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by JakeWesorick 1685 days ago
Where can I get these DRM free eBooks?
6 comments

The Calibre ebook managemet app has plugins available that can strip both Amazon and Adobe DRM.
Or it used to. Last time I tried it wasn't able to do Amazon anymore.
It still works for Amazon but it doesn't really work for books in their newer KFX format. It's best to use an older version of Kindle for PC or use their download and transfer to USB if you have a physical eInk Kindle to get an AZW3 file which should unlock no problem.
Installers for older versions are becoming increasingly elusive, I've found. Anything newer than Kindle for PC v1.26 and DeDRM can't break the encryption. Installers for v1.17 or v1.19 can still be found, but on Linux those versions can't connect to Amazon because one of the SSL certs used by the app has expired.

That leaves v1.21 as the "sweet spot", but most of the sites that used to host that installer EXE have mysteriously disappeared.

You can get the missing certificate from the links in https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=342186&uid... .
That workaround gets you the text but it's missing a lot of the recent typographic improvements. It's fine for extracting text for TTS, but isn't ideal if what you are trying to do is maintain a DRM free archive of books you've purchased.

It's like saying you can break BluRay DRM by recording the screen with your phone camera.

What kind of typographic improvements do you have in mind?
Stuff like drop caps, kerning that isn't terrible, hyphenation, and better word spacing. None of it matters if you are feeding the text to a speech synthesizer, but it can make a difference when reading.
Also does a very good job of metadata management and format conversion. I don't know of a better solution. With Calibre you can buy wherever you like and maintain the format and metadata system you prefer.
Libreture maintains a list of DRM free stores [1].

[1] https://www.libreture.com/bookshops/

That's a good list. I've found some stuff I was looking for at Bloomsbury. Tor is probably good if you're into sci-fi/fantasy. But if you're looking for a specific book in English it's typically very hard to find a place to pay for a DRM-free e-book.

A search engine that covers all the little sites selling DRM-free books would be nice!

(Publishers of Norwegian books fortunately tend to have just do watermarks, which is fine – you can read the book on whatever device you want, and your copy has a little note saying "ex libris Your Name" or something)

Kobo [1] and Google Play Books [2] also sells some books DRM free. You have to check the book details to see if it says 'DRM free'.

[1] https://www.kobo.com/ [2] https://play.google.com/store/books

the pirate bay & friends.
libgen for books. The pirate bay theoretically covers everything, but good luck finding books there.
Try these Libgen proxy/mirror links:

http://libgen.gs/ (NEW – November 2020)

http://gen.lib.rus.ec

http://libgen.rs – (NEW – October 2020).

https://libgen.is – (Working Again – May 2021).

http://libgen.st – (Re-directs to www.libgen.rs).

http://libgen.li

https://libgen.lc

http://libgen.io/ (No longer working).

https://libgen.be/ (NEW – September 2020 – Search proxies to www.libgen.rs).

https://libgen.nl/ (NEW – September 2020 – Search proxies to www.libgen.rs).

If you are having trouble reaching with above Libgen URLs, try http://93.174.95.27 or http://185.39.10.101.

I've literally always just grabbed the latest working URL from the Wikipedia article's sidebar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis

Libgen is great for older literature and non-fiction books of all kinds, but for modern fiction it sucks.
Really? What have you struggled to find? I've found libgen enormously helpful.
Maybe it's just my pop fiction preferences but if I search for any sort of modern horror or sci fi fiction, I just can't seem to find any content. Pirate bay on the other hand? No problem. Like I said though, almost any modern non fiction and a great deal of older fiction literature is definitely there, so I'm definitely not criticizing libgen. It's mostly wonderful, though one worries about malware luring in downloads, but on this maybe im just being paranoid.
Besides TPB, is there a libgen for audiobooks? Audible blocks lots of books here and the prices are honestly quite steep. TPB often doesn't have what I was looking for, not even something obscure.
Not actually a joke: audiobookbay.ws
The best source for ebooks if definitely eMule
Z-Library is the best.