Do Apple EBooks expire?

Ghjk123 wrote:

Do ebooks that I pay for and download expire. How long?

I’m not aware of any purchase download expiration.

I have not encountered any books that have been removed from my library, though I have a few books purchased from Apple that are no longer sold by Apple, or that have been re-loaded into the store under different information, but those books can still be downloaded from Apple under the original purchase, with a “stub” shown page in the Apple Books store. (That makes buying other books in the same series more interesting, but the downloads do still work.)

Pragmatically and as with any other ”purchased” digital content, it’s always possible somebody somewhere decides to vaporize some books.

If this availability concerns you, keep backups.

Purchased Apple Books are typically provided without DRM, so local copies should continue to be readable, if downloads from Apple are somehow no longer available. If you have a Mac in use and keep Time Machine running on that, that will back up your books, too.

The front matter of various books I’ve read recently have indicated no DRM. I’ve not verified that. That may be a mixture of what books I’m reading and the publishers’ and authors’ choices.

MrHoffman wrote:

Purchased Apple Books are typically provided without DRM

Do you have a reference for that? My understanding is that purchased books normally do have DRM, so they can only be read on Apple's Books app and not on Windows or Android, and sharing is restricted to family. Have you found things like fiction best sellers without drm?