Show HN: DRM-Free Books
2 days ago (frequal.com)
After several years of mandatory DRM lockdowns from most commercial book sources, now authors have a choice when it comes to DRM for their books. Pick authors and books that are DRM-free, or download DRM-free classics that are out of copyright.
Bookshop.org lets you filter by drm when you search.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42811332 i respect them even more.
Also might be worth scanning old mentions of such https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
We also do the same at ebooks.com, there's a DRM free section too - https://www.ebooks.com/drm-free
The bookshop.org filter works nicely. After searching for a keyword, pick "Formats/Ebook/DRM-free". I'll add a link and a note.
libro.fm for DRM free audio books, buying from there supports local book shops.
> DRM-free classics that are out of copyright.
I started down this road with a few books about two years ago, and I have so many now on my list to read that I hardly ever get to reading a modern book.
I read a lot from Standard Ebooks. But one thing to keep in mind with them- they do edit the books to make changes for readability. Not necessarily a big deal, but something to know.
Same. Ironic that a quirk of modern technology would put classical literature back in fashion.
This happens more than you might expect.
There are several films which became popular staples on television after copyright expired, wasn't renewed, or was improperly registered in the first place (prior to automatic copyright assignment enacted in 1976). It's a Wonderful Life is the canonical example, though there is a long list of other public domain films in the US: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Adoption_and_...>
Curious: edit for readability in what way? Surely just layout stuff, not changing the content of the books?
I believe they’d change the spelling of a word if it’s archaic and obscure in the original text.
https://standardebooks.org/about/what-makes-standard-ebooks-...
All of Brandon Sanderson's epubs from his website ( https://brandonsanderson.com -> https://dragonsteelbooks.com ) are DRM-free: https://support.dragonsteelbooks.com/support/solutions/artic...
I made a virtual bookshelf the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687201 Maybe I can plug some of the books into the virtual shelf
All of Cory Doctorow books are DRM free.
https://shop.craphound.com/
I added a link, thanks! Mr. Doctorow seems to include 3 formats in every purchase (PDF, MOBI, and EPUB), which should cover just about any device.
Do you know if you can buy as a gift for someone else?
Many of his books are Creative Commons licenced, at least in digital form. E.g., Little Brother:
<https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/>
You can see his other titles on Craphound: <https://craphound.com/>.
By the very definition you can buy them and send them to whoever you want. Just, you know, don’t read it yourself and you’ve done it.
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My own novel, The Immortal Remains, is DRM-free on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google, and other platforms (maybe Apple as well, I'm not sure). Other authors, such as Cory Doctorow, sell their books DRM-free as well.
DRM-less on Apple is fairly useless in that the file isn’t exportable or readily found in your filesystem.
The uncertainty is part of the problem. Funny that even authors are not sure :)
I can't tell on https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Remains-Lee-Hauser-ebook/dp/... that it's DRM-free. Amazon loses money in the small this way, but probably considers it more important to train people to not care.
I don't see any mention here of books sold by Tor. All their books are DRM-free.
Can one buy Tor books without going through Amazon? I had trouble doing that last I tried.
I’ve bought Tor books from Google Play and gotten DRM‐free EPUB files from it.
Yes, Kobo, Google Play Books both carry them.
At least some Tor.com ebooks are available DRM-free through Amazon. Honor Of The Queen, 2nd in the Honor Harrington Series, specifically says it's sold without DRM on Amazon.
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You can buy them from bookshop.org
Love their browser. Very convenient for downloading no DRM e-books you bought.
I added it to the list of DRM-free sources at the end, thanks!
Remove DRM from ebooks you bought with https://github.com/esn/knock
> More Authors with DRM-Free Books
> On Amazon, look for books that offer EPUB and PDF downloads.
Isn't this like saying "to find a needle in a haystack, just look for anything that's metallic"? Technically correct, but not really helping...
I wish someone would build something like hiring.cafe but for DRM free digital content. One search query => uniform search results with direct link to purchase page on relevant marketplace. Basically just scrape and index every DRM free content marketplace and put it behind a single search interface.
The Pragmatic Programmers have always sold DRM free commercial book (to my knowledge).
https://pragprog.com/
Having commercial publishers that will sell you high quality books without DRM is brilliant and I'll always support that.
Useful list. I wish more book stores made DRM status obvious before checkout.
It feels like this list, if it focuses on individual authors is - if successful - overwhelming in scope. There are, what, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of authors ? If 1%, for argument's sake, this list would have thousands of links.
Nonetheless, I'll promote an author of both non- and fiction ebooks I've bought from, Michael W Lucas [0].
[0] https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/
Add both my Sci-Fi/Techno-Thriller ePub books to this list DRM Free, and Free as in Beer if you download them off my website. https://rodyne.com/
So this is a similar idea to Project Gutenberg?
FWIW https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks
So after seeing this project on the front page of hackernews. I decided to add my EPUB reader on a submission as well[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710584
No Starch Press sells all of its books with DRM as well.
all books are DRM-free if you download them from the right place ;)
Yes, but from some of those places the authors receive no compensation.
If their wallet address is available on the internet, that's an easily solved problem.
They chose the DRM path, so they brought this fate upon themselves.
Nice. Good to know that Tor books are DRM-free.
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