It's kinda odd that all these years later, you're still better off pirating than paying for anything digital. All these services solved piracy but we've now gone full circle.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
611 points (95.1% liked)
Technology
63082 readers
3589 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Piracy was, is and remains a service problem, as Gabe Newell of Valve (Steam) once stated. Most people are perfectly content to pay a reasonable price to get access to the things they want. But if you make that impossible, they’ll find other options.
Take anime for example: even if you subscribed to every streaming service out there, you still wouldn’t be able to see everything you wanted. Some things aren’t streamable or sold ANYWHERE, or only on a service that’s actively blocked in your region. Which means there is simply no legal way for you at all to get that content.
Music on the other hand solved that dilemma. You can use Spotify, YT Music, Apple Music or a host of other options. You pay a flat fee and you can listen to pretty much every song you want, as often as you want. Nobody’s pirating MP3’s these days, because nobody needs to. It’s now more convenient to just stream it.
I’d really like to see someone do the same for books. An unlimited digital library that lets you download anything you want for a flat subscription fee. I’d pay 10 bucks a month for that for sure. Because that would make it more convenient than pirating is right now, with a more consistent experience.
Music is definitely not a solved problem. About 30% of my favorite older tunes aren't available on streaming at all, as I discovered when I tried to find a way to casually share with some friends.
load more comments
(7 replies)
load more comments
(16 replies)
If you're into audiobooks, I strongly recommend libro.fm instead - it's all DRM free downloads, so you never lose access.
Do you have a friend code we could put in if we do sign up for libro.fm? I don't mind getting people free stuff for recommending awesome products!
And here’s a reminder that if you run a Plex server, there’s an app called Prologue which turns it into a fully fledged audiobook server.
Plex doesn’t natively support things like audiobook bookmarks in m4b files, and tries to just play them straight through like a gigantic 4 hour long music track. But Prologue does support bookmark data. Prologue simply uses Plex’s service to access the files, (because admittedly, Plex is good for letting newbies remotely access their content) and then it ignores Plex’s built-in “lol just play it like music” instructions, and actually parses the files for bookmark data.
As someone who couldn’t get Audiobookshelf to work properly, (something about not being able to access network drives via Docker), Prologue has saved my audiobook library by allowing me to just host it via Plex instead.
Jellyfin supports audio books too, but I feel that audiobookshelf gives a much neater experience.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
I just buy physicals of the reference books I really want and pirate the digitals of anything else that isn’t sold DRM-free. I WILL own what I bought, whether they like it or not.
load more comments
(1 replies)
"How about instead of words, we fill books with numbers?"
I've got an old Kindle, but not too old, which I jailbroke just yesterday with Winter break. I recommend that method for those considering getting drm free usage out of their device (instead of it contributing to ewaste).
load more comments
(4 replies)
A hosting provider always has the ability to change what's on their infrastructure. The Kindle store is no different.
As it happens, they've been doing this for years. For example, the price you set as an author is not fixed nor is how it turns up on the page or how and when it's promoted.
The standard ebook format is essentially a zipped up series of text files.
Source: I sell my "Foundations of Amateur Radio" ebooks on the Kindle store
load more comments
(6 replies)
I paid for (the license to view) the books already, so I’m getting epubs from z-library without the slightest bit of moral pain.
I could do the calibre decryption thing, but meh.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Is there a text version of this?
Yes, I prefer to read over watching a video and being forced to go at someone else's pace.
I truly hate this age of video where everything is either in incredibly long form with unnecessary cruft that can be pared down to a page or so of real information, or the video is so pointlessly short it's devoid of real value and context. Sadly people just don't want to read anymore
load more comments
(1 replies)