If you buy e-books outside Amazon, the copy protection eBooks.com is switching to decides which devices can open your purchases. It also settles whether you need yet another account and whether a screen reader can read the book aloud. On September 11, 2026, the store released rebuilt reading apps for iPhone, iPad and Android. Underneath them, it is moving to Readium LCP, an open DRM standard that behaves very differently from the Adobe system most non-Kindle buyers have wrestled with for years.
What eBooks.com launched, and when
The new iOS and Android apps went live on September 11, 2026. eBooks.com built them with the European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab), a non-profit based in Paris, and with Colibrio, a Swedish reading-engine company. The store says the apps handle fixed-format EPUB, audio-visual content, manga, and textbooks with complex layouts and specialized fonts.
The apps are part of a larger platform change. eBooks.com had already introduced a browser-based Online Reader and added support for Thorium, the free desktop reading application. The store describes all of it as a move to open, standards-based reading technologies, Readium LCP among them. Founder Stephen Cole said the apps integrate with the assistive technologies built into iOS and Android, including VoiceOver and TalkBack. They also add controls over text size, typeface, spacing, alignment, colors and margins, he said, including options intended for readers with dyslexia.
Readium LCP in one paragraph
Readium LCP is a DRM scheme published as an ISO standard, ISO/IEC 23078-2:2024. It protects EPUB, PDF and audiobook files. No single vendor controls it. EDRLab runs the standard, which means any retailer can become a license provider and any developer can build a compliant reading app.
Unlike earlier schemes, LCP doesn’t ask readers to create a third-party account. There’s no separate DRM identity to register and no activation step tied to a vendor. The retailer or library also runs the license server itself, so no outside company receives your reading data or the unencrypted file.
How a purchase reaches your device
The first download confuses almost everyone, so the mechanics are worth knowing. What lands in your downloads folder is a small file ending in .lcpl. That file is the license, not the book.
Open the .lcpl in a compliant app, and the app follows a link inside it to fetch the encrypted publication, which is protected with AES-256. The app then asks for your passphrase once. It caches a hash of the passphrase and from then on opens the book on that device without asking. You only see the prompt again on a new device.
That single passphrase is also why LCP tolerates ordinary sharing. EDRLab says readers can share their books with family or close friends, a deliberate contrast with schemes built to make any sharing impossible.
The accessibility argument behind the move
There is a regulatory reason stores are rethinking DRM, and it is not subtle. EDRLab points out that European accessibility rules that came into force in 2025 require distributors of digital publications to offer accessible services, and that a DRM which blocks screen readers from reaching the content stops being marketable in Europe.
LCP was designed for that requirement. A compliant app decrypts the content into a normal reading engine, so text-to-speech, reflow and typography controls keep working. For readers who rely on VoiceOver or TalkBack, that is the difference between owning a book and owning a file you cannot use.
Which devices can open an LCP book today
EDRLab keeps a list of the globally available reading systems that can handle LCP, and it’s short.
On desktop, Thorium Reader is free and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It handles EPUB, PDF, DAISY publications, audiobooks and Divina comics, along with OPDS catalogs. FBReader, a long-standing multi-platform app, also opens LCP-protected EPUB and PDF. On mobile, Aldiko Next is a free option built on the Readium toolkit that opens EPUB, PDF and audiobooks from any source.
E Ink hardware narrows the choice sharply. EDRLab names PocketBook and inkBOOK devices as able to sideload LCP-protected EPUB and PDF. Beyond those, the practical route on an E Ink screen is a reader that runs Android and lets you install the reading app you want. The BOOX Go 7, for example, runs full Android with an app store in a seven-inch reader’s body, which is why people buy one instead of a closed reader. Nothing on it is tied to a bookstore, so whatever compliant app you install becomes your library.
Where Kobo and Kindle stand
Kindle owners can stop here. Amazon’s Send to Kindle tool accepts EPUB files that carry no DRM and converts them for you. An LCP-protected file is encrypted, so Send to Kindle can’t take it, and Kindle hardware has no support for third-party DRM.
Tolino e-readers, which Rakuten Kobo develops, have been LCP-compliant since 2019. They are the reading hardware behind Germany’s Onleihe library service, where EDRLab reports more than 25,000 LCP licenses generated each day. Kobo’s own retail e-readers, though, do not appear on EDRLab’s list of globally available LCP reading systems. Kobo has not said whether it plans to bring the same support to them, or on what timetable.
Why stores keep moving
In France, every major e-book distributor now provides LCP-protected files. The national library lending service there has a stated plan to stop delivering Adobe-protected books during 2026. In the United States, the Internet Archive lends LCP-protected e-books and recommends Thorium on desktop. NetGalley uses LCP for publisher review copies, and the Palace Project has built it into its library apps.
EDRLab is a non-profit and charges no per-transaction fee, only an annual certification cost for license providers. For a retailer weighing DRM costs against accessibility obligations, that math has been tilting toward LCP for several years.
What to check before buying a protected EPUB
Ask the store which protection it applies, because the answer changes what you can read the book on. Then check whether a compliant app exists for the device you already own and use. If you read on an iPhone and a laptop, the apps already exist. A closed E Ink reader tied to one bookstore may never open a protected file bought from a different store.
Keep the .lcpl file after the first download, and note that the passphrase belongs to the retailer or library account that issued the license. The realistic risk is losing access to that account.
LCP’s remaining limits
LCP is still DRM. The file is encrypted, the license can carry a loan period, and a book you buy today depends on a license server somebody else runs. LCP changes who runs that server, what it can see about you, and whether the file works with assistive technology. Those are meaningful improvements, and they still fall short of owning an unprotected file.
