7 ms·

Show HN: DRM-Free Books

118 points by TeaVMFan 3mo ago

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. https://frequal.com/Perspectives/DrmFreeAuthors.html https://frequal.com/Perspectives/DrmFreeAuthors.html

babblingfish 3mo ago
I don't see any mention here of books sold by Tor. All their books are DRM-free.
- TeaVMFan 3mo ago
  I added it to the list of DRM-free sources at the end, thanks!
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- kreyenborgi 3mo ago
  Can one buy Tor books without going through Amazon? I had trouble doing that last I tried.
  - babblingfish 3mo ago
    You can buy them from bookshop.org
  - bentley 3mo ago
    I’ve bought Tor books from Google Play and gotten DRM‐free EPUB files from it.
  - themadturk 3mo ago
    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.
    - mrec 3mo ago
      Huh? The Honor Harrington books are published by Baen (who are all DRM-free).
      - themadturk 3mo ago
        My mistake!
  - chocochunks 3mo ago
    Yes, Kobo, Google Play Books both carry them.
- archargelod 3mo ago
  Love their browser. Very convenient for downloading no DRM e-books you bought.
murats 3mo ago
Useful list. I wish more book stores made DRM status obvious before checkout.
- Nzen 3mo ago
  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/ https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/
shmerl 3mo ago
Nice. Good to know that Tor books are DRM-free.
technothrasher 3mo ago
> 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.
- bluebarbet 3mo ago
  Same. Ironic that a quirk of modern technology would put classical literature back in fashion.
  - dredmorbius 3mo ago
    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/List_of_films_in_the_public_domain_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_in_the_public_do...>. A Wonderful Life fell back into copyright, at least partially, when the musical score was bought by Republic Pictures in 1993. <https://library.law.uconn.edu/2022/12/08/its-a-wonderful-life-how-a-copyright-glitch-created-a-christmas-cult-classic/ https://library.law.uconn.edu/2022/12/08/its-a-wonderful-lif...> Ted Turner started the Turner Broadcasting System by buying up small local stations with loose licencing arrangement allowing them unlimited reruns of old films and television shows. Shifting to cable distribution for his "superstation" eventually grew into CNN. (Mentioned in an HN comment about a month ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48038175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48038175>.) I strongly suspect that the popularity of Shakespeare, which grew rapidly through the 19th century, had to do with the demand for popular entertainment combined with the prohibitive cost of contemporary works for many performing companies. The rise of radio and need to fill airtime likely lead to the popularity of classical music, out of copyright and hence readily available for broadcast, at a time when broadcast rights were at best poorly defined and restricted, if at all. (The concept first appeared in law in 1928, wasn't standardised until 1961, and wasn't globally adopted under the Berne Convention until the 1970s/1980s, or later.) <https://thelaw.institute/copyright-and-related-rights/evolution-broadcast-definition-copyright-law/ https://thelaw.institute/copyright-and-related-rights/evolut...> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Adoption_and_implementation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Adoption_and_...>
Leptonmaniac 3mo ago
So this is a similar idea to Project Gutenberg?
Imustaskforhelp 3mo ago
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://epub.mirror.forum https://epub.mirror.forum and although I already previously had the idea of showing books from gutenberg but your idea made me find more importance in it and I ended up doing so in two different implementations: https://guten.mirror.forum https://guten.mirror.forum and https://gutencf.mirror.forum https://gutencf.mirror.forum, so I thank you for that! [Offtopic: I am/was also surprised to see that there is a lack of API or platforms if suppose I created this app and I wanted to give users genuine ways to pay. Aside from the walled gardens of Kindle or specific apps, I am unable to give my users a way to just search books, pay for them and download it (atleast to my understanding at the moment) which is a sad thing :-( ] I hope people are able to give love to my submission at [0] / the link down below. Cheers and take care and have a nice day if a real human is being out there reading this :-D Hope you like or enjoy it and find it useful! [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710584
philips 3mo ago
All of Cory Doctorow books are DRM free. https://shop.craphound.com/ https://shop.craphound.com/
- TeaVMFan 3mo ago
  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.
- AtheistOfFail 3mo ago
  Do you know if you can buy as a gift for someone else?
  - itsdesmond 3mo ago
    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.
    - bethekidyouwant 3mo ago
      You mean don’t read it at the same time.
      - itsdesmond 3mo ago
        I’m perfectly satisfied with what I wrote.
  - dredmorbius 3mo ago
    Many of his books are Creative Commons licenced, at least in digital form. E.g., Little Brother: <https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/> You can see his other titles on Craphound: <https://craphound.com/ https://craphound.com/>.
kreyenborgi 3mo ago
Bookshop.org lets you filter by drm when you search. https://www.bloomsbury.com https://www.bloomsbury.com has drm free stuff, and after https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42811332 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&query=drm%20free%20ebook&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- TeaVMFan 3mo ago
  The bookshop.org filter works nicely. After searching for a keyword, pick "Formats/Ebook/DRM-free". I'll add a link and a note.
- Abishek_Muthian 3mo ago
  libro.fm for DRM free audio books, buying from there supports local book shops.
- tren 3mo ago
  We also do the same at ebooks.com, there's a DRM free section too - https://www.ebooks.com/drm-free https://www.ebooks.com/drm-free
Lio 3mo ago
The Pragmatic Programmers have always sold DRM free commercial book (to my knowledge). https://pragprog.com/ https://pragprog.com/ Having commercial publishers that will sell you high quality books without DRM is brilliant and I'll always support that.
rickcarlino 3mo ago
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.
teravor 3mo ago
all books are DRM-free if you download them from the right place ;)
- themadturk 3mo ago
  Yes, but from some of those places the authors receive no compensation.
  - jMyles 3mo ago
    If their wallet address is available on the internet, that's an easily solved problem.
  - qurren 3mo ago
    They chose the DRM path, so they brought this fate upon themselves.
  - dierogeryoung 3mo ago
    [flagged]
dest 3mo ago
Remove DRM from ebooks you bought with https://github.com/esn/knock https://github.com/esn/knock
themadturk 3mo ago
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.
- akkartik 3mo ago
  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/B0FP9PN8C8 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.
- itsdesmond 3mo ago
  DRM-less on Apple is fairly useless in that the file isn’t exportable or readily found in your filesystem.
Groxx 3mo ago
All of Brandon Sanderson's epubs from his website ( https://brandonsanderson.com https://brandonsanderson.com -> https://dragonsteelbooks.com https://dragonsteelbooks.com ) are DRM-free: https://support.dragonsteelbooks.com/support/solutions/articles/66000501331-how-will-i-get-my-ebooks-and-what-platform-can-i-read-them-on https://support.dragonsteelbooks.com/support/solutions/artic...
microgpt 3mo ago
[dead]
ChuckMcM 3mo ago
No Starch Press sells all of its books with DRM as well.
boznz 3mo ago
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/ https://rodyne.com/
utopiah 3mo ago
FWIW https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks
teo_zero 3mo ago
> 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...
a_c 3mo ago
I made a virtual bookshelf the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687201 Maybe I can plug some of the books into the virtual shelf

