I hadn’t really paid attention to DMR because I was so cozy inside the kindle bubble. That notification that Amazon was going to take away the ability to download books was a very strong wake up call…
When ok buys a book for kindle, it seems that one supposedly doesn’t own the book? One “owns” it at the “goodwill” of Amazon?
I put my kindle on eBay today and I think going forward I’ll consider buying physical books and when necessary “finding” the digital versions of it?
I've been saying for a while now that I'd love to see rules restricting the use of the term "Buy" such that it can only apply to digital products when they are DRM-free and fully downloadable. Anything where the seller retains the right to claw back their product post-sale is more of an indefinite lease or purchase of rights rather than "buying" the product itself.
I think a relatively small proportion of people buying media online fully comprehend that—based on a contract negotiation gone wrong or just the whim of a senior exec—the things they've "bought" can simply be taken away from them. Sellers should be required to make it fully clear (e.g. not just in their 73 page ToS) that they're selling something impermanent and entirely unlike owning physical media.
Quick! Go to your Amazon account’s “Manage Content and Devices” and “Download or transfer over USB” to save the .azw3 files to your computer. Then, follow instructions to set up Calibre with the De-DRM plugin.
Do this before next Wednesday and you might save your Kindle books!
Old kindles are best for this; save books in the older .azw3 format. I’m not sure about newer Kindles that use .kfx
Yup. Same for movies, games, music, etc. It's pretty wild how many hard-won rights we abdicated in the move to digital pseudo-property. Not wild in the sense that it's surprising consumers would place a priority on convenience when it came to making purchasing decisions. Wild that legally there's such a huge difference between physical and digital goods. Like, all the consumer rights and protections built up over centuries were deemed invalid on a technicality. "Move fast and break things" indeed.
Casually worth noting the obvious: There are also services like Libgen and Anna's archive that are completely DRM free and have pretty much anything you can get on Amazon except, well, for free, aside from also being DRM-free.
Also worth noting that such sites technically are piracy. I am not making any moral or ethical assertions about it, but people need to know that so they can make an informed decision before doing so. And no, it's not inherently obvious to everyone.
Libgen, Anna's Archive, et al do however provide a valuable service in maintaining access to works out of distribution or blocked by censorship.
Genuinely, what is your motivation here? People often justify piracy in terms of their opposition to DRM, but here someone is showing you how to get DRM-free books, and your response is "But over here they are free." They clearly aren't meant to be free, and people put substantial amounts of work into creating them. Don't you care?
After the recent press for Bookshop.org I saw an author I like had a new book and thought I'd try out the service - I am okay with paying slightly more for a book if the money is going to someone other than Amazon. But I should have looked twice, because Bookshop ebooks are not DRM free unless the publisher explicitly opts for it, and DRM encumbered books can only be read on their website or in their app. I know that the copyright landscape is rough for that sort of things, but this was a huge miss. For it to cost $5 more and be tied to a service that is not currently available on any dedicated e-readers is frankly insulting.
Oh, and so far as I can tell they don't label which books are DRM free.
dedicated ereaders are another thing to get away from if possible. onyx boox ereaders for example run android as the OS so you can install whatever apps you like, kindle, nook, bookshop.org or just any basic epub or pdf reader.
the main reason i switched was so i could install syncthing and which makes the whole process of getting books onto the ereader as simple as dropping a file into a certain folder on my laptop. no more nonsense like emailing a file to your kindle or having to plug it in to sync with calibre
The desktop web-app reader is interesting in that it's a DRM-free legal way to access otherwise DRM-encumbered e-books. Last I checked the EME DRM browser sandbox was still not required.
Personally I'm fine with this compromise solution. I've read whole books in the Kindle desktop web interface. The usual line is that it's somehow bad on the eyes, but I figure that I already spend my days reading documents and articles on a screen and it's irrational to imagine a "book" is somehow fundamentally different.
I did manage to get in after a bit though, and... it's not quite what I expected? It's a fascinating resource, but it's essentially a vast collection of quite small and niche stores, magazines, webcomics, and so on. If you're expecting "Amazon/Kobo, but without the DRM" then it probably isn't what you're looking for.
It is very cool though, it's just that "DRM Free" isn't the best description of this eclectic discovery machine of a page.
in my experience no publisher that's producing many hits will make their stuff drm free, and for good reason.
looking at the archive (https://archive.ph/zPBbZ), almost all of the publishers do not publish popular authors.
it's just too easy to share the books. you can get tens of thousands of books for what, a gigabyte? without drm that stuff will spread like wildfire, but drm can easily be broken by those who know what they're doing - but I guess for publishers, luckily the vast majority of the popular wouldn't bother to break it.
