Post updated on 22nd March, 2013
DRM: What it is and why you should care about it.
DRM is used by publishers to restrict what you can do with your ebooks. Free mptool software. DRM controls which devices you can use to read your ebook, and stops you converting your ebooks from one format to another.
DRM makes buying and using ebooks harder. When you first start using ebooks, you might not notice the restrictions very much. But the restrictions are there.
There are several different DRM schemes. Ebooks with one DRM scheme can’t be read on a device that uses a different DRM scheme. Some DRM schemes limit ebooks to one device only, so if you want to read that ebook on a different device, it’s necessary to download the ebook again. Others require new devices to be authorised by a central server on the Internet.
When you want to use a different ebook reader, or if the supplier stops supporting the ebooks you’ve bought, you may lose access to your DRMed ebooks. This has already happened to many people, with ebooks and other digital media.
So to be able to read your ebooks on all the devices you have now, and to be sure that you will still be able to read your ebooks in the future, you will want to remove the DRM.
Anti-Piracy Notice
- Nov 18, 2010 To remove DRM from a Kindle for Mac or an Adobe Digital Edition ebook, just drag & drop the ebook file onto the application when it is not running. For other ebooks, you will need to enter some extra information. Run the DeDRM application by double-clicking it to access the configuration dialogs.
- Dec 26, 2010 That simply unzipping and rezipping causes a problem in ADE does suggest that there's some problem in this book's zip structure that might also be causing problems in the dedrm process. It turns out that this is a known problem to do with non-ascii characters in file names, and is a bug in the ineptepub script.
Please only use this application for gaining full access to your own ebooks for archiving/converson/convenience. De-drmed ebooks should not be uploaded to open servers, torrents, or other methods of mass distribution. No help will be given to people doing such things. Authors, retailers and publishers all need to make a living, so that they can continue to produce books for us to read. Don’t be a parasite.
Jul 23, 2011 Well, you're trying to use an old AppleScript that I wrote over a year ago, instead of using the really nice AppleScript that Apprentice Alf et. Have provided and updated for us. Google for Apprentice Alf, download the tools archive you'll find linked from his blog, and use the DeDRM AppleScript you'll find in there.
Current Ebook Formats and DRM schemes
There are three main current eBook formats.
- ePub Defined by the IDPF and used by many ebook vendors.
- PDF Created by Adobe, and in some forms an international standard. Less popular on ebook readers than on computer screen. PDF is hard to convert into other ebook formats.
- Kindle Owned by Amazon, the Kindle ebook format is actually four different file formats.
- Mobipocket One of the oldest ebook formats, readily converted into other file formats.
- Topaz Created by Amazon, conversion to other formats relies on the quality of the OCR text in the format. The quality of conversions are therefore variable.
- Print Replica This is actually a PDF file wrapped in Amazon’s own packaging.
- KF8 Amazon’s newest ebook format, with rich formating capabilities similar to ePub, and readily converted to ePub.
There are several ebook DRM schemes
- For ePub there are separate DRM schemes from Apple, Adobe and Barnes & Noble.
- For PDF there are several different DRM schemes, several from Adobe, one from the Italian firm, ScuolaBook, and one from Barnes & Noble (NOOK Study).
- For Kindle, DRM is provided by Amazon.
- There are other schemes not covered by the tools in this blog.
Ways to Remove DRM
The tools in the archive maintained on this blog can remove all the kinds of DRM described above from ebooks, except for some of the older Adobe PDF DRM schemes, the ePub DRM scheme by Apple, and the NOOK Study PDF DRM scheme by Barnes & Noble. To remove DRM from ebooks sold by Apple, a separately maintained tool is required, described in my post Apple and ebooks: iBookstore DRM and how to remove it. There is currently no tools that removes DRM from Barnes & Noble NOOK Study ebooks. There are commercially available tools for the older Adobe PDF DRM schemes.
Best programs for macbook pro retina. The simplest way for most people (especially Windows users) to remove the other kinds of DRM from their ebooks is to use the calibre plugin, as described in my post DeDRM plugin for Calibre: the simplest option for removing DRM from most ebooks.
Mac OS X 10.4 and later users who don’t want to use calibre can use the DeDRM AppleScript application, as described in my post, DeDRM AppleScript for Mac OS X 10.4 and later.
Windows users who don’t want to use calibre can use the DeDRM_App Python application, as described in my post, DeDRM Application for Windows XP and above.
Linux users should use the DeDRM plugin for calibre, or can extract the individual tools if they wish. Specific Linux instructions are included in the ReadMe that accompanies the DeDRM plugin.