118 points by TeaVMFan 3mo ago

babblingfish 3mo ago

I don't see any mention here of books sold by Tor. All their books are DRM-free.

TeaVMFan 3mo ago
I added it to the list of DRM-free sources at the end, thanks!
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
kreyenborgi 3mo ago
Can one buy Tor books without going through Amazon? I had trouble doing that last I tried.
- babblingfish 3mo ago
  You can buy them from bookshop.org
- bentley 3mo ago
  I’ve bought Tor books from Google Play and gotten DRM‐free EPUB files from it.
- themadturk 3mo ago
  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.
  - mrec 3mo ago
    Huh? The Honor Harrington books are published by Baen (who are all DRM-free).
    - themadturk 3mo ago
      My mistake!
- chocochunks 3mo ago
  Yes, Kobo, Google Play Books both carry them.
archargelod 3mo ago
Love their browser. Very convenient for downloading no DRM e-books you bought.

murats 3mo ago

Useful list. I wish more book stores made DRM status obvious before checkout.

Nzen 3mo ago
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/ https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/

shmerl 3mo ago

Nice. Good to know that Tor books are DRM-free.

technothrasher 3mo ago

> 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.

bluebarbet 3mo ago
Same. Ironic that a quirk of modern technology would put classical literature back in fashion.
- dredmorbius 3mo ago
  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/List_of_films_in_the_public_domain_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_in_the_public_do...>. A Wonderful Life fell back into copyright, at least partially, when the musical score was bought by Republic Pictures in 1993. <https://library.law.uconn.edu/2022/12/08/its-a-wonderful-life-how-a-copyright-glitch-created-a-christmas-cult-classic/ https://library.law.uconn.edu/2022/12/08/its-a-wonderful-lif...> Ted Turner started the Turner Broadcasting System by buying up small local stations with loose licencing arrangement allowing them unlimited reruns of old films and television shows. Shifting to cable distribution for his "superstation" eventually grew into CNN. (Mentioned in an HN comment about a month ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48038175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48038175>.) I strongly suspect that the popularity of Shakespeare, which grew rapidly through the 19th century, had to do with the demand for popular entertainment combined with the prohibitive cost of contemporary works for many performing companies. The rise of radio and need to fill airtime likely lead to the popularity of classical music, out of copyright and hence readily available for broadcast, at a time when broadcast rights were at best poorly defined and restricted, if at all. (The concept first appeared in law in 1928, wasn't standardised until 1961, and wasn't globally adopted under the Berne Convention until the 1970s/1980s, or later.) <https://thelaw.institute/copyright-and-related-rights/evolution-broadcast-definition-copyright-law/ https://thelaw.institute/copyright-and-related-rights/evolut...> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Adoption_and_implementation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#Adoption_and_...>

Leptonmaniac 3mo ago

So this is a similar idea to Project Gutenberg?