Tor is a pretty big counterexample here. They're the largest and most awarded SciFi publisher and have been DRM-free for well over a decade now. They've also said that being DRM free hasn't been a problem for them.
Size isn't really a factor - an average connection can download a high-quality movie within minutes. Convenience is the factor - 95% of consumers will not tolerate having to manually manage their collection and manually transfer books to a device [1], even in legal scenarios, such as buying a MOBI/AZW from not-Amazon store and putting it on their Kindle
If we were still in the iPod era of manual syncing, then you'd probably be right, but we're now in the "cloud consuming" era. Hence the trajectory of music piracy. When people were used to managing their CDs and MP3s, ordinary consumers absolutely did engage in opportunistic (often friend-to-friend) piracy, but then streaming came and made both legal and illegal MP3s almost a footnote
[1] Of course you can upload your own "personal documents" to your Kindle library via send-to-Kindle, but few people know that outside of tech/enthusiast circles. Even knowing what an EPUB or AZW3 is almost puts you in that bubble
Errata: rephrased the first sentence from "several hundred megabytes" to "a high-quality movie", to better explain the point that download size is rarely a barrier for piracy
> looking at the archive (https://archive.ph/zPBbZ), almost all of the publishers do not publish popular authors.
Brandon Sanderson publishes his novels without DRM. All the TOR books are un-DRM-ed as well.
> without drm that stuff will spread like wildfire, but drm can easily be broken by those who know what they're doing - but I guess for publishers, luckily the vast majority of the popular wouldn't bother to break it.
Books are so small, that even simply clicking through them and OCR-ing the screenshots is a feasible method. DRM isn't even going to buy a day or two of exclusivity. But it will annoy users.
I've been using Amazon Kindle books exactly because it was so easy to de-DRM the books and read them on my devices. Now that they're removing it, I'll switch to other providers.
It's easier to just pirate a book than to buy it from amazon and open a windows vm and strip drm in order to read it where I want. DRM doesn't stop people copying.
(And https://www.bloomsbury.com sells quite major "hits" like Sarah Maas, Madeline Miller and Ann Patchett, without DRM – doesn't seem to have hurt their sales.)
I'm still a fan of LeanPub and try to buy a book there if possible. It's an older site/storefront now, but still active and with new books mainly in the software/tech space.
It provides a better return for the authors, has a very simple UI/UX without dark patterns, makes it easy to grab newer book versions, and never has DRM.
Not sure if it's listed on the site, as it seems we've hugged it to death.
I make a point to store a DRM free copy from any books I purchase. So far with success. The DeDRM tool for Calibre is very useful for this.
Ironically this has allowed me to read books legally that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. DRM is an accessibility nightmare to the point that I think it ought to be considered illegal discrimination.
I understand that inspiration for posting this was the Amazon taking away the ability to "Download and transfer over USB". Can anybody tell me if downloading will still work via Kindle for PC? That's how I download my books before removing DRM in Calibre.
[+] [-] _benj|1 year ago|reply
When ok buys a book for kindle, it seems that one supposedly doesn’t own the book? One “owns” it at the “goodwill” of Amazon?
I put my kindle on eBay today and I think going forward I’ll consider buying physical books and when necessary “finding” the digital versions of it?
[+] [-] macNchz|1 year ago|reply
I think a relatively small proportion of people buying media online fully comprehend that—based on a contract negotiation gone wrong or just the whim of a senior exec—the things they've "bought" can simply be taken away from them. Sellers should be required to make it fully clear (e.g. not just in their 73 page ToS) that they're selling something impermanent and entirely unlike owning physical media.
[+] [-] gcr|1 year ago|reply
Do this before next Wednesday and you might save your Kindle books!
Old kindles are best for this; save books in the older .azw3 format. I’m not sure about newer Kindles that use .kfx
[+] [-] idle_zealot|1 year ago|reply
Yup. Same for movies, games, music, etc. It's pretty wild how many hard-won rights we abdicated in the move to digital pseudo-property. Not wild in the sense that it's surprising consumers would place a priority on convenience when it came to making purchasing decisions. Wild that legally there's such a huge difference between physical and digital goods. Like, all the consumer rights and protections built up over centuries were deemed invalid on a technicality. "Move fast and break things" indeed.
[+] [-] phs318u|1 year ago|reply
That's exactly what I've started doing.
[+] [-] southernplaces7|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Kelvin506|1 year ago|reply
Libgen, Anna's Archive, et al do however provide a valuable service in maintaining access to works out of distribution or blocked by censorship.
