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How to Remove DRM from eBooks for mass distribution and education

EBooks in library systems are treated like physical books: when someone checks an ebook out, it becomes inaccessible to everyone else. Right now, waitlists for anti-racist literature are in the double digits, meaning people are going to wait weeks or months to access to information that they need for meaningful education and organization.

Anti-racist education hinges on easy accessibility of anti-racist literature. Ironically, libraries are now a barrier to the mass education they usually offer.

Those without the luxury to buy books are being barred from vital information. However, there are ways of removing the protective DRM from ebooks purchased from distributors or borrowed from library services like Overdrive.

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, and colloquially refers to the means through which a company prevents its digital media from being used and distributed beyond its control. DRM in ebooks imposes loan periods on books and prevents digital books from being read beyond intended software or hardware.

Under normal circumstances, these limitations would be a nuisance—I only learned this method so I could get library books on a second-hand Kindle—but now, DRM is a direct barrier to anti-racist education.

Software:

1. Calibre

2. DeDRM Plugin for Calibre

3. Adobe Digital Editions (for EPUB books)

Installing the DeDRM Plugin for Calibre

via Apprentice Alf on WordPress

1. Install Calibre

2. Download the DeDRM Plugin (do not Unzip)

2. In Calibre, navigate to ‘Preferences’ (You may need to expand the window)

3. Under the ‘Advanced’ heading, navigate to ‘Plugins’

4. Click “Load Plugin from File”

5. Navigate to where you downloaded the DeDRM plugin and install

Removing DRM

1. Import your book to Calibre (EPUB books need to be processed through Adobe Digital Editions before being imported to Calibre)

2. Select the book(s) you want DRM-free

3. Click “Convert”

4. Select your Output format. MOBI for e-readers, PDF for general purpose.

5. Once the conversion is complete, navigate to [User] -> Calibre Library. Your book(s) should be organized in folders by author.

Be aware that I have occasionally had issues with formatting when converting PDFs to an eReader-friendly format.

Converting EPUB books with Adobe Digital Editions

Some library services like Overdrive offer some books only in the EPUB format that can’t be used with eReaders and lacks the accessibility of PDFs. Adobe Digital Editions can read the EPUB format, and is necessary for converting the book into a format that Calibre can import.

1. Install and authorize Adobe Digital Editions

2. Import the ‘.ACSM’ book downloaded from a library service.

3. While importing, Digital Editions should have created a ‘.EPUB’ version of your book

4. For Windows, use your explorer to navigate to Documents -> My Digital Editions

5. Import the ‘.EPUB’ file to Calibre to convert and remove DRM

Helpful Articles

“DeDRM plugin for calibre: the simplest option for removing DRM from most ebooks”

“How do I install and authorize Adobe Digital Editions?”

How to send an unprotected document to an Amazon Kindle via email

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i moved @friendmatt

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i moved @friendmatt

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finished witcher 3 this weekend and i love one (1) family

#witcher

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By: Jakub Różalski

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Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey | 2019

#this shit fucking slaps

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Mitski, “I Will” // David Hockney - Domestic Scene, Los Angeles 1962-1963

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Mitski by Ebru Yildiz

#FUUUUUUCK OH MY GOD #mitski

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alt-0150

Sleeping Satyr (Barberini Faun), from Rome, Italy, c. 230-200 BCE.

atlas-the-worldbuilder

Today, I would like to commemorate an event which has laid a very profound impact on the internet.

Ten years ago on this day (06/08/09), a forum website called SomethingAwful held a photoshop contest titled “create paranormal images”. The contest would require participants to edit ordinary photographs into creepy-looking images, and then try to pass them off as authentic photos on other paranormal forums.

Two days later, on June 10th, a user by the name Victor Surge would find this thread, and become inspired. He submitted the two pictures above, featuring a tall, faceless monster which would stalk children, who would then disappear. He called his monster “the Slender Man”. After this initial post, Surge and others would expand on the character and the story, creating one of the internet’s most famous monsters. The Slender Man proved to be popular enough to spread to other websites, with 4chan, Deviantart, and TV Tropes all having their own Slender-Mania. On June 20th of that same year, another user on the SomethingAwful forums found the Slender Man, and also wanted to contribute. Noticing nobody had made any videos yet of the monster, he sat down with some of his friends and planned out a video webseries involving a former college film student discovering and unravelling the mysteries surrounding Slender Man; this would become Marble Hornets, one of the first horror-themed ARG’s of the internet.

That all happened ten years ago. Ten years of haunting the darkest corners of the internet, and Slender Man has built up a surprisingly dense resume, for a fictional monster. Several popular webseries, a couple hit games, at least two movies, even inspiring other characters in seperate series like the Silence in Dr Who and the Enderman in Minecraft. And all this within a ten-year period.

I think this just attests to how much humans can be inspired by an idea. From a small handful of edited photographs, we collectively constructed a new monster which lurks in our nightmares, and now it almost seems as natural as the horror mythos he was based on. For better or worse, the Slender Man seems to be here to stay. Happy Birthday, Slendy! Here’s to hoping you continue to be both terrifying and terrific!