I am scared to buy e-books

Because of issues with regional coding and DRM, I fear buying an e-book is going to prevent me from reading the book using generic free software programs.

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By. Jacob

Edited: 2024-04-02 15:44

I am scared to buy ebooks.

Recently when I attempted to buy an e-book, I was prevented from legally buying it because of regional issues and the book not yet being available in Europe. I ended up not buying the book and losing interest in it on second thought – an important lesson was re-learned: don't buy e-books.

In this case, my payment was rejected, so I was never allowed to download the book I was attempting to buy. I also did not want to try setting up a VPN or faking my account information to circumvent the restriction – not really because it might not be legal, but more because of a general lack of interest in the extra trouble I would need to go through, and of course not least, the likely format being constrained by DRM.

It was also a horrible disheartening reminder that DRM exists. Things like DRM and regional restrictions effectively prevent users from reading their purchased books with the viewing-software that they please. E.g. Libre Office or similar non-proprietary free software tools.