DayAgainstDRM

[wraith808]

Yesterday was apparently the #DayAgainstDRM sponsored by https://www.defectivebydesign.org/.

I understand it, and would like it better if DRM was not included, but not prepared to cancel Netflix in an attempt to get it removed, in all honesty.  Books, to me, are a different thing.  O'Reilly was a publisher that I used for my development books, along with Packtpublishing and the Pragmatic bookshelf, Manning, and Apress.  In fact, they even published a blog post on it back in 2012: http://toc.oreilly.com/2012/05/drm-free-day-forever.html.

Now, they're going against it- all books on their site are DRMd by default, as they've changed to being a platform, rather than selling their books.  When confronted with this, they said that you can purchase their books from other storefronts, but in all honesty, that's a dodge, rather than an absolute.  It might be understandable - except for the fact that PacktPub also has a platform, and still sells their books directly DRM free.

There's also on that defective by design a list of publishers that are supporting the day and discounts- got two really good books off of Pragmatic for 40% off.  Not sure when the codes expire.

Any thoughts?

[app103]

Now, they're going against it- all books on their site are DRMd by default, as they've changed to being a platform, rather than selling their books.  When confronted with this, they said that you can purchase their books from other storefronts, but in all honesty, that's a dodge, rather than an absolute.  It might be understandable - except for the fact that PacktPub also has a platform, and still sells their books directly DRM free.

Wait a minute... Are you saying that all ebooks sold on O'Reilly's site now contain DRM? Including ebooks originating from other publishers?

In other words, is there a fundamental difference between the ebooks sold on this page of O'Reilly's site and the DRM free ones sold here, on the publisher's site?

[Attronarch]

I just logged into my account at https://www.oreilly.com/ and downloaded PDFs, haven't seen any DRM.

[wraith808]

I just logged into my account at https://www.oreilly.com/ and downloaded PDFs, haven't seen any DRM.

Your current files are fine.  But try to find one to buy or purchase.  You can't.  You have to sign up for Safari.  Then once those files are downloaded they are DRM'd.  It's a subscription service (that's all they offer now), so they have to be able to revoke your access.

Now, they're going against it- all books on their site are DRMd by default, as they've changed to being a platform, rather than selling their books.  When confronted with this, they said that you can purchase their books from other storefronts, but in all honesty, that's a dodge, rather than an absolute.  It might be understandable - except for the fact that PacktPub also has a platform, and still sells their books directly DRM free.

Wait a minute... Are you saying that all ebooks sold on O'Reilly's site now contain DRM? Including ebooks originating from other publishers?

In other words, is there a fundamental difference between the ebooks sold on this page of O'Reilly's site and the DRM free ones sold here, on the publisher's site?

Indeed.  You can no longer purchase files from Oreilly.  Only rent them.

[app103]

Indeed.  You can no longer purchase files from Oreilly.  Only rent them.

Holy cow! They don't even sell print editions any more! I wonder how that is going to play out with publishers that have print on demand contracts with them, such as SitePoint. As far as I know, they have not contacted us to inform us that we have to start referring our print customers elsewhere (such as Amazon). Thanks for letting me know.

Where can I buy the videos, ebooks, and print books from O’Reilly and the other publishers that are on shop.oreilly.com?

You can buy all of the books (ebooks and print) at shop.oreilly.com from Amazon and other digital and bricks-and-mortar retailers. We're no longer selling individual books and videos via shop.oreilly.com—but we are definitely continuing to publish books and videos on the topics you need to know. And of course, every O’Reilly book and video (including O’Reilly conference sessions) is available instantly on Safari.

[wraith808]

I can get the reasoning behind the change on their part- infrastructure and such.  But on the customer's part, it really sucks.  I tried to find just general O'Reilly products on google books.  And it was an exercise in frustration.  But if they're willing to lose the business from people that don't buy into their rent only philosophy (like me) and can't find their books easily now (because other companies are not going to necessarily make it easy to find all books from a publisher), then oh well.

[Attronarch]

Interesting. I do most of my book shopping at BookDepository. They have some O'Reilly books, but not all. If I was in USA I'd probably use Amazon a lot more.

[wraith808]

Interesting. I do most of my book shopping at BookDepository. They have some O'Reilly books, but not all. If I was in USA I'd probably use Amazon a lot more.

I don't use Amazon that much because I don't want to be locked into Kindle.  I just shop there, and then try to find the books elsewhere.

[app103]

O'Reilly didn't just carry their own books in their shop. They have print on demand contracts with smaller publishers that can't afford to hire printers to publish large batches of their books. O'Reilly allows them to upload a copy of their books, and then they print the books for them, as they are sold. As well as those books also being offered through O'Reilly's shop, these smaller publishers could then sell print editions on their own site, too, only ordering from O'Reilly what they actually have already sold, with O'Reilly shipping them direct to the customers, as well as O'Reilly taking it upon themselves printing up additional copies for titles that seem to sell well, which O'Reilly offers on Amazon and elsewhere.

I have been told that there will be some changes on the current O'Reilly shop pages, to include Amazon buttons for the affected print on demand books, located below the button for reading it on Safari. But to me, this does create a bit of a sticky situation, where many of these small publishers have their own subscription based service for their e-books (most of which are DRM-free), with O'Reilly now becoming a bigger form of competition to them, offering an inferior version of the digital versions (in my opinion any way), while still remaining the actual printer of their books. 

I am not sure I'd entirely define this kind of relationship as "friendly competition", or a "mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship", or even as a "benign parasite". (but that's just my personal opinion)

[wraith808]

^ I totally agree.  I don't know if Packtpub or Pragmatic have that capability (I'm pretty sure Apress and Manning do not), but that seems like a big change not to talk to your partners about.  Perhaps they wanted to roll it out before they could hear the detractors.  I should have known something like this was coming after they bought out Safari and made the big changes there (which made me cancel that subscription).

[app103]

On the plus side, while a subscription to a smaller service like SitePoint Premium won't get you access to as many ebooks, the ones you do download won't have any DRM and you are free to keep whatever you download for as long as you wish, well past the date of your subscription ending. 

(I only mention SitePoint and not any of the other smaller publishers, not because I am trying to promote SitePoint, but because working for them, I know them well enough to know there isn't any sort of DRM in any of their files, and you can feel free to keep whatever you download and/or convert them to any format you may need if they don't carry your preferred format for any particular ebook. Other smaller services may also work the same, but I can't say for sure if they do or don't.)