Fraudulent business behavior
With the intention of supporting good journalism, I bought an 'eBook' travel guide in the Bradt Guides webshop. On each product page and during the checkout they clearly specify that what you are paying for is 'Format: eBook (ePUB)', pretending that they will provide you with an eBook in the format EPUB that can be read by ANY eBook reader, specifically by my pocket eInk device, on my Linux desktop and my Linux mobile device. However, this is an outright lie. Instead of providing you with the eBook that you have supposedly paid for, you will only receive an email informing you that you DID NOT BUY an eBook but that they only licensed you the RIGHT TO READ the 'eBook' on Apple / Google / Microsoft devices in an application of their choosing (Glassboxx crapware). In order to cover their behinds concerning potential legal threats in regards to their SCAM, they include an 'About our ebooks' link in the footer of some pages. If you happen to follow the link to this not explicitly related small print, you will be greeted by a page vaguely referring to a 'Glassboxx service' used for 'delivery' on a handful of platforms. What they do NOT mention is that they use Digital Restriction Management (DRM) in order to harass their honest customers, that you will NOT be provided with the EPUB that you supposedly paid for, that you can NOT read your 'eBook' on any hardware eBook reader, NOR in a software eBook reader of your liking, NOR on any device not running Apple / Google / Microsoft software. Behind the scenes they do use the EPUB format as the basis for their DRM scheme. This is however irrelevant to the customer who was made to believe that they paid for an eBook in the EPUB format which can be read on any device of her liking. As with any DRM schemes, their 'Glassboxx Readium LCP' can of course be removed from the underlying EPUB, just wasting their honest customers' time. In order not to incentivize their fraudulent business behavior, you might however chose to conveniently obtain any Bradt content directly from other sources without DRM harassment. Obviously, I will not PAY for any Bradt products again until this fraudulent business behavior is discontinued and would be happy to join a class action lawsuit against Bradt.
By Ano N.