One major way that DRM impacts you is at your library - only DRM laden ebooks are available and often in only one or two formats that must be read on your computer screen. I can think of little that discourages reading more than being forced to endure the eyestrain of reading an entire novel on a computer (or any other backlit screen). As of now, you can't borrow an ebook from your library to read on your Kindle. And ebooks make sense for libraries, if the fees they pay for their use are reasonable and in line with print books. Ebooks don't get damaged by readers or lost and incur no late fees. They don't pick up smoke smells or pet or food allergens from previous readers' homes. You never get to the end of an ebook and find the previous reader cut out a few pages (or the ending) because it had a recipe or web site address they wanted or that pages have been removed that they found objectionable (for whatever reason). And ebooks save your local government money, by letting the entire population have easy, 24 hour access to a "local branch" without having to build or rent and staff dozens of locations. If your physical library is anything like the one here, it has limited hours, mostly during the day and not on weekends (I guess mainly to serve the homeless and those unemployed); day shift workers may find it difficult to get there when it is open and the economy and budget cuts mean more are restricting hours even more.
All electronic content doesn't have DRM added (and most of the links below are DRM free), but when it does, it greatly limits how you use that book (or song) you may have purchased. You can buy ebooks in many places now, but unless you get the DRM free versions, which sometimes cost more or more often simply don't exist, you can't read the book just anywhere. Sony books only are useable in their reader or on a backlit screen (pc and some phone readers). No great loss for those seeking bargains, though, as their prices are generally higher and their store interface is one of the worst in existence. Others sell several DRM formats, each of which either is limited to specific reader software (on PC's only, for the most part, although a few do have hardware readers that will work). So, when looking for bargain reads for you Kindle (and some other readers), you'll find the best selection either at Amazon's store or at one of the free libraries of ebooks. Some of these have only public domain books, others also have those released under a more recent type of license: a Creative Commons License. The author retains ownership (and may ask for donations or a tip), but you can read the book for free and convert it to your heart's content (although many do restrict rights to distribute your converted efforts).
So, for those looking for some totally free content, in the wild outside of the Amazon store, here are a few of my favorite places. The first ones have books that can all be read on your Kindle (either email them to your Kindle address or copy them onto the Kindle using the USB cable) while the ones at the end are for viewing on the computer screen only.
If you like fantasy and science fiction, you absolutely must check out the Baen Free Library. There are currently over 100 books there (all published works that you can also buy in paperback), all completely free (or at least, until you feel compelled to read the other books by these authors, which is the general idea). Here are three of the most recetn additions:
Earthweb by Marc Stiegler
Starliner by David Drake
The Shadow of Saganami by David Weber
Sony and Stanza (the popular reader for the iPhone) have heavily promoted the free classic books you can get (and with Sony, they usually limit it to only 100 titles in their store, charging for the rest) and one of the first ebook titles for the Nintendo DS is a collection of 100 classics for $20. But you don't need any of these to get as many free classics as you could ever have time to read. One of my favorites sites is Feedbooks, where the books have been converted into one master copy and then tweaked so that they look good on multiple platforms. Having that master copy and format (which they use inhouse) means that they only need to translate, proofread and format the book once, then publish it to multiple platforms. If a problem is found, it is fixed with just one edit. And since humans are involved in the process, the results tend to look better than several of the other public domain sites. Another site that offers many formats is ManyBooks. These are machine generated and sometimes have a few flaws on the Kindle (author names can be missing, for example, or reversed in searches). Another source that has an interesting selection is the MobileRead forums pages. Individual members hand convert and tweak each copy, resulting in often beautiful compilations. However, you may find the versiona available doesn't work on your device. There is nothing to force them to create azw, prc, mobi, lit, lrf or the many other reader formats, so the book you want may show up in only one format (of course, you could convert those yourself). Be aware that the main servers are in Canada, so they follow Canadian copyright law for the most part, but do have some titles hosted on US servers where a work is free to copy here, but not there. If all else fails, they may not be formatted all that well, but there are many more free classics at Project Gutenberg (and even more at Project Gutenberg Australia, for those not located in the US; some of their books are not free of copyright restrictions in this country).
If you like audiobooks, there are two main sources I turn to: Librivox and Podiobooks. Both have books that you can listen to on your computer, iPod or the Kindle (just use the SD card - audiobooks are quite large). Librivox focuses on public domain titles, while Podiobooks has much more recent titles (such as Scott Sigler's Contagious), most read by the authors themselves. You can sign up to receive new chapters as they release or wait until a book is complete and download the entire thing at one time. Authors mostly rely on donations (there is a box on each title's home page) and here's their recent statement on why their titles will stay DRM free and why authors are giving their audiobooks away for free (rather than the traditionally greatly overpriced versions that have been available thru other sources).
Every now and the, Audible will have a free or very low cost audiobook as well, but their best bargains are for those with subscriptions (the Audible software will copy your books directly to the Kindle, once they are downloaded to your computer). All audiobooks must be copied to your Kindle using the USB cable and should go into the \audible directory on either the Kindle or the SD card (if Audible puts them in the wrong place, just move them once you are done). Audiobooks appear on your Kindle home page just like all your other books, but often each chapter or file is listed separately.
For computer/technical books (some a bit out of date), FreeTechBooks has links to many books, all hosted by the authors or publishers and free to download legally. These seldom convert to the Kindle very well (tables, pictures and code fragments are difficult for the smaller screen and lack of a mono-spaced font) and probably will have similar problems on a Sony Reader (it may read PDF's, but the small screen size is a limitation) and I don't think I'd want to read many of them on my phone.
One last site (for this post, anyway) that has started making books for free, but online only and often for a limited time is Harper-Collins/Eos Books. They use a special viewing software (which, frankly, I hate), but free is free and those who don't mind reading online may like them. If nothing else, you can read far enough to decide if you want to go grab the paper or ebook version somewhere else. I first used this feature when reviewing one of their books. Since then, they've had a number of different books (including Neil Gaiman's latest) up for short periods of time. Currently there are (at least) two books available:
The final volume in Lois McMaster Bujold's SHARING KNIFE series is about to be released, but you can get a head start: read the first 20% of the book (the first 86 pages) for free. If you haven't yet given this series a try, the first volume, Beguilement, is free for the month of January (1/6 -- 1/27). Jonathan Barnes' next book, THE DOMINO MEN, is also a couple of weeks away. They are offering his first book, THE SOMNAMBULIST, online for free.
