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Comment by HenryBemis | Hacker News Reader

I bought an ebook from Amazon a few days ago. It asked me "which device do I want it delivered to", and I picked the "download please" (or something worded like that. I downloaded the epub. I could read it on Calibre, on the ReadEra app on my (Amazon-crapware-stripped) Amazon Fire HD, I emailed me to my partner's, "kindle email".

It displayed everywhere nicely. I never purchased books from other locations so I got no opinion on FNAC and the likes, but I never had an issue on Amazon books.

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It's explicitly indicated on the info page for some applicable Amazon Kindle books that it has no DRM due to publisher/author request - e.g. [1]

I do not believe that is universally true.

(FWIW... I found a lot of SciFi authors request no DRM, as it supports their personal beliefs and values, but that's a personal observation rather than objective survey of the field)

1: https://www.amazon.com/John-Scalzi-ebook/dp/B000SEIK2S If you unroll/expand description you'll see the quote

You were lucky. Most e-books from Amazon come with DRM and restrictions preventing you from reading them on devices that do not have a kindle app. I once purchased a textbook (that wasn't on libgen) on Amazon and had to use the Kindle app on Windows to read it. It was not readable on Kindle Cloud Reader and Amazon does not have a Kindle app for Linux. I returned the book after using it (only needed it for a week) and got a refund.

Interesting. I'd never purchased a Kindle book because I assumed I couldn't open it with any app of my choice(I use FBReader on Android)

But it'd be real nice to be able to purchase DRM free ebooks, a la GOG for games.

While it's not DRM free... DeDRM [0] can be run stand alone or as a plug-in to Calibre. I have it auto run when I import a new book to my collection. From there you can do what you like with it.

[0]: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools

It won't work on newer books. Kindle has a new DRM and if you try to install older versions of the kindle application you will get an error.

You need to download the books from the "Manage Your Content and Devices" page using the "Download & transfer via USB" link. Those still use the old DRM.

Unfortunately that option is not available for all ebooks.

That's a bummer. I haven't bought an ebook in a few months, had no idea.

It depends on the publisher whether or not DRM is included.

Tor[1] doesn't use DRM.

I think it's worth calling out publishers that aren't hostile to readers. Are there others?

[1]: https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/torforge-e-books-are-now-drm-...

Baen [1] is another to mind that imprint-wide believes that DRM is a waste of time. As another poster pointed out it is interesting that it is mostly sci-fi imprints leading the vanguard of DRM free, in terms of well known commercial publishers.

[1] https://www.baen.com/faq?section=drm-policy

Baen Books as well, regardless of where you buy them.

Typically, my process is:

- If the ebook is available DRM-free, buy that (this is easiest for scifi, <3 Tor/Baen)

- Else, if I can find a reasonably-priced physical copy, buy that (especially from an indie bookseller)

- Else, pirate the ebook

You can only do this on the minority of drm unencumbered books and even then the UI for simply getting at that drm unencumbered file is a complete mess especially if you are buying and trying to read the book on an actual computer.

As far as I'm aware, that's just product messaging, and it ends up on all of your devices (that you're signed into an Amazon account on) regardless.

It can be downloaded/accessed on all devices, but it gets explicitly pushed to the ones you select. These can be any registered device - kindle or fire but also phones or tablets.

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