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Another list of sources of DRM-free digital medias
(thebrainbin.org)
The pinned post hasn't been updated in a few months now, so making this new one. Also will be updating here while the pinned post isn't updated.
Sources will be divided into categories based on content types available, and so a same source may appear in multiple categories. And if a category becomes too overarching, please suggest how to better divide!
Also some cases of DRM are blurrier. Some may consider DRM-free as simply not requiring validation, while watermarks and other means of tracking the owner if the files are leaked may be seen as DRM to others. When I know about such cases, I will include the source in the list but with a note about the potential DRM measure.
And removing SomaFM until I figure out if it indeed allows downloading contents DRM-free.
And lastly, quoting the OP, additions are welcome! Please post in the comments if you're missing any. While I realize other sources and shadow libraries exist, I want this list to be about supporting the sites, stores and authors that make an effort to supply legal, DRM-free alternatives.
Now, onto the list!
Audiobooks
Ebooks
- 7switch
- Amazon (both JP/overseas; see this)
- Angry Robot
- Baen Books
- Brandon Sanderson on Bookshop.org (Sci-Fi, US-only)
- Brandon Sanderson on eBooks.com (Sci-Fi)
- Cory Doctorow (Sci-Fi)
- Delphi Classics
- Dystopia Editions (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)
- Ebooks libres et gratuits (French Public Domain)
- Ebooks.com DRM-Free section
- Fanatical's ebook bundles
- French Bibiliothèque Nationale's Gallica (French Public Domain)
- Greg Egan (Sci-Fi)
- Honor Raconteur (Fantasy/YA)
- Humble Bundle's ebook bundles
- IndieGala book bundles
- Itch comics & books
- Juliet Marillier (Fantasy)
- Kobo's DRM free section
- La bibliothèque numérique Romande (Swiss fiction)
- Le Belial (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)
- Les classiques des sciences social, with a large selection of essays and academic papers
- Litteraturbanken (Swedish Public Domain)
- Nasjionalbiblioteket (Norwegian Public Domain)
- Project Gutenberg Australia (Australian Public Domain)
- Project Gutenberg Canada (Canadian Public Domain)
- Project Gutenberg (American/General Public Domain, has many other countries and languages as well)
- Runeberg (Swedish Public Domain)
- Smashwords
- Standard eBooks (Formatted Public Domain eBooks)
- StoryBundle
- The Anarchist Library
- The Internet Archive
- The National Library of Finland (Finnish Public Domain)
- Tor Books
- Weightless Books (Sci-Fi magazines)
- note from the original post: A note, if your native language is for example German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Polish or similar, you can usually find DRM-free ebooks in your native language through your national stores. The ePubs are usually just watermarked. This might be applicable to other countries as well, even though I'm aware that some countries like Japan or South Korea have even stricter DRM schemes than the English-speaking world.
- another note: More on DefectiveByDesign, Libreture and ButtonDown
- note no. 3: there's also a list for DRM-free ebook shops at https://libreture.com/bookshops/
Games
- 6502 Workshop
- Alivesoft
- Amazon US [see notes]
- Bitmap Bureau
- Caravel Games
- Crytivo
- Enlight Games
- Epic Games Store (see notes)
- Fireflower Games
- GOG
- Humble Bundle (includes Android games and GOG keys)
- Humble Widgets (widgets for developers to sell games on their sites; may have games not directly on Humble Bundle)
- IndieGala freebies & showcases (they overlap btw)
- Itch (incl. also Android games, homebrews, fantasy consoles, etc.)
- Learn Japanese to Survive!
- Legacy Games [see this, a response to an email I sent them, and confirmed by myself with tests]
- Lexaloffle Games [see notes]
- MAME
- Matrix Games
- Neofid Studios
- Red Candle Games
- Retroarch through the frontend and maybe through Libretro's buildbot but yet to confirm on the latter.
- RimWorld
- Slitherine
- Steam [see this]
- WinGameStore's DRM-free selection
- Zoom Platform
Music
- 7digital UK/7digital US [change the subdomain for other regions]
- Amazon
- Bandcamp
- GOG [game OSTs]
- Itch
- ITunes [see notes]
- Nigel Stanford's store [musics and music videos]
- Ototoy
- Qobuz
- Recochoku [UI in Japanese and has site-wide geoblocking]
- Red Candle Games
- Supraph Online [UI in Czech]
- 着信★うた [UI in Japanese]
- Zoom Platform [game OSTs]
Videos
- ITunes for music videos [see this]
- Peertube for general videos (each video has a download button)
- Recochoku for music videos [UI in Japanese and has site-wide geoblocking]
Misc
- Itch game assets, tabletop games, tools & other stuff
- Gumroad for games, videos, ebooks, etc., similar to Itch. Though for ebooks, see this
NSFW ones
- Denpasoft - for manga and some times games and other contents
- DLsite - mangas, video games, OSTs (rarely), ASMR audio tracks, videos and game assets. Also see notes.
- Fakku - mainly mangas, some few games, and rarely OSTs.
- IndieGala - for games
- Jast USA - for games
- Kagura Games (JP / International)
- MangaGamer - iirc exclusively for games
- Nutaku - do note Android games always have DRM. Other systems should be safe.
- Winter Wolves - game publisher store
Notes
- About Amazon US and games, it has a selection of DRM-free games in the store, but they seem to be slowly delisting the titles there, maybe due to most being at least about as young as Windows Vista.
- About DLsite, mangas that have DRM will have a light green box under genres and file size, not mattering what the text says, and if using Dark Reader, the box becomes dark green, contrasting much better with the UI. Games and videos will have a blue box instead iirc, and with a much clearer and consistent warning. And for all cases, if still in doubt, "file format" above genres should help too.
- About Itch, technically they don't have policies against DRM, but in what's probably almost a decade using it, I can hardly remember 4 titles which would use DRM. Numbers bloat if we consider titles that only give keys for other services, which iirc is against the rules but have to check, and games that run in the browser, but that through launchers (Itch app, Kitch, Mitch for Android, etc.) or itch-dl, you can download it to run as a local HTML project.
- About Epic Games Store, there is no way to know upfront the DRM situation, so each games needs to be tested. Also iirc there are community projects to catalogue such cases, but I don't have any at hand.
- About ITunes, both musics and music videos require the ITunes app for IOS, MacOS or Windows for buying and downloading.
- About ITunes, at least on Windows 10, Apple Music links can be opened as ITunes links by replacing
httpsforstart itmsand adding?app=itunesat the end, and then running the resulting command on Windows' CMD. The same can't be achieved with movies, and yet to test music videos. - About Lexaloffle Games, only familiar with the PICO-8 side of the site, and to get the file for a given game there, it can be downloaded if it has a pink cartridge icon under their games' respective web players. To do it, click the icon, download the "image" that opens, and either run on the official player, recompile through the PICO-8 player, or play through emulators.
- About Supraph Online, asked the guy behind IsThereAnyDeal once, and he said it's a company he sees retail stores in the Czech Republic, so appears legit to me.