> We were planning to now focus on new accessibility features on our open-source Thorium Reader, better access to annotations for blind users and an advanced reading mode for dyslexic people. Too bad; disturbances around LCP will force us to focus on a new round of security measures
This is so funny to me. "We might have gotten around to making our software accessible, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
> KOReader never contacted us: I don't think they know how low the certification fee would be
It's between 350USD (per platform) and 1,700USD per year. So the possible range is between 1700USD, and 3k USD... Yeah, that's totally reasonable for a FOSS project where the lower yearly cost is 110% of the amount they make in donations every year.
Do book drms even make sens? i can understand games, but how do you encrypt words that are meant to be read. People used to record music on the radio. It seems easier to ocr a book and generate text that way.
Very curious (and nervous, as I can imagine more bad outcomes than good ones) as somebody that frequently lends ebooks from libraries supporting LCP. (The only thing worse than "controlled" digital lending would be no digital lending at all.)
LCP is as close to the platonic ideal of DRM as it gets: Essentially no obfuscation; cryptography largely something to point at when filing DMCA takedown requests. For better or worse, I suspect we're about to get some new case law for what constitutes an effective technical measure.
LCP markets itself as an open standard, but has made multiple platforms unusable for me as a kobo user. Aggressively seeking out content like this and trying to bully away fixes for the tiny portion of the market it is helping is reprehensible
A more straightforward way to do it, IMHO, is to use Thorium in conjunction with a Python script called lcpdedrm. If I remember well, that script isn't available directly any longer, but it is easy to look around and find copies of it. Then use Thorium for locally saving the file and use the Python script for removing the DRM.
> You can, for sure, publish information relative to your discoveries to the extent UK laws allow. After study, we'll do our best to make the technology more robust. If your discourse represents a circumvention of this technical protection measure, we'll command a take-down as a standard procedure.
Disgusting behaviour, as expected from the publishing industry I suppose. This "EDRLab" outfit appears to be little more than a non-profit front for Hachette.
Granted, Readium LCP[0] may be one of the less odious DRM solutions out there for eBook contents, however it's still DRM. Handcuffs are still handcuffs regardless of how comfortably they fit.
DRM is in my view is too often used as a cudgel to mandate hardware and software level restrictions that take away the control of our own computing devices and environments. I personally hold that intellectual property isn't property, and is increasingly becoming a net negative to humanity as a whole. In the case of this article, there is an ominous threat of legal action against the disclosure of the author's work, potentially stifling the speech of a fellow hacker.
While I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of creatives, and their need to eat, I feel like the pendulum has swung so far to the interests of the copyright holders and away from the needs of the public that the bargain is no longer one I support.
Because of this stance, I find myself uncomfortably on the side of AI bros like Sam Altman who argue for the expansion of the fair use doctrine. I see AI as an accelerant in the erosion of IP's relevance and enforceability. With AI being able to crank out derivative works at scale, it blurs the lines between infringement and transformation. My hope is that the flood of such content makes enforcement impractical, and that it will further demonstrate that the IP emperor is naked.
I was hoping to link to this from somewhere technically relevant but having scoped out the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 S296 it actually seems unwise to do so as a British person. Meanwhile Starmer is proud of Britain's "freedom of speech" (yes, I know freedom of speech sensibly has limits, but the statute is overly broad in this case).
Definitely a cool post and I certainly think people should be able to de-DRM things they own for their own use, but I do have some sympathy for the defense of LCP.
Digital books are a good thing. I can hear about a book I'd like to read and start reading it minutes later. It also drastically lowers the barriers to publication for new or controversial authors. I want authors and publishers to be able to make money, so I think it's fair that they take some precautions to ensure that the book is not redistributed for free.
I would love if someone could come up with a truly friendly DRM for ebooks that would be supported by all major reading hardware/software and accepted by the publishers. Then we'd have a functioning ecosystem not dominated by one or two mega players. Curious what people here think might work?
The only time to directly threaten legal action is when you don't think legal action will achieve your goal, and you've got nothing else. Otherwise, there is no benefit to threatening legal action. Sure, you can imply it, but you gain nothing by showing those cards.
Yeah, I wouldn’t share this so openly. Instead – like they said – build a one-click downloader, then go fill the shadow libraries with a bunch of trusted accomplices. (This is slightly less legal, though.)
Ebook vendors like eBooks.com (my company) face a real challenge with regard to DRM. On one hand we want frictionless freedom of use for our customers, but on the other hand the vast majority of our authors and publishers require that we secure their ebooks with DRM.
eBooks.com provides the ability for our customers to filter out DRM-ebooks from our catalog. There's a link to DRM-free titles on every page of eBooks.com. https://www.ebooks.com/en-au/drm-free/ But that's a very limited subset of our collection.