A note about Amazon ebook formats
Amazon’s Kindle devices and software use a variety of ebook formats, and books bought from Amazon come in a variety of ebook formats. Amazon tries hard to hide this complexity from their customers, and does this by only sending each device ebook formats that it can understand.
Once the DRM is removed from an Amazon ebook, it becomes important to know the ebook’s format, so that it is not sent to devices that can not read its format.
For this reason, the tools will usually change the ebook file name extension. .mobi is used for Mobipocket format ebooks (all Kindle devices can read these). .azw3 is used for KF8 format ebooks. Not all Kindle devices can read these. Currently, Kindle 1, Kindle 2, Kindle 3 with firmware less than 3.4 and Kindle for iOS cannot read KF8 format ebooks, and ebooks in that format will need to be converted to Mobipocket format before transferring to such devices.
Amazon’s Topaz format cannot be read by any other devices, and is converted during decryption to a .htmlz archive that calibre can convert to other formats.
Obsolete Ebook Formats and DRM schemes
Fictionwise .pdb eReader format ebooks
The Fictionwise eReader format used its own DRM scheme. If you have the name and number key for your eReader ebooks, you can remove the DRM from them using any of the tools in the main archive.
Rocket .rb format ebooks
The Rocket ebook format used its own DRM scheme. https://downjfile386.weebly.com/drumagog-mac-torrent.html. If you are still able to read your Rocket ebooks on your Reader, you might be able to remove the DRM using the information and tools provided in the Other Tools folder of the main archive.
Microsoft .LIT format ebooks
The Microsoft LIT format used its own DRM scheme. If you are still able to read your Microsoft LIT ebooks on your computer, you can probably remove the DRM from them using the Convert LIT program, which is available at at http://www.convertlit.com/.
— Alf.
E-books that you buy are usually encrypted with 'Digital Rights Management,' or DRM. DRM is copy protection; it's intended to keep you from making a copy of your book and letting someone else have it.But DRM can interfere with uses of the book that are legal. Some of the books I have bought in the Adobe EPUB format, for instance, can't be moved to my iPhone for reading — unless, that is, I strip off the DRM encryption first.
I showed how to do that in an earlier post, iPhone: Reading Adobe/EPUB eBooks. It's a complicated set of steps. Now there's a way that is less complicated.
Unfortunately, the new way is available only to users of Mac OS X 10.5 ('Leopard') and 10.6 ('Snow Leopard') but not to users of any Windows system. That's because DeDRM, as its author Apprentice Alf named it, is in the AppleScript scripting language.
Apprentice Alf, who wrote DeDRM, has gone into retirement, and his original blog post about it has been modified and no longer links to the DeDRM 2.6 download per se. You can instead download tools v3.8 ZIP file from here. It contains DeDRM 2.6. The link I just gave will take you to RapidShare, where you need to click on the Download button under Save File To . your computer. A popup window will require you to wait a couple of minutes and then click on a second Download button. Then the actual download will begin. It will normally (depending on how you have your browser set up) put the tools v3.8.zip file on your Desktop. Double clicking that file will expand the ZIP file into a tools v3.8 folder. Open the folder. A DeDRM 2.6 AppleScript 'droplet' should be the top item. Option-drag it to the Desktop to make a copy of it there. You can then (after possibly doing the setup I describe below) drag the icons of e-book files that you want decrypted and drop the icons on the DeDRM 2.0 droplet to have the e-books decrypted.
After you put the DeDRM 2.6 droplet on your desktop, you will see something like:
I'll assume you'll leave/put the DeDRM 2.6 icon on the desktop, but you can optionally move it to any folder you like.
To use DeDRM, you'll simply drag an e-book file's icon over to the DeDRM icon, and drop the e-book's icon there. You can also drag the icon of a folder that contains more than one e-book, and DeDRM will decrypt them all. The decrypted e-book(s) will show up in the same folder as the original e-book(s) are in.
Before you start dragging and dropping e-books, though, some setup may be required. (If you want to bypass it and just try your luck now, skip down to Using DeDRM.)
Optional Setup
Double-click on the DeDRM icon to see:
When you click Continue, you'll see:
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You can click None for this dialog . unless you have Kindle e-books in the Mobipocket format from Amazon.com. In that case, you can enter the necessary PIDs (Personal IDs) for your Kindle device(s) here, clicking Add after each one. (How to learn what those PIDs are is a topic beyond the scope of this post.)If you, like me, want to bypass Mobipocket PID specifications for now, just click None. You can always re-launch DeDRM as a standalone application, using the double-click method, and enter Mobipocket PIDs later.
You'll now see something like:
You can enter, one at a time, any Name:Credit_Card_Number 'key pairs' you use to buy e-books at Barnes & Noble or eReader.com, and click Add. Once you have entered them all, you will click on the No More button which has replaced the None button.
