You Don’t Own Your Ebooks

You Don’t Own Your Ebooks

michaelblume:

titleknown:

allacharade:

theoldaeroplane:

zigraves:

vaspider:

katherinethegrape:

unlikelylass:

vaspider:

ayellowbirds:

dr-archeville:

You don’t own your ebooks with DRM.  You’re merely
licensing the privilege to read them.  Some readers overseas have learned
this the hard way (yet again) now that Nook is going out of business in
the United Kingdom.  But don’t worry, they’re working to let you maybe possibly transfer all those books you bought.

The Register and TechDirt brought this notice from Nook’s UK site to our attention (emphasis mine):

Effective from March 15, 2016, NOOK will no longer sell
digital content in the United Kingdom.  The NOOK Store on NOOK devices
sold in the UK, on the UK NOOK Reading App for Android, and at nook.com/gb will cease operation.

To
meet your digital reading needs going forward, NOOK has partnered with
award-winning Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand to ensure that you
have continued access to the vast majority of your purchased NOOK Books
at no new cost to you.
  Further instructions on how to transfer
your NOOK Books to a new or existing Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand
account will be sent to you by email over the coming weeks.  Please
ensure that you look out for these emails as they will contain important
information on what to do next.

Your action is required.

“…continued access to the vast majority of your purchased NOOK Books…”

They’re not even promising that you’ll be able to transfer all your books!

Digital rights management (DRM) is absolutely crippling our ability
to preserve digital knowledge for the future.  And it’s half the reason I
prefer deadtree books.

Even when it’s an accident (like when Amazon deleted everybody’s copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from their Kindles) it shows just how little control we have over the books we “buy” from digital retailers.

So repeat after me…

You don’t own your ebooks.

You don’t own your ebooks.

You don’t own your ebooks.

This has been an issue for libraries since e-books first started being released.

I keep forgetting that this is a thing that isn’t widely known outside of libraries, the mentality of publishers that electronic media is being “lent” to the buyer, rather than actually becoming a thing you own.

This really bothers me on an accessibility level, bc my Kindle having everything on it makes it accessible to me in my tiny house, with my busted back. I don’t have to get up to get another book. I don’t have to reserve space I don’t have for books. I don’t have to carry a bunch of heavy books when I’m already managing my wheelchair etc while traveling.

This is such a problem.

My husband has complicated allergies. Book ink and the formaldehyde in the paper is a major issue for him. But an ereader works great!

Richard Stalman wrote an article about this back in the 90s called The Right to Read, IIRC.

Welcome to our dystopian cyberpunk present. :/

This is why I use Calibre to back everything up.

There you go.

For anyone who reads sci fi and fantasy, Baen/Tor (who publish a LOT of SF/f, including my beloved Vorkosigan Saga) sell most of their own ebooks on their own site unless the author has a special agreement, and all their ebooks are DRM free. They’re available in a bunch of different formats depending on what kind of ereader you have. Some other publishers also do, though I can’t remember which ones.

I know that nook, Amazon, et al are convenient aggregators, but it may be worth checking if the publisher sells a DRM free version directly if there’s a book you really wanna make sure you don’t lose access to. In addition to the nook problem listed above, Amazon have also been caught retroactively editing the content of books in people’s libraries after purchase. So. You know. Either find a DRM free version to start with, or be prepared to crack every book you buy.

for said cracking, please see DeDRM

DeDRM and Calibre are easy and essential. You can and should own your ebooks.

Reblogging both for the resources and because shit like this regarding DRM pisses me off so fucking much… 

As always, RMS warned us about this shit.

My work colleague rib me a little about the fact that I’ve got a computer science degree but seem to shun a lot of new technology (I don’t have a smart phone) but they were stunned to learn they’re only renting the music and books they’ve “bought” digitally.

All the paper books, CDs and DVDs I have are basically a backup system for the things I really want to keep.

In fairness to my colleagues, we work in the charity sector and none of them spent the time when iTunes etc were really starting to take off being totally immersed in the academic side of it all.

(My Mum used to moan about not having Facebook messenger on her phone, but she’s pretty glad now that I wouldn’t install it for her after the Facebook shenanigans got more widely known. Did I watch too much X-Files as a kid and get paranoid? Maybe? But when it turned out the CIA had been spying on folks through webcams, I wasn’t worried for myself (other than like, not being of interest to them) because ever since I got my first USB webcam, I’ve been covering the lens or turning it to face the wall – I just assumed that some l33t h4x0r could have been watching anyway.)

melifair:

ao3tagoftheday:

ethermaster:

ao3tagoftheday:

[Image Description: Tag reading “donatello/michelangelo”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Renaissance fanart

I’m gonna let you in on a secret.