Imustaskforhelp 3mo ago

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://epub.mirror.forum https://epub.mirror.forum and although I already previously had the idea of showing books from gutenberg but your idea made me find more importance in it and I ended up doing so in two different implementations: https://guten.mirror.forum https://guten.mirror.forum and https://gutencf.mirror.forum https://gutencf.mirror.forum, so I thank you for that! [Offtopic: I am/was also surprised to see that there is a lack of API or platforms if suppose I created this app and I wanted to give users genuine ways to pay. Aside from the walled gardens of Kindle or specific apps, I am unable to give my users a way to just search books, pay for them and download it (atleast to my understanding at the moment) which is a sad thing :-( ] I hope people are able to give love to my submission at [0] / the link down below. Cheers and take care and have a nice day if a real human is being out there reading this :-D Hope you like or enjoy it and find it useful! [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710584

philips 3mo ago

All of Cory Doctorow books are DRM free. https://shop.craphound.com/ https://shop.craphound.com/

TeaVMFan 3mo ago
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.
AtheistOfFail 3mo ago
Do you know if you can buy as a gift for someone else?
- itsdesmond 3mo ago
  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.
  - bethekidyouwant 3mo ago
    You mean don’t read it at the same time.
    - itsdesmond 3mo ago
      I’m perfectly satisfied with what I wrote.
- dredmorbius 3mo ago
  Many of his books are Creative Commons licenced, at least in digital form. E.g., Little Brother: <https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/> You can see his other titles on Craphound: <https://craphound.com/ https://craphound.com/>.

kreyenborgi 3mo ago

Bookshop.org lets you filter by drm when you search. https://www.bloomsbury.com https://www.bloomsbury.com has drm free stuff, and after https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42811332 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&query=drm%20free%20ebook&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

TeaVMFan 3mo ago
The bookshop.org filter works nicely. After searching for a keyword, pick "Formats/Ebook/DRM-free". I'll add a link and a note.
Abishek_Muthian 3mo ago
libro.fm for DRM free audio books, buying from there supports local book shops.
tren 3mo ago
We also do the same at ebooks.com, there's a DRM free section too - https://www.ebooks.com/drm-free https://www.ebooks.com/drm-free

Lio 3mo ago

The Pragmatic Programmers have always sold DRM free commercial book (to my knowledge). https://pragprog.com/ https://pragprog.com/ Having commercial publishers that will sell you high quality books without DRM is brilliant and I'll always support that.

rickcarlino 3mo ago

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.

teravor 3mo ago

all books are DRM-free if you download them from the right place ;)

themadturk 3mo ago
Yes, but from some of those places the authors receive no compensation.
- jMyles 3mo ago
  If their wallet address is available on the internet, that's an easily solved problem.
- qurren 3mo ago
  They chose the DRM path, so they brought this fate upon themselves.
- dierogeryoung 3mo ago
  [flagged]

dest 3mo ago

Remove DRM from ebooks you bought with https://github.com/esn/knock https://github.com/esn/knock

themadturk 3mo ago

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.

akkartik 3mo ago
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/B0FP9PN8C8 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.
itsdesmond 3mo ago
DRM-less on Apple is fairly useless in that the file isn’t exportable or readily found in your filesystem.

Groxx 3mo ago

All of Brandon Sanderson's epubs from his website ( https://brandonsanderson.com https://brandonsanderson.com -> https://dragonsteelbooks.com https://dragonsteelbooks.com ) are DRM-free: https://support.dragonsteelbooks.com/support/solutions/articles/66000501331-how-will-i-get-my-ebooks-and-what-platform-can-i-read-them-on https://support.dragonsteelbooks.com/support/solutions/artic...

microgpt 3mo ago

[dead]

ChuckMcM 3mo ago

No Starch Press sells all of its books with DRM as well.

boznz 3mo ago

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/ https://rodyne.com/

utopiah 3mo ago

FWIW https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks

teo_zero 3mo ago

> 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...

a_c 3mo ago

I made a virtual bookshelf the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687201 Maybe I can plug some of the books into the virtual shelf