DRM is a scam.
Feb. 26, 2025 12:19 PM
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naivetteThere have been two recent instances of DRM screwing over customers who legitimately paid for things:
I can say this in no uncertain terms, if I buy something digital, it’s mine!
(Don’t even get me started on game DRM, where you’re better off pirating the entire game due to multitudes of compounding factors, like music licensing or publishing agreements. Physical media is dying out here, and game hardware/software is not easy to preserve like books are.)
Piracy exists because of nonsense like above. Of course, there are some people who either can’t or won’t spend the money. But situations like above only benefits pirates, not legitimate customers. You want legitimate customers? Make sure you give them what they paid for.
I recently got into reading light novels, and I can point to one publisher who currently sells books without DRM, J-Novel.Club . They currently publish two of my favorite series, Ascendance of a Bookworm and Apothecary Diaries. I’ve happily paid for Bookworm twice (ebooks and physical), and currently own all of Apothecary Diaries digitally.
Yes, I own these books. I can simply download the epub from J-Novel Club once I’ve bought the book, and they can’t take away that file from me. So I’m happy to support their business. They even issue updates to the epubs, and let you know, in case you want to download the new version to replace the old local copy.
I never trusted Amazon or Kindle to begin with, so I currently buy my books through Rakuten Kobo. Their ereaders, while not open source, do support multiple file types, including epub and kepub (proprietary to Kobo, offers some additional features). You can easily convert epubs to kepub using Calibre and a 3rd party plugin called KoboTouchExtended.
Kobo isn’t perfect because they still enable publishers to use Adobe DRM with their books, but that’s easy to get around. But at least Adobe DRM doesn’t lock you into just one device, like Kindle does.
When I buy a pdf or an epub from an indie creator, I am doing it because I want to support them. Don’t stab customers in the back. They’ll just become pirates, and you’ve lost a future sale.
- The Amazon Kindle debacle, where Kindle users are losing the ability to download and transfer ebooks over USB
- Dark Horse Comics shutting down their digital storefront, causing comics (and some manga) fans to lose their digital purchases.
I can say this in no uncertain terms, if I buy something digital, it’s mine!
(Don’t even get me started on game DRM, where you’re better off pirating the entire game due to multitudes of compounding factors, like music licensing or publishing agreements. Physical media is dying out here, and game hardware/software is not easy to preserve like books are.)
Piracy exists because of nonsense like above. Of course, there are some people who either can’t or won’t spend the money. But situations like above only benefits pirates, not legitimate customers. You want legitimate customers? Make sure you give them what they paid for.
I recently got into reading light novels, and I can point to one publisher who currently sells books without DRM, J-Novel.Club . They currently publish two of my favorite series, Ascendance of a Bookworm and Apothecary Diaries. I’ve happily paid for Bookworm twice (ebooks and physical), and currently own all of Apothecary Diaries digitally.
Yes, I own these books. I can simply download the epub from J-Novel Club once I’ve bought the book, and they can’t take away that file from me. So I’m happy to support their business. They even issue updates to the epubs, and let you know, in case you want to download the new version to replace the old local copy.
I never trusted Amazon or Kindle to begin with, so I currently buy my books through Rakuten Kobo. Their ereaders, while not open source, do support multiple file types, including epub and kepub (proprietary to Kobo, offers some additional features). You can easily convert epubs to kepub using Calibre and a 3rd party plugin called KoboTouchExtended.
Kobo isn’t perfect because they still enable publishers to use Adobe DRM with their books, but that’s easy to get around. But at least Adobe DRM doesn’t lock you into just one device, like Kindle does.
When I buy a pdf or an epub from an indie creator, I am doing it because I want to support them. Don’t stab customers in the back. They’ll just become pirates, and you’ve lost a future sale.