[+] [-] tene80i|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] paintman252|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] plorg|1 year ago|reply
Oh, and so far as I can tell they don't label which books are DRM free.
[+] [-] internet_points|1 year ago|reply
Anyone who cares enough to comment about this on hn would do well to comment on it to the people whose paychecks depend on what you think about them:
https://uk-support.bookshop.org/en/support/tickets/new
[+] [-] 4k93n2|1 year ago|reply
the main reason i switched was so i could install syncthing and which makes the whole process of getting books onto the ereader as simple as dropping a file into a certain folder on my laptop. no more nonsense like emailing a file to your kindle or having to plug it in to sync with calibre
[+] [-] gcr|1 year ago|reply
I had to purchase the book I wanted from a different seller at double the cost.
[+] [-] bluebarbet|1 year ago|reply
Personally I'm fine with this compromise solution. I've read whole books in the Kindle desktop web interface. The usual line is that it's somehow bad on the eyes, but I figure that I already spend my days reading documents and articles on a screen and it's irrational to imagine a "book" is somehow fundamentally different.
[+] [-] greenie_beans|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] EA-3167|1 year ago|reply
I did manage to get in after a bit though, and... it's not quite what I expected? It's a fascinating resource, but it's essentially a vast collection of quite small and niche stores, magazines, webcomics, and so on. If you're expecting "Amazon/Kobo, but without the DRM" then it probably isn't what you're looking for.
It is very cool though, it's just that "DRM Free" isn't the best description of this eclectic discovery machine of a page.
[+] [-] amazingamazing|1 year ago|reply
looking at the archive (https://archive.ph/zPBbZ), almost all of the publishers do not publish popular authors.
it's just too easy to share the books. you can get tens of thousands of books for what, a gigabyte? without drm that stuff will spread like wildfire, but drm can easily be broken by those who know what they're doing - but I guess for publishers, luckily the vast majority of the popular wouldn't bother to break it.
here's one moderately popular author's take:
https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/flowers-and-questions/
[+] [-] AlotOfReading|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] didntcheck|1 year ago|reply
If we were still in the iPod era of manual syncing, then you'd probably be right, but we're now in the "cloud consuming" era. Hence the trajectory of music piracy. When people were used to managing their CDs and MP3s, ordinary consumers absolutely did engage in opportunistic (often friend-to-friend) piracy, but then streaming came and made both legal and illegal MP3s almost a footnote
[1] Of course you can upload your own "personal documents" to your Kindle library via send-to-Kindle, but few people know that outside of tech/enthusiast circles. Even knowing what an EPUB or AZW3 is almost puts you in that bubble
Errata: rephrased the first sentence from "several hundred megabytes" to "a high-quality movie", to better explain the point that download size is rarely a barrier for piracy
[+] [-] cyberax|1 year ago|reply
Brandon Sanderson publishes his novels without DRM. All the TOR books are un-DRM-ed as well.
> without drm that stuff will spread like wildfire, but drm can easily be broken by those who know what they're doing - but I guess for publishers, luckily the vast majority of the popular wouldn't bother to break it.
Books are so small, that even simply clicking through them and OCR-ing the screenshots is a feasible method. DRM isn't even going to buy a day or two of exclusivity. But it will annoy users.
I've been using Amazon Kindle books exactly because it was so easy to de-DRM the books and read them on my devices. Now that they're removing it, I'll switch to other providers.
[+] [-] agnishom|1 year ago|reply
They are already spreading like wildfire (Hint: Library Genesis). But I still buy ebooks from time to time
[+] [-] internet_points|1 year ago|reply
(And https://www.bloomsbury.com sells quite major "hits" like Sarah Maas, Madeline Miller and Ann Patchett, without DRM – doesn't seem to have hurt their sales.)
[+] [-] idunnoman1222|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] agnishom|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] theK|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] geerlingguy|1 year ago|reply
It provides a better return for the authors, has a very simple UI/UX without dark patterns, makes it easy to grab newer book versions, and never has DRM.
Not sure if it's listed on the site, as it seems we've hugged it to death.
[+] [-] contravariant|1 year ago|reply
Ironically this has allowed me to read books legally that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. DRM is an accessibility nightmare to the point that I think it ought to be considered illegal discrimination.
[+] [-] kbutler|1 year ago|reply
https://archive.ph/zPBbZ
[+] [-] jacekm|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wkat4242|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] weberer|1 year ago|reply
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks
[+] [-] agnishom|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] iamacyborg|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anonzzzies|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] LorenDB|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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