Opponents of DRM make important, legitimate points: "Ownership" of an ebook is very contingent. Even the slickest DRM system imposes unwelcome additional steps for the user, and limitations on what can be done with the ebook. And there is very little interoperability between vendors - silos as far as the eye can see.
But authors and publishers have a point too. There's a chart at the bottom of this article (our blog) that says it all, as far as publishers are concerned. It compares the gross revenue of music labels from 1993 to 2016 with that of book publishers during the same period. https://about.ebooks.com/should-we-sell-your-ebooks-without-...
We launched eBooks.com in 2000 and have continued to argue for DRM-free in every available forum. But we face understandable anxiety from authors and publishers. We can, and should, all argue the merits (or otherwise) of DRM but it remains a fact of life and will be with us for some time to come. So it falls to vendors and capable tech partners like EDRlab to try and make the best of it.
I know the guys at EDRlab and they are not conspiring with Big Tech, not motivated by profit but by good will. It's a rare thing. They are working on many fronts to build a system that gives authors and publishers the security they desire while at the same time minimizing complexity and maximizing interoperability for end users.
And interoperability is really important. It can unlock innovation.
The commercial ebook market is dominated by a single, ruthless almost-monopoly that sees authors as irksome, hates independent bookstores and strikes fear in the hearts of publishers large and small. It gets its way with everything and at the same time does not innovate. Why should it bother with R&D when it owns the market? In present circumstances, if a small team in Bhutan comes up with some genius idea (ebooks that sing in the bath?) they can't reach a market of any meaningful size. I mean, if a user is excited about this new app that can sing your books in the bath they might install the app but they won't be able to read any of the ebooks that they already bought from Kindle - or eBooks.com for that matter; because we're all using different, proprietary DRM protocols.
If enough vendors adopt it, EDRlab's DRM system holds out the prospect that users around the globe will be able switch from our platform to a better, competing platform, and take their collection of ebooks with them. That's beginning to look like a healthy, competitive market that can foster innovation.
In summary, yes we all hate DRM, but it's not going away. So let's give some credit to guys who are trying to make the best of this situation to the benefit of readers everywhere.
> We were planning to now focus on new accessibility features on our open-source Thorium Reader, better access to annotations for blind users and an advanced reading mode for dyslexic people. Too bad; disturbances around LCP will force us to focus on a new round of security measures
This is so funny to me. "We might have gotten around to making our software accessible, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
Readium was also responsible for the takedown on the noDRM repo, a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29870151
The repo came back, but without the readium DRM code: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/blob/master/DeDRM_plugi...
> KOReader never contacted us: I don't think they know how low the certification fee would be
It's between 350USD (per platform) and 1,700USD per year. So the possible range is between 1700USD, and 3k USD... Yeah, that's totally reasonable for a FOSS project where the lower yearly cost is 110% of the amount they make in donations every year.
Do book drms even make sens? i can understand games, but how do you encrypt words that are meant to be read. People used to record music on the radio. It seems easier to ocr a book and generate text that way.
Very curious (and nervous, as I can imagine more bad outcomes than good ones) as somebody that frequently lends ebooks from libraries supporting LCP. (The only thing worse than "controlled" digital lending would be no digital lending at all.)
LCP is as close to the platonic ideal of DRM as it gets: Essentially no obfuscation; cryptography largely something to point at when filing DMCA takedown requests. For better or worse, I suspect we're about to get some new case law for what constitutes an effective technical measure.
.mobi as a TLD for a book blog on the removal of DRM is especially appropriate.
LCP markets itself as an open standard, but has made multiple platforms unusable for me as a kobo user. Aggressively seeking out content like this and trying to bully away fixes for the tiny portion of the market it is helping is reprehensible
A more straightforward way to do it, IMHO, is to use Thorium in conjunction with a Python script called lcpdedrm. If I remember well, that script isn't available directly any longer, but it is easy to look around and find copies of it. Then use Thorium for locally saving the file and use the Python script for removing the DRM.
> You can, for sure, publish information relative to your discoveries to the extent UK laws allow. After study, we'll do our best to make the technology more robust. If your discourse represents a circumvention of this technical protection measure, we'll command a take-down as a standard procedure.
Disgusting behaviour, as expected from the publishing industry I suppose. This "EDRLab" outfit appears to be little more than a non-profit front for Hachette.
Granted, Readium LCP[0] may be one of the less odious DRM solutions out there for eBook contents, however it's still DRM. Handcuffs are still handcuffs regardless of how comfortably they fit.
