Q: Where can I find out more about eBook Formats and DRM Removal Tools?
* This post explains about the various eBook formats, DRM and you – a guide for the perplexed.
* This post talks about Windows specific tools and issues surrounding eBook DRM removal.
* This post talks about a nice drag and drop all-in-one Mac OS X specific tool.
* This post has links to downloading a zip archive of **all** of the tools, as well as a comments area for getting your problems/questions answered.
Q: I’ve got the tools archive but I can’t install the tools and/or the DRM removal doesn’t work
* Read the rest of the FAQs here, and see if any apply to your situation.
* Read the ReadMe_First.txt file in the top level of the tools archive
* Read the ReadMe file in the folder of the tools you want to use.
* If you still can’t remove the DRM, ask in the comments on the first post in this blog, reporting the error as precisely as you can, what platform you use, what tool you have tried, what errors you get, and what versions you are using.
Q: I’ve fully unzipped the tools archive, but I can’t find the calibre plugins when I try to add them to calibre. I use Windows.
Some versions of Windows will automatically look inside zip files when trying to select the plug-ins. You should select the zip files that are in the Calibre_Plugins folder, not any files inside the plugins. Make sure you’re selecting files from the tools folder that you created when you right clicked and selected “Extract All” on the tools zip archive and not using the still-zipped tools archive.
Q: I’ve got the tools installed, but the DRM doesn’t get removed. The log messages seem to say that the key wasn’t found.
You must use the exact file that’s used by your ebook reading software or hardware. See the question below on where to find your ebook files. Don’t use an old copy you have that you can no longer read.
Q: Where are my ebooks?
Your ebooks are stored on your computer or on your ebook reader. You need to find them to be able to remove the DRM. If they are on your reader, you should be able to locate them easily. On your computer it’s not so obvious. Here are the default locations.
Macintosh
Navigating from your home folder,
Kindle books are in either Library/Application Support/Kindle/My Kindle Content or Documents/My Kindle Content, depending on your version of Kindle for Mac.
Adobe Digital Editions ebooks are in Documents/Digital Editions
Windows
Navigating from your My Documents folder
Kindle books are in My Kindle Content
Adobe Digital Editions ebooks are in My Digital Editions
Mobipocket Reader ebooks are in My eBooks
Q: I just upgraded Kindle for Mac and now the tools don’t work
You now have more than one kindle-info file, because Amazon has moved the location of the file. The easiest thing is to delete both and let it get created again. Got to (Home Folder)/Library/Application Support/ and delete the “Kindle” folder and the “Amazon” folder. Now start Kindle for Macintosh. You’ll need to register it to your account again, and possibly download your books again, but after that the scripts will work again.
Q: Kindle Topaz ebooks? HTMLZ? SVG?
Most Amazon Kindle ebooks are Mobipocket format ebooks. However, some are in a format known as Topaz. The Topaz format is unique. It is unlike other ebook format. A Topaz ebook is literally a collections of glyphs and their positions on each page tagged with some additional information from that page including OCRtext (Optical Character Recognition generated Text) to allow searching, and some additional layout information. Each page of a Topaz ebook is effectively a description of an image of that page. To convert a Topaz ebook to another format is not easy as there is not a one-to-one mapping between glyphs and characters/fonts. To account for this, three different formats are generated by the DRM removal software. The first is an html description built from the OCRtext and images stored in the Topaz file (HTMLZ). This format is easily reflowed but may suffer from typical OCRtext errors including typos, garbled text, missing italics, missing bolds, etc. The second format uses the glyph and position information to create an accurate scalable vector graphics (SVG) image of each page of the book that can be viewed in web browsers that support svg images (Safari, Firefox 4, etc). Additional conversion software can be used to convert these SVG images to an image only PDF file. The third and final format is the text-based xml files that describe each glyph and each page. These files are binary encoded with a dictionary of words in the ebook to create the actual Topaz file format. The DeDRM and KindleBooks tools from this site provide all 3 versions of the Topaz ebook so that the user can choose which one to use. The K4MobiDeDRM plugin only produces the html version of the ebook. The html version can be manually cleaned up and spell checked and then converted using Sigil/Calibre to epubs, mobi ebooks, and etc.
Q: Kindle Fire ebooks?
The Kindle Fire is Android based unlike any of the earlier standalone Kindles and the current tools will not work with Kindle Fire ebooks. Because a Kindle Fire is only available in the US and because we would need access to a Kindle Fire that is jailbroken with the correct decompiling tools and lots of time, do not hold your breath for any solution coming soon from us. Your only workaround is to install Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac and download that ebook from your Archive.
Q: Apple iBooks epubs?
The Apple iBooks ePubs use a variant of Apple’s Fairplay DRM and therefore the tools will *NOT* work with these ebooks. There is currently no activity that we know of to change this. The only solution is to *NOT* buy any ebooks from the iBooks bookstore otherwise you will be stuck with an ebook that can ONLY be read on an Apple phone/tablet device and no where else.
