I’ve been rapidly barrelling toward a DRM-free-only self-hosted future, and part of that is DRM-free books. In an attempt to get out of Amazon’s clutches, I looked for where I can buy DRM-free books, like Project Hail Mary. The answer I came up with was: nowhere. Everyone is following the same playbook. Why would I buy from your store if you’re doing exactly what Amazon is doing? I’m already shopping on Amazon, and I want something better.
(The answer is that I can break the DRM on other stores, but I can’t on Amazon. When it’s this difficult to get DRM-free books, I wouldn’t blame people for resorting to piracy.)
Why on earth would I buy from Epic if I have any other option? What are you doing better?
I’ve only been getting comics from bundle sites since they give you epubs and PDFs. Kind of a necessity for a non-Amazon eReader.
I appreciate my Kobo eReader though, and it’s possible their online store will be DRM-free? Or, it could be per-book; when I put my own up, they had a checkbox to turn on DRM which I left off.
Kobo is where I ended up buying from, because I can break the DRM there, but it wasn’t trivial to figure out. For comics, I use Global Comix; they seem to be universally DRM-free, at least what I’ve seen so far. Failing that, Google at least tells you on a per item basis what the DRM situation is for books and comics.
I’ve been rapidly barrelling toward a DRM-free-only self-hosted future, and part of that is DRM-free books. In an attempt to get out of Amazon’s clutches, I looked for where I can buy DRM-free books, like Project Hail Mary. The answer I came up with was: nowhere. Everyone is following the same playbook. Why would I buy from your store if you’re doing exactly what Amazon is doing? I’m already shopping on Amazon, and I want something better.
(The answer is that I can break the DRM on other stores, but I can’t on Amazon. When it’s this difficult to get DRM-free books, I wouldn’t blame people for resorting to piracy.)
Why on earth would I buy from Epic if I have any other option? What are you doing better?
Yeah, GOG is at least offering DRM-free games. That gives them one big plus over Steam and is why I maintain a library on both.
On the other hand, I can’t name a single thing Epic does better than Steam and GOG.
Free games
Many games are DRM free on Steam too. Cyberpunk 2077 for example. The Steam DRM is at the publisher/developer’s discretion, not Steam’s.
Steam DRM itself is also trivially bypassed which is surely intended.
FWIW a lot of games on Steam are also entirely DRM-free it’s just not overly obvious without checking on PCGamingWiki.
I’ve only been getting comics from bundle sites since they give you epubs and PDFs. Kind of a necessity for a non-Amazon eReader.
I appreciate my Kobo eReader though, and it’s possible their online store will be DRM-free? Or, it could be per-book; when I put my own up, they had a checkbox to turn on DRM which I left off.
Kobo is where I ended up buying from, because I can break the DRM there, but it wasn’t trivial to figure out. For comics, I use Global Comix; they seem to be universally DRM-free, at least what I’ve seen so far. Failing that, Google at least tells you on a per item basis what the DRM situation is for books and comics.
Buy from Kobo, download from Anna?
Two plugins for Calibre and a free Adobe account.