  • That aint renaissance fanart

You know what, assholes? I run this blog for y’all every day. I see things you cannot begin to imagine. I have to read people’s Robespierre smut and their questions about how various monsters would fuck them. I am so jaded that, when someone submits a tag mentioning some random vaguely liquid substance without context, I just assume it’s being used as lube. Nutella? Lube. Crazy glue? Lube. Divine fucking ichor? Fucking lube! I do this for you, y’all. I shield you from this shit. I stand athwart the tides of horror, hold my hands up, and yell “STOP” in the hopes that it will keep the waters from reaching you.

So you know what, fuckheads!? If I want to maintain the one tiny scrap of innocence I have left, I will. The official policy of AO3TagoftheDay is now that turtles, teenage, mutant, ninja, or otherwise, do not fuck. It never happens. They don’t fuck. They don’t fuck each other. They don’t fuck humans. They don’t fuck in real life and they don’t fuck in fiction. This tag is about two gay Renaissance painters holding each other close and kissing chastely under the Sistine chapel ceiling.

There. Glad we got that sorted out. Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.

This was intense, but I applaud you

danielle-mertina:

libraelementia:

loveiseldritch:

cloverhoneyed:

apersnicketylemon:

floralvixen:

apersnicketylemon:

Christianity and conservatism are not compatible ideologies. Conservatives, socially, are against refugees, against equality, and fiscally are against social programs and financial aid to those in need.

Jesus demanded they help refugees, demanded equality, and demanded aid to the poor.

To be conservative means to not be Christian, and to claim you are both is to be a hypocrite.

Something Jesus also condemned.

I don’t think you know much about either ideology

Sincerely, a conservative Christian

I’ve read the bible six times, I know what it says.

I’m also a polisci student, and pay attention to what conservatives do. In fact I’ve studied conservatism, in addition to the other political ideologies that exist in our world.

Jesus said:

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat
them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your
native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.

(Leviticus 19:33-34)

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very
edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go
over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen.
Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.
(Leviticus 19:9-10)

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the
foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are
to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in
Egypt.
(Deuteronomy 10:18-19)


For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and
you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I
needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I
was in prison and you came to visit me.
(Matthew 25:25-36)

Just to quote a very, very few.

Conservatives repeatedly repeal and cut back programs that feed the poor ,including poor children, cut back education, and cut back healthcare, all things vital to the poor. Conservatives repeatedly want no refugees, want no immigrants (travelers), including children. In fact, many conservatives want to throw the existing immagrants (travelers) out of the country (and need I remind you, Jesus was not a “legal” immagrant, so to claim ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigrants are any different is still to ignore what the bible has commanded of you.

I know exactly what each ideology is about. You are a hypocrite, and not a Christian. You only call yourself one while flaunting what was commanded of you.

in the field of religious studies, we often call jesus one of the first radical leftists. he was a social anarchist with communist leanings, and that’s why his draw was such a threat to the imperial system—because he was calling for the dismantling of oppressive power structures. the conservative romans were the ones who killed jesus, and conservatives after are the ones continuing to kill his message thousands of years after his death.

Don’t forget he fought against slut-shaming, embraced alcoholics and the homeless, and straight up said you can’t get into heaven if you die rich.

When I say conservative Christians would deport Jesus if they actually saw him or blacklist him if they heard him…this is why.

And it’s funny because those fools are the Pharisees and can’t even see that.

The greatest commandment of Christianity is to love your neighbor like yourself and that’s not what conservatives do.

copperbadge:

saving-stark:

firelightmystic:

So what, none of you punks were gonna tell me Don Cheadle out here all kingly dapper af looking like some kind of aristocratic bamf? WITH A SWORD?? I had to stroll up on this all unexpected???

I was looking for suit pictures, I wasn’t out here trying to thirst after the man, but here we are now, and I hope all of you are happy.

@copperbadge I feel like rdj would thoroughly approve

“You don’t even need my approval, Don. The sword. The strangely cut fruit. The high collar, all that velvet.”

“I was pretty proud of how it came out.”

“You should be. Some day small children will stare in awe at your magnificence.”

“….are you about to ask me to babysit?”

“You demean us both with your suspicions.”

“Chris was busy, huh?”

“I’m desperate, Don.”

[RDJ Advises Chris Evans on his Life Choices]

Yes

That one mid-west Steve Rogers picture and the winking Astronaut Seb Stan gift do just go right back in my queue each time I see them