Q: Double-clicking on any of the .pyw tools, I get the message “there is no default application specified to open the document”. I have Mac OS X 10.5
There is a bug in the Python Launcher set up on Mac OSX 10.5.X that wasn’t fixed until 10.6.X. So you have two options one very easy and one is just a bit harder but will allow python scripts to work well for the future
1. Easy: simply use the DeDRM AppleScript which is a drag and drop application that works on 10.5, 10.6. and 10.7. Once it is unzipped, simply drag and drop your epub and it will remove the drm for you.
2. A Bit Harder: Fix the error with the Python Launcher in Mac OS X 10.5 by following these steps:
In Finder navigate to /System/Library/Framework/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Resources/
and then double-click to run the “Python Launcher.app”. When it comes up UNCHECK the box for “Run in a Terminal window” for each of the possible pulldown values “Python Script”, and “Python GUI Script” and “Python Bytecode Document”. Then quit out of the Python Launcher.app.
Then go to wherever you have a python file with a .pyw extension and single-click on it. Then do a Finder->GetInfo and in the GetInfo window that appears, make sure you have it set to “Open with” the “Python Launcher.app” and then use the Change All… button to make sure this will work for all Python .pyw scripts.
Q: I’ve bought Mobipocket ebooks from an on-line retailer without having to enter the PID of my copy of Mobipocket Reader, and I can read them in Mobipocket Reader. But when I try to convert them to another format, calibre says that they have DRM, but the tools say they don’t contain a PIDs, and I should open them in Mobipocket Reader. What’s going wrong?
The books are downloaded without a PID, but still encrypted. Opening them in Mobipocket Reader causes Mobipocket Reader to create a copy of the ebook that contains with the Mobipocket Reader’s PID. This copy is stored in the My eBooks folder in your My Documents folder. It’s this copy that you must use with the DRM removal tools.
Q: Is it open source? How can I be sure it’s safe and not a trojan horse?
All the DRM removal tools hosted here are scripts of one kind or another: Python, Applescript or Windows Batch files. So they are inherently open source, and open to inspection by everyone who downloads them.
The one piece of compiled code is the progress bar for the DeDRM AppleScript, and the source for that is included in the DeDRM AppleScript package.
Q: The download links don’t work or just give me .php files, not .zip files. What’s wrong?
You’re using some kind of “fast download” plugin with your browser. Turn it off and the downloads will work properly.
Q: I have an old encrypted PDF file that won’t open in Adobe Digital Editions, how can I remove the DRM?
If your PDF ebooks cannot be read in Adobe Digital Editions, the tools here cannot help. They are probably encrypted using the Content Server 3 (or earlier) methods which Adobe no longer support, not even to allow conversion to Content Server 4 (AKA Adobe Digital Editions).
See http://www.adobe.com/products/contentserver/migrate.html for more details.
Adobe only allowed a nine month window (March-December 2009) for migration to Adobe Digital Editions after the Content Server 3 servers were discontinued.
You might be able to find tools to remove the DRM from other sites, but there are several different old encryption schemes for PDF files, and I’m unfamiliar with them. Tetrachroma’s blog might be a good starting point for Windows users, as he’s done a lot of work on some PDF DRM scheme called “File Open”.
Q: What ebooks do these script work on?
There are six main ebook formats.
1. PDF
2. EPUB
3. eReader
4. Mobipocket
5. Topaz
6. LIT
There are seven main DRM schemes currently in use.
1. Adobe Adept
2. Barnes & Noble
3. Amazon Mobipocket
4. Amazon Topaz
5. Microsoft
6. eReader
7. Apple Fairplay
The scripts linked from this blog remove DRM from PDF, EPUB, eReader, Mobipocket and Topaz format ebooks using Adobe Adept, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and eReader DRM schemes.
Note these tools do NOT “crack” the DRM. They simply allow the book’s owner (and only the book’s owner) to use the encryption key information already stored someplace on their computer or device to decrypt the ebook in the same manner the official ebook reading software uses.
Microsoft LIT format ebooks using Microsoft’s DRM scheme can have the DRM removed using ConvertLit.
There’s currently no way to remove DRM from ebooks using Apple’s Fairplay DRM scheme, used on most ebooks bought at Apple’s iBooks ebook store.
Q: Who wrote these scripts?
The authors tend to identify themselves only by pseudonyms:
* The Adobe Adept and Barnes & Noble scripts were created by I♥Cabbages
* The Amazon Mobipocket and eReader scripts were created by The Dark Reverser
* The Amazon K4PC DRM/format was further decoded by Bart Simpson aka Skindle
* The Amazon Topaz DRM removal script was created by CMBDTC
* The Amazon Topaz format conversion was created by some_updates, clarknova, and with help from Bart Simpson
* The DeDRM AppleScript was created by Apprentice Alf
* The K4 Mobi tool and Calibre plugins were created by DiapDealer
* The Microsoft code was by drs
Since the original versions of the script and programs were released, various people have helped to maintain and improve them, mainly some_updates, DiapDealer and me (Apprentice Alf).