This is not an anti-Kindle rant. I have purchased (rented?) several Kindle titles myself.
However, YSK that you are only licensing access to the book from Amazon, you don’t own it like a physical book.
There have been cases where Amazon deletes a title from all devices. (Ironically, one version of “1984” was one such title).
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html
There have also been cases where a customer violated Amazon’s terms of service and lost access to all of their Kindle e-books. Amazon has all the power in this relationship. They can and do change the rules on us lowly peasants from time to time.
Here are the terms of use:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950
Note, there are indeed ways to download your books and import them into something like Calibre (and remove the DRM from the books). If you do some web searches (and/or search YouTube) you can probably figure it out.
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Amazon is on my shit list and will not buy any products from them ever again. They are one of the worst monopolist mega corporations. They treat their employees like slaves, are anti-repair, anti-consumer.
I gifted an older Kindle to my sister, and the screen broke (out of warranty). I contacted Amazon about it, and they basically said they don’t make replacement parts and don’t service the kindles, they can only give me a small discount for buying a new one.
I looked up a guide on doing it myself, and even if I find a replacement screen, it’s really difficult. The screen is glued with a strong adhesive. The entire device looks very cheaply built and deliberately made really difficult to repair.
Finally got around to backing up my over 200 audiobooks in a DRM-free format after this post reminded me it was on my to-do list. Libation is pretty damn good.
There are also Kindle books sold without DRM at the request of the author.
Well I stole mine, I can always steal them again
Damn right I don’t.
Yarrrrrrr
Don’t do that. Authors make next to nothing from their books. You don’t have to support Amazon, but at least buy a paper copy or audiobook to support the author.
Unless it’s J. K. Rowling. Fuck Rowling.
I remember an email I sent to Randall Munroe once, asking where I can buy his ebook “What if” without DRM.
He emailed me back that unfortunately there is no place to buy it without DRM, because of the publisher, but he also linked this comic in his email:
Here’s a DRM-free copy for sale:
It’ll look like this:
Once you buy this, it is truly yours. Nobody can take it away from you. You don’t have to agree to any EULA to read it. No account needed, no activation, no sign-up. You can even resell your copy if you want. There are no technical restrictions on it whatsoever. You can enjoy it any time of day, anywhere in the world, and there’s no need for an Internet connection.
I enjoy reading dead tree books as much as anyone, and whilest the publisher/distributor can’t take it away, there are plenty of ways you can lose access to them. Fire and flood being the two obvious ones, whereas digital books can be backed up offsite. It’s also easier to carry many books when they’re digital compared to physical.
For books I care about I try to get both a physical and a (drm free) digital copy for the best of both world.
Like hell I don’t. Calibre plus NoDRM says otherwise.
Buy, rip, refund, repeat.
Nah, no need to be a shitheel. I’m cool with paying for books, authors gotta eat. I wouldn’t refund a book I’ve read.
Totally agree with paying for recently written books. But are you cool with paying authors who have been dead for 69 years?
Any Kindle owner should go find out how easy it is to get library books on their Kindle. It’s totally the way to go. You don’t have to buy their shit and deal with their rules.
Every single fucking time I try to get an ebook from my library there is a wait list weeks or even months long.
That’s a shame. They need more licenses per book, it sounds like. But at least your community is highly engaged with your library!
Borrow the hardback
The digital titles often come with a price tag that’s far higher than what consumers pay. While one hardcover copy of Cook’s latest novel costs the library $18, it costs $55 to lease a digital copy – a price that can’t be haggled with publishers.
And for that, the e-book expires after a limited time, usually after one or two years, or after 26 check outs, whichever comes first. While e-books purchased by consumers can last into perpetuity, libraries need to renew their leased e-material.
This might actually make sense. Borrowers can’t lose or destroy a digital copy, or bring it back late. Probably a digital copy enables more checkouts. Max of 26? Well think about he condition if the last library book you checked out that had 26 stamps on the list. Hard copies don’t last forever. Sad that they had to charge more based on these assumptions, but you can imagine some reasoning to them.
I think we need to know the average number of lendings for hardback vs ebook over a 2 year period. In theory, the library should be indifferent to the format being lent out and the costs should reflect that.
Sadly it’s probably also the case that publishers’ ebook pricing to libraries is based on paranoia about them destroying all book sales, plus the usual corporate greed.
I looked in to the whole DRM removal thing. From what I could tell, everything was majorly out of date, required a really old version of Calibre, and didn’t work with newer books.
Edit: So, this is out of date info. There’s a fork and it works with a fairly recent version of the PC app. Basically no fuss.
The DeDrm plugin and the most recent Calibre worked for me just yesterday on a brand new book. Something that’s easy to miss is that you need to put in the serial number of your kindle device and make sure you download the e-book for that same device. Otherwise the plugin won’t be able to decrypt it.
Yep, looked it up again today and some proper information has been posted publicly in the interim since I last tried. I was able to strip the drm from a handful of my books today using it and an older version of the Kindle PC app.
Glad you sorted it!
Was another change made recently? I’m unable to convert .kfx books.
Nvm, i was doing it wrong. lol