Each key pair represents:
- the name on your account at Barnes & Noble online or on eReader.com
- the number on the credit card registered for that account.
These two items must be entered with a colon (':') — but with no spaces or other characters — between them. If the card number is for an eReader account, you can opt to enter just the last eight digits of the card number. If it is for a B&N account, you will need to enter the whole 16-digit card number.
If you don't want to enter any Barnes & Noble or eReader.com key pairs, just click None in the dialog box above.
Next you'll see:
The intention here is for you to specify any adeptkey.der key files that you may have generated previously. These are key files that, again, you may have generated using a Python script, ineptkeymac_v1.py, as shown in Step 4 of iPhone: Reading Adobe/EPUB eBooks. If you do happen to have any previously generated adeptkey.der key files, you can use the Add. button at this point to tell DeDRM about them, one by one.
But you don't really need to specify any previously existing adeptkey.der key files! DeDRM can generate the 'local' ADEPT key file you need on the fly for you.
ADEPT stands for Adobe Digital Editions Protection Technology, by the way.
The only time you'll need to specify your own existing adeptkey.der key files is in a situation where you in fact have some older Adobe EPUB e-book files lying around, ones that were downloaded when you were using a different Adobe ID/Password combination than you currently use.
For purposes of this post, I'll assume all your Adobe EPUBs were downloaded (possibly using Sony's Reader Library application) with an Adobe ID/Password combination that is still current. So all you have to do in the dialog box above is click on No More. At that point, the DeDRM script merely quits.
Using DeDRM
Now you're ready to use the DeDRM script for real. I suggest you consider moving or copying the DeDRM 'droplet' icon to a folder you've created, named something like DeDRM Folder. Alternatively, you can leave the DeDRM 'droplet' icon right on your desktop.
The next step is to locate in your Mac's folder hierarchy any Adobe EPUB e-book file that you want to strip DRM from:
- If you got the file via the Sony Reader Library application, it's in ~/Documents/My Books/Reader Library/{book title}.epub. (The '~' node stands for the Home folder of the user account you are using on the Mac.)
- If you obtained the Adobe EPUB online in any other manner and then imported it into the Adobe Digital Reader application, you can expect to find it in ~/Documents/Digital Editions/{book title}.epub.
- If your Adobe EPUB e-book can be found in neither of those two locations, you can probably locate it by doing a Finder filename search on the book's title.
You might want to make a copy of the Adobe EPUB in your DeDRM Folder folder (or, alternatively, on the desktop, if that's where your DeDRM 'droplet' icon is) by dragging its icon to that location while holding down the option key.
Using a copy of the adobe EPUB is not, strictly speaking, necessary. However, DeDRM will produce its decrypted output copy in the same folder location (possibly the desktop) as the location of the input original Adobe EPUB that you drop onto the DeDRM icon. So if you want the decrypted version to be created in a more convenient folder location than ~/Documents/My Books/Reader Library/ or
~/Documents/Digital Editions/, it's best to work with a copy that you have previously established in the desired output location.
Now drag the copied Adobe EPUB e-book's icon onto the DeDRM icon and drop it there. DeDRM will open. After a brief delay, you should see something like:
Click Thanks. DeDRM goes away. It's that easy!
If the input file was called The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog.epub, as above, an output file called The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog_dedrmed.epub will appear in the same folder (possibly, the desktop). The filename will be that of the original file with _dedrmed added. The filename extension will continue to be .epub.
The output file is just like the input file — except that it's no longer copy-protected. It can be read in any application or on any device that can read 'open' (i.e., non-DRMed) EPUB e-books:
- Stanza for the Mac or Windows
- Reader Library for the Mac or Windows
- Adobe Digital Editions for the Mac or Windows
- Any iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch app that reads EPUBs, including Stanza, Kobo, and Borders
- etc.
- Import the open EPUB file into iTunes by dragging it into the Library portion of the main iTunes window
- With the open EPUB now visible in the Books section of the iTunes library, sync your iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch
Dedrm Applescript For Mac Download
The open EPUB will now appear in the LibraryViva EBooks!
of the iBooks app on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch!You can use a similar procedure to use DeDRM to remove DRM encryption from:
- PDB files that you obtain from Barnes & Noble or eReader.com online
- Mobipocket e-books, such as those from Amazon.com
- Amazon Kindle e-books — provided they're not in the dreaded Topaz format! (You can open your Kindle e-book in TextEdit and look for the characters TPZ0 near the top. If they're there, the book is Topaz and you'll need more powerful mojo to decrypt it.)