[superuser2]

I've taken to viewing Kindle books as a very expensive indefinite-but-temporary library loan. Between the years+ length of the borrowing period, instant delivery, lighted screen, compactness, and travel-friendliness it can be worth the premium over a public library loan. In dollars per hour of entertainment, it's better than some options. But it is ultimately a rental.

If you have a relatively progressive library and prefer to cope with scarcity by waiting for a "digital copy" to become available and then reading the book in a narrow time window (rather than paying ~$10), you can generally get an actual temporary Kindle book from your library for free.

If the Kindle price is too high for a book that will eventually leave your possession, buy it on paper.

[kakarot]

Orrrr support a non-DRM publisher. Ya know

[wlesieutre]

Kobo sells some books without DRM. But there's no way to search by it, and it's no longer mentioned on the search results page. It used to be, but they removed that for god knows what reason. Now you have to click on a book and scroll down to the bottom of the page to check the download options.

But hey, still better than Amazon and Nook.

EDIT: if anyone's a fan of fantasy, all of Brandon Sanderson's stuff is DRMless. That's the example I can remember off the top of my head.

Details section down below the reviews, you'll see "Download options:EPUB 3 (DRM-Free)"

Example here https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-way-of-kings-1

[lfowles]

Amazon and BN sell _some_ books without DRM as well. To encompass your Sanderson example, all of Tor ebooks[0] are DRM free regardless of distribution channel.

[0]: http://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/torforge-e-books-are-now-drm-f...

[wlesieutre]

Oh interesting, I guess I haven't paid much attention to the ebook markets since I bought my Nook Simple Touch, I've just made a habit of checking Kobo first because they were the ones offering no-DRM at the time. Good to know!

[superuser2]

Fuck no. Life is too short and literature matters too much to pass on good books and read worse ones just because of their publishers' DRM politics.

Don't reward DRM-encumbered ebooks, sure. If you want to punish the publisher, just buy it used on paper or go to the library. But read the books you wanted to read in the first place.

[bad_user]

Not sure what you're disagreeing with.

First of all, all Kindle books are DRM-protected, yet you can find many of them DRM-free, especially the technical ones, if you buy them from their publishers directly instead of places like Amazon. I can also show you books selling in Google's Play Store or other places without DRM, whereas all Amazon Kindle books are DRM-enabled.

But speaking about short lives, while I agree with buying books in print (I love to buy used books btw), authors that are alive and that still own the copyright are often complicit in this. So why should I read the ebook of somebody that doesn't respect me? From my point of view, a book takes some resources to read, which could be better spent on authors and publishers that do respect me enough to not DRM-enable those books. Or in other words, there are thousands, tens of thousands of books I could be reading, I only have bandwidth for about 2-4 per month and the rules of competition still apply.

Also, to get one thing straight, there's nothing holy about reading books. It's just another form of entertainment.

[kakarot]

I didn't say anything about not buying paper. I don't know how you extrapolated that.

I prefer books in print but those two philosophies can coexist. Get DRM-free e-material when appropriate, and print otherwise. I prefer manuals in searchable ebook form while books and novels are definitely more pleasing in print.

[abawany]

I kind of do a variant of this. I buy used paper books and then send them to bookscan.us for scanning. Et voila: non-DRMed ebook. Oftentimes, the price of this activity, ignoring the time element, is lower than the price of the DRMed ebook.

[fsloth]

If I need a book for a specific deep topic it's usually unlikely to find the specific material from someone else.

[dwyerm]

I started buying from Angry Robot a while back because they sent me free DRM-free epubs to get me hooked on their authors. I've been buying from them ever since, and that's the only reason I discovered that Chuck Wendig's books are amazing. Sure, I've got to pay in GBP instead of USD, but this is the internet and with digital delivery, that kind of stuff doesn't matter.

Unfortunately, everyone else discovered that Chuck was good, so he moved to a big publisher and I assume they required him to go with DRM. I can no longer find his books unencumbered.

tl;dr: There are great non-DRM publishers, and they might have great books. It is in our interest to support them.