stop all downloads of it. You can't restore it from a backup because the DRM prevents that.
Imagine going on the piracy Lemmy community and preaching the moral wrongs of copying.
Seriously though, DRM is a cancer. I usually pirate my books from LibGen, but I buy them on the Kobo store at the same time to support the author. It's easy to strip DRM from Kobo and they're better than Amazon, but I would really prefer not to support a store with DRM in the first place.
Can anyone recommend a DRM-less store? Something akin to GOG for books.
Imagine selling someone a book and then later clawing it back without a refund and without giving the victim a big fat warning that you're going to do so.
That's what will likely happen when this company eventually goes out of business. The DRM server will go offline, and the books will be inaccessible. Cracks like this one are an insurance policy for that eventuality.
@HughJanus @cupcakezealot
this is not how compensation for writers works, generally, and also the whole idea is to break a traditional publishing system that exploits writers in favor of one where people directly pay the authors.
Unless the book is being bought directly from the writer, isn't it really the publisher who is gaining the rewards? My understanding is that the writer is paid a lumpsum for rights of a book by a publisher.
If the entire motto is "benefit of others", the writer themselves can publish it for the public to read openly, or make it a collaborative project where their and other people's contributions are added together.
It's not black and white, both sides of a piracy debate (much like anything else) have their arguments, and could have had reached a better medium.