Technology

63082 readers

3516 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

[email protected]

157

Borrowing e-books in the EU just became a lot more complicated as libraries move to closed ecosystems (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Apparently many libraries, including the ones in my country, are moving over to a system where you're not allowed to digitally download the epub file anymore. You're only allowed to borrow the book, and read it, in a closed ecosystem: an app. This per definition then excludes the majority of e-ink readers that don't run Android. This is due to Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the accessibility requirements for products and services (Text with EEA relevance) (source) entering into force June 28 this year.

As the Adobe DRM solution hasn't been updated for years, it isn't capable of fulfilling all the requirements that this law lays out without endangering the DRM solution. Text-to-speech is one function that isn't fully supported by Adobe for example. This means that there are apparently two directions to go for full compliance, Readium DRM which is barely supported as well or a closed app ecosystem.

This is frustrating on so many levels, especially if I would like to borrow an ebook in my native language that isn't available elsewhere on the web, which is often the situation for books in my language (and I'm guessing most languages outside of English). The alternatives left is borrowing a physical copy, or buying it.

The enshittification of everything continues...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Piracy is a service problem. If Videogames solved this problem, so can books. If changing these laws closes down libraries further, all of our EU representatives that worked on this legislation failed us immensely, libraries are already nothing but a faint whimper of the idea that started them off, and could fulfill an important cultural role for so much more folks. If only they were allowed.

But no. We have to think about those multibillion businesses who might miss a couple bucks left and right. Don't know if anyone used that adobe DRM in the last 5 years but it's basically a way to bully paying customers into an ecosystem, and you're telling me they're making it worse? Lol.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

At least you could easily DeDRM ADE. This seems a lot trickier due to there not being one universal solution and it being in-app.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

True :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Piracy is a service problem.

Hey look everyone, he repeated it!

Go to any country without an egregious amount of excessive wealth and you'll see fast how worldwide, piracy is a solution to the ever-growing disparity in wealth.