DRM is in my view is too often used as a cudgel to mandate hardware and software level restrictions that take away the control of our own computing devices and environments. I personally hold that intellectual property isn't property, and is increasingly becoming a net negative to humanity as a whole. In the case of this article, there is an ominous threat of legal action against the disclosure of the author's work, potentially stifling the speech of a fellow hacker.
While I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of creatives, and their need to eat, I feel like the pendulum has swung so far to the interests of the copyright holders and away from the needs of the public that the bargain is no longer one I support.
Because of this stance, I find myself uncomfortably on the side of AI bros like Sam Altman who argue for the expansion of the fair use doctrine. I see AI as an accelerant in the erosion of IP's relevance and enforceability. With AI being able to crank out derivative works at scale, it blurs the lines between infringement and transformation. My hope is that the flood of such content makes enforcement impractical, and that it will further demonstrate that the IP emperor is naked.
[0]: https://www.edrlab.org/projects/readium-lcp/
I was hoping to link to this from somewhere technically relevant but having scoped out the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 S296 it actually seems unwise to do so as a British person. Meanwhile Starmer is proud of Britain's "freedom of speech" (yes, I know freedom of speech sensibly has limits, but the statute is overly broad in this case).
Definitely a cool post and I certainly think people should be able to de-DRM things they own for their own use, but I do have some sympathy for the defense of LCP.
Digital books are a good thing. I can hear about a book I'd like to read and start reading it minutes later. It also drastically lowers the barriers to publication for new or controversial authors. I want authors and publishers to be able to make money, so I think it's fair that they take some precautions to ensure that the book is not redistributed for free.
I would love if someone could come up with a truly friendly DRM for ebooks that would be supported by all major reading hardware/software and accepted by the publishers. Then we'd have a functioning ecosystem not dominated by one or two mega players. Curious what people here think might work?
The only time to directly threaten legal action is when you don't think legal action will achieve your goal, and you've got nothing else. Otherwise, there is no benefit to threatening legal action. Sure, you can imply it, but you gain nothing by showing those cards.
One should also note that Thorium is a remarkably crappy app to read Epubs on.
Yeah, I wouldn’t share this so openly. Instead – like they said – build a one-click downloader, then go fill the shadow libraries with a bunch of trusted accomplices. (This is slightly less legal, though.)
Ebook vendors like eBooks.com (my company) face a real challenge with regard to DRM. On one hand we want frictionless freedom of use for our customers, but on the other hand the vast majority of our authors and publishers require that we secure their ebooks with DRM.
eBooks.com provides the ability for our customers to filter out DRM-ebooks from our catalog. There's a link to DRM-free titles on every page of eBooks.com. https://www.ebooks.com/en-au/drm-free/ But that's a very limited subset of our collection.
Opponents of DRM make important, legitimate points: "Ownership" of an ebook is very contingent. Even the slickest DRM system imposes unwelcome additional steps for the user, and limitations on what can be done with the ebook. And there is very little interoperability between vendors - silos as far as the eye can see.
But authors and publishers have a point too. There's a chart at the bottom of this article (our blog) that says it all, as far as publishers are concerned. It compares the gross revenue of music labels from 1993 to 2016 with that of book publishers during the same period. https://about.ebooks.com/should-we-sell-your-ebooks-without-...
We launched eBooks.com in 2000 and have continued to argue for DRM-free in every available forum. But we face understandable anxiety from authors and publishers. We can, and should, all argue the merits (or otherwise) of DRM but it remains a fact of life and will be with us for some time to come. So it falls to vendors and capable tech partners like EDRlab to try and make the best of it.
I know the guys at EDRlab and they are not conspiring with Big Tech, not motivated by profit but by good will. It's a rare thing. They are working on many fronts to build a system that gives authors and publishers the security they desire while at the same time minimizing complexity and maximizing interoperability for end users.
And interoperability is really important. It can unlock innovation.
The commercial ebook market is dominated by a single, ruthless almost-monopoly that sees authors as irksome, hates independent bookstores and strikes fear in the hearts of publishers large and small. It gets its way with everything and at the same time does not innovate. Why should it bother with R&D when it owns the market? In present circumstances, if a small team in Bhutan comes up with some genius idea (ebooks that sing in the bath?) they can't reach a market of any meaningful size. I mean, if a user is excited about this new app that can sing your books in the bath they might install the app but they won't be able to read any of the ebooks that they already bought from Kindle - or eBooks.com for that matter; because we're all using different, proprietary DRM protocols.
If enough vendors adopt it, EDRlab's DRM system holds out the prospect that users around the globe will be able switch from our platform to a better, competing platform, and take their collection of ebooks with them. That's beginning to look like a healthy, competitive market that can foster innovation.
In summary, yes we all hate DRM, but it's not going away. So let's give some credit to guys who are trying to make the best of this situation to the benefit of readers everywhere.