About
A library that's yours.
The internet started as a library and slowly became a feed. Plinth is a small attempt at returning to first principles — a place to keep the books you've chosen, in the order you've chosen them, on whatever device you happen to be holding tonight. Quiet. Yours.
Why we built it
Three things we couldn't leave alone.
- 01
When the app goes dark, your library goes with it.
Every major reading app has, at some point, shut down a region, pulled a title, or simply stopped being maintained. The books you bought were always a license, not a copy. We thought a library deserved a stronger contract.
- 02
If the seller is the only place you can read, you're renting.
Most platforms tie ownership to a single reader. Walk away from the reader, lose the library. Plinth separates the two: you own the book, and the reader is just one place you might read it.
- 03
Annotations should be yours.
Highlights, notes, the way you've marked the margins — that's a record of your reading life. We treat it like data you should be able to take with you, not something the platform owns.
What we believe
The short version.
- — You should own what you buy.
- — You should be able to read offline.
- — Your annotations should travel with you.
- — Independent publishers deserve a fair cut.
- — A library should feel like a library.
Plinth is a project of Athenium, a small team working on the protocols that let identity, ownership, and content stay yours across services. Based in Australia.