Slashdot Mirror
WHSmith Putting DRM In EBooks Without Permission From the Authors
sgroyle (author Simon Royle) writes with an excerpt from an article he wrote about discovering that publisher WHSmith has been adding DRM to books without their authors' permission, and against their intent: "DRM had, without my knowledge, been added to my book. I quickly checked my other books; same thing. Then I checked the books of authors who, because of their vocal and public opposition, I know are against DRM – Konrath, Howey, and Doctorow, to name a few – same result. ALL books on WHSmith have DRM in them. Rather than assume WHSmith where at fault, I checked with my distributor, Draft2Digital. They send my books to Kobo, who in turn send my books to WHSmith. D2D assured me the DRM was not being added by them and were distressed to hear that this was the case. Kobo haven't replied to any of the messages in this thread: 'WHSmith putting DRM in books distributed via Kobo'. I'm not holding my breath." Update: 03/22 21:02 GMT by T : Problem resolved. Hanno Liem of the Kobo team wrote with good news that the DRM notices that were appended were done so in error, and since corrected: "The original site has been updated – it was just a bug on our site, and was resolved within a day I think. We're all slashdot readers here at Kobo Operations, and this is kinda painful :p" Thanks, Hanno.
there is http://www.gutenberg.org/
and its excellent feeder http://pgdp.net/
This is a bogus complaint. First, WHSmith can't add DRM. Their ebookstore is provided by and run by Kobo. Second, that label has been changed in less than a day. The ebooks no longer say that they have DRM, and that suggests this was just a website bug: http://www.whsmith.co.uk/EProducts/Bangkok-Burn-Bangkok-Series-1+eBook+KB00106286902
Just read through the forum that is linked to on the blog. It appears that it is a glitch on the WHSmith website. Everything is listed as having DRM, even if it doesn't have DRM. When you click the link it goes to Kobo to make the purchase, and the book is listed as DRM free.
There was a post on the Kobo boards where someone contacted Kobo about this. Apparently there was a known problem on the WHSmith website where it would show the books as having DRM. When they'd go to Kobo to actually DL the books it would be DRM free. Just looked at the books on WHSmith's website and getting a different format availability than the OP's blog - Format Availability: epub. Apparently they've fixed the bug.
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
His blog has been updated. It was just a mistake.
Thank you for contacting Kobo Writing Life.
There is a known error on the WHSmith website that is showing DRM-Free books as DRM ePubs. They’re working on fixing this issue when they update their website in May.
Even though your books appear as DRM ePub’s, any customers that want to purchase your book from WHSmith are directed to our site to make the purchase. On our site your book is correctly listed as DRM-Free.
I’m sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause and hope that this has clarified things for you.
Sincerely,
The Kobo Team