Readium LCP DRM for ebooks (invite-only beta)
Readium LCP DRM, now in invite-only beta
Use modern open DRM ecosystem through LemonInk to sell, lend or subscribe out your ebooks and audiobooks.
What is Readium LCP?
Readium LCP (Licensed Content Protection) is an open DRM standard developed by EDRLab and used by bookstores and libraries around the world. Each sold copy is encrypted, and the buyer receives a personal licence that opens it.
Because it's an open standard, a wide range of reading apps and e-readers can open LCP books, so your catalog isn't tied to one vendor's app, or to us.
Lending and subscriptions
An LCP licence can expire on a chosen date. Sell a book for two weeks or a school term and it stops opening when the time is up, with nothing to chase or take down. You can run this alongside regular watermarked sales, for example a forever copy at full price and a limited-time copy at a discount.
Subscriptions work the same way, with short-lived licences refreshed for as long as the subscription lasts. We're building the tooling for this right now, so if subscriptions are your model, the beta is exactly where you want to be.
What your customers see
They buy a book and download it like any other file. The first time they open it, their reading app asks for a passphrase. We generate one and show it right on the download page.
One passphrase unlocks every book they ever buy from you. And if they forget it, it's still there on their download page, so there's no support ticket for you to answer.
Reading app and device ecosystem
Any app or device below opens the licences we issue. The most notable absence is Kindle, as Amazon's devices don't support LCP. If most of your readers are on Kindles, watermarking is the better pick.
- iPhone & iPad Thorium Reader (needs iOS 26.1 or newer) · Cantook by Aldiko · PocketBook Reader
- Android Cantook by Aldiko · PocketBook Reader · FBReader
- E-readers PocketBook · Vivlio · tolino · inkBOOK · Kindle (unsupported)
- Windows, Mac & Linux Thorium Reader
Supported formats
LCP protects EPUB and PDF. MOBI files and MP3 audiobooks can't be DRMed, but watermarking has those covered.
Watermark or DRM? Choose per book
You don't pick once for your whole catalog. Set a default protection method for your account and override it per book, so you can sell novels watermarked and textbooks DRMed if you like.
Join the beta
Readium LCP on LemonInk is live, in an invite-only beta. Tell us what you sell, or what you'd like to lend or subscribe out, and we'll set you up. Subscriptions are being built right now, so if that's your model, we especially want to hear from you.