---------------------------------------- DeDRMing August 29th, 2022 ---------------------------------------- Written on my laptop ---------------------------------------- Both L and I have ebook readers since almost forever. Differently from many, though, we are both still using our very first ereader: mine is a 12 years old Kindle, hers is a 9 years old Kobo N905C. And while I have always used my Kindle trying to avoid DRM at all costs, she has often read library ebooks which always came with one kind of restriction or another. This is the story of our latest 24-hours fight against DRM, using different approaches: hers is on the "let us try to be compliant" side, while I usually lean more towards "I want to burn this whole, fucking, broken world" :-) ---- The problem: L had just lent an ebook from the library's website. She explicitly specified she owns a Kobo, so she was given a link to an ACSM file to open in Adobe Digital Editions. After the actual ebook was imported into ADE's library with her Adobe ID, she verified she could actually open it and see its contents, then transferred it to her Kobo. When she tried to open it on the Kobo, though, she was told the file was DRM-ed and she did not have the authorization to open it from the device. The experiments we did together: we removed the bad book from the Kobo; we deauthorized and then re-authorized both ADE and the device; we downloaded another book from the library to do more tests; we both disconnected and reconnected the Kobo for a zillion times. We then started looking on the Web to see if others had the same issue: the answer is YES, plenty of people got stuck for one reason or another, and not all of them eventually succeeded in getting readable ebooks on their readers. ---- At that point our paths split. I'd say that happened in part to parallelize our efforts, but also so we could independently pursue our, well, rather diverging approaches. L started following forums, tutorials, videos from libraries and individuals who were as frustrated as her to find the books they were rightfully entitled to read were not accessible on their devices. At the same time I, already feeling entitled (in her stead!) to make those ebooks readable on her device, started to look for deDRMed versions of those books, software to remove the DRM lock, and so on. After delving into our own rabbit holes, we regrouped to find that both of us had succeded. L found that the most recent version of ADE had issues with Kobo (or *her* Kobo, or whatever), so she managed to bring a DRM-ed version of the book she lent on the device by running an older version. On my side, I discovered that you can deDRM a book imported into ADE by using DeDRM Tools, a Calibre plugin that completely removes DRM when you import the book into Calibre, so that afterwards you can upload it to any device without any more constraints. --- Technical details section --- In L's case, the solution is complicated by the fact that Adobe does not provide URLs for earlier versions of ADE, so you have to find the right one shared on forums or play with the official URL and change the file version, hoping they have kept the naming consistent across versions. For reference, the working version was: https://adedownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/digitaleditions/ADE_3.0_Installer.dmg In my case, there were so many problems along the way that I thought about writing this post just for the sake of not forgetting how I got to the final solution. Here's what worked for me: - I installed ADE from the official Adobe link (version was 4.5.11): https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions/download.html - I provided L's ID and downloaded the ACSM file into the ADE library - I installed Calibre 5, because DeDRM did not work with 6.x. Quite differently from ADE, Calibre provides easy links to get previous versions and I got https://download.calibre-ebook.com/5.44.0/ - I downloaded the latest DeDRM tools (7.2.1) from the following URL: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/releases Once the tools file is unpacked, you can install the DeDRM plugin from the Preferences>Plugins section in Calibre (just choose "Load Plugin from File and provide the DeDRM plugin zip filename) - In ADE, I right-clicked on the book you have imported and chose to see it in Finder. From there I just dragged and dropped it into Calibre's window to import it in my library. Note that once the file is in Calibre, it is de-DRMed! - At this point, I could send the file to the device. Note that the version 5.* of Calibre had some problems syncing with Kobo (some issues dealing with Kobo's latest library format), but I could use Calibre 6 to transfer the epub as it was de-DRMed once and for all. ---- As I wrote before, we both succeeded regardless of our different approaches. At the same time though, neither of us really felt accomplished or even satisfied by our solutions. We have both been left with the feeling that one's right to read the ebooks they lend from the library is limited by software updates, namely Adobe choosing to keep older versions of ADE available (albeit behind a non-public URL), and their devices being able to continue syncing with new programs and supporting new versions of DRM locks. Alternative solutions such as DeDRM, while preferable, have their own limits (e.g. you still need crappy ADE to be installed, or you have to use an older version of Calibre) and are, in many countries, illegal even if you have all the rights to read those ebooks you are trying to unlock. The real take-home message here is that DRM is bad, as it tampers with the users' rights while trying to create a synthetic scarcity of digital resources. And while this scarcity *might* provide some value to the whole publishing industry (a thing I am quite skeptic about), at the same time it makes the users' experience so bad that they eventually either resort to commercial, out-of-the-box solutions such as Kindle Store or look for illegal alternatives. And guess what, not everyone wants to spend dozens of dollars on a file they can easily get for free somewhere else. In all of this, libraries are doing (as always!) an incredible job, as they put a lot of efforts both into providing legal solutions to sharing knowledge for free *and*, at the same time, helping their own users as much as they can. What I am most afraid of is that, by not relying on their digital services, we do not provide a reason for them to be provided in the first place, and this is inherently bad. I honestly have not followed much how libraries tackle DRM issues and how to contribute to their efforts, but I think it is definitely an interesting space and I would like to learn more about this.