Buy it for Life

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A place to share practical, durable and quality made products that are made to last, with an emphasis on upcycled and sustainable products!

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Things that are well-made and durable (even if they won't last a lifetime) are A-Okay!

Unlike that other BIFL place, Home-made and DIY items are encouraged here, as long as some form of instruction is included in the body of the post.

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The item must be made with sustainable or recycled materials.
If electronic in some way, the item must be open-source.
The item must be user-serviceable (if applicable).
You cannot be a large corporation.
The post must be clearly marked with a [Self Promotion] tag in your title.

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Where can I buy ebooks that will actually be mine for life? (self.buyitforlife)

submitted 6 months ago by DrownedRats to c/[email protected]

56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm looking to change my reading and buying habits away from Amazon and need an alternate source for my ebooks. Where can I buy ebooks that won't expire or have their licence revoked and will allow me to download a copy of that ebook I can store on my own system regardless of the websites status?

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[–] mipadaitu 93 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Calibre and DeDRM can strip Amazon's DRM and let you save the books forever.

https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

You need a registered Kindle, but you don't need to actually use the Kindle to make it work. Just download the ebook from the Amazon website "for Kindle XYZ" and then import and convert the ebook in calibre.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This is unfortunately the closest answer to what the OP is asking.

To the best of my knowledge, outside of independent authors like Cory Doctorow selling drm-free from their own sites, I'm not aware of any place to shop for ebooks that are not tied to some online DRM scheme.

Humble Bundle books are another option, but it's highly dependent upon if you want what they're selling.

[–] mesamunefire 12 points 6 months ago

Baens library has been doing this for the past 25(?) years. They even have a free library. https://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/free-library/id/2012

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Going that far, I’d sooner just apply for a Bibliotik account.

[–] calamitycastle 13 points 6 months ago

Also works on kobo books which use adobe digital editions. I think the plugin is called obok (I've only just realised that kobo is an anagram of book haha)

This is the way anyway

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

OP wants to avoid Amazon. This is still giving Amazon money and therefore encouraging Amazon's greed, walled garden and dark patterns.

A better alternative would be using almost any other digital book seller. There's plenty. And if the author chose or was forced to only sell through Amazon, then you can try library sources (like Overdrive) so the author at least gets something. And if you still can't get what you're looking for, then it's time to sail the high seas.

At least make Amazon the last resort option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I've tried 5× to get it to work and not been able to....I'm even somewhat good with following instructions!