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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same goes for steam, epic launcher, etc. with the exception of gog (though generally if steam removes a game, they at least let you keep your copy if you already own it)
I came to the same realization about my audiobooks through audible, so I’ve archived my audible account and now they can’t take my books :D
This is why I pirate my media, and you should too!
Readarr + calibre makes it very convenient and easy (the rest of the arr suite is great for other forms of media too)
YSK, finding and installing mobi files are easy. Also, keeping your Kindle in airplane mode prevents ads. Fuck Amazon. Calibre is a great open source piece of software.
it’s the same with Google Books. you can’t copy text from the book you bought into your notes. you’re not allowed to copy text. i want to buy books legitimately for my research, but i cant use any of this shit.
🏴☠️
As someone who publishes on Amazon if you buy my book and Amazon takes it from you PM I will send said customer a epub version for free.
I use Calibre to remove the DRM from all ebooks I buy. Not that I buy a lot of them, but hell if I’ll let Amazon be the keeper of the keys.
Yup, making a DRM-free backup somewhere is the only way to protect the content you paid for from the whims of the overlords.
Is there an ebook service like GOG is for games? DRM free so you can keep the books regardless of what happens to the service?
(I know it’s easy enough to remove it, but I’d rather support a service like that if I can)
So Kobo is the way to go then?
I’m really asking, my daughter is becoming a big book worm and we have missed out on some great sales because she only reads physical books ATM. I want her to give it a try with an e-ready and did not like Amazon for it.
Kobo has direct access to your public library too through Overdrive. Makes borrowing ebooks super easy!
I use Pocketbook. It opens just about anything - epub, mobi, pdf, pdb, and many more formats. Just get a book anywhere and copy it via USB. Or send it as an email attachment to your special address and it will download automatically. You can even replace the reading app with another relatively easily, if you want.
I own the 1000s of ebooks I’ve downloaded to my personal media server.
There have also been cases where a customer violated Amazon’s terms of service and lost access to all of their Kindle e-books
Imagine where corpo can take your property because you did something they did not like…
Now open your eyes, peasants.
Imagine where corpo can take your property
Brave to assume that just because you paid money for something you own it.
The lesson is don’t get in bed with corpos who hold custody of your property…
Custody is 9/10th of the property law anyway ;)
Is there a FOSS OS for Kindles?
No but you can jailbreak them, and their OS is linux-based; unfortunately if it’s a new Kindle or newish with an up to date firmware, you might have to wait for someone to release a new jb method. With a jb you can install Koreader (which alone can do everything useful), but also people (mobileread forums) have compiled a working Python library and a terminal with bash…mostly useful to show off :) you can run neofetch
If you’re like me and need Koreader (has impeccable pdf reflow and stardict support), a Kobo is way easier, and you don’t have to wait
With a jb you can install Koreader
So yes?
It’s a powerful program but not a complete OS replacement
Oh, so it’s like a sideloaded Kindle app?
Yes exactly! On Kindles to install that app we need a jailbreak (and the procedure will depend on device and firmware version, since we are trying to circumvent Amazon limits), most of the OS stays the same and you can still use the normal “reader” app.
Of course if you are already satisfied by the normal reader all you need to do to gain more freedom is managing your books with Calibre on a computer, it’ll take care of converting to kindle format if you put an epub in it, and send it to device, with just one click. My dad does this after I showed him once or twice and he’s not techy at all.
I am now of the opinion that you should just download books off indexing sites/IRC/ Usenet/torrents and if you like the book and want to support the author, buy a physical copy, or buy 2 and put one in a neighborhood free library. That maximizes the good you are doing and helps your community instead of just generating Bezos bux.
I haven’t used Kindles personally ever, but I helped my neighbor export their kindle collection a few years ago.
It dumped it into mobi files to use with calibre. Then from there, you can convert them into epubs.
I recall it being straightforward. Probably something a kindle owner should do periodically to back up their collection.
Another problem with DRM’d platforms is that you don’t really know how long this will be easy or even viable. I recall these tools breaking in the past as Amazon changed their encryption, and it took time for them to be updated.
For anyone with a large library on Kindle, Audible, or any other DRM-infested platform, I recommend stripping that DRM sooner rather than later. You might think “I can always do it later” but there’s no guarantee that will be true.
Also, shoutout to ebooks.com for having a dedicated DRM-free section and a simple checkbox to filter search results to only show DRM-free items. Not sure where to go for DRM-free audiobooks though. Anyone got suggestions? Personally I will simply not buy books with DRM, regardless of how easy it might be to crack it. If I’m going to have to break the law anyway (thanks, DMCA!), I might as well pirate it and find some other way to toss the author a few bucks.
I use downpour.com for drm-free audiobooks. They let you straight up download the mb4 files haha it’s awesome.
It’s such a win-win b/c I get to buy audiobooks drm-free and I get to avoid supporting audible which has terrible business practices such as locking authors in exclusive deals.
Also thanks for the ebooks.com recommendation! I was reading this thread specifically to see if anyone knew of a good place online to buy drm-free ebooks :)
You can get Audiobooks from Spotify using the app Soundbound. You need to insert a list of plugins, then it works.
Apart from that, youtube? Or sailing the high seas?
My understanding is they arent mobi files anymore but a proprietary DRM format. That being said, there are many wonderful calibre plugins that break the drm.
FWIW, Amazon deprecated mobi files recently and epub is the new “sideload” standard. You still have to email the file to the kindle address to be able to read them, or convert to azw3.
If you’re already using Calibre, check out Calibre-Web, which essentially uses a Calibre database as the back end. The interface is so much nicer than Calibre.
It’s better to keep them as mobi files than converting to epub. Mobi works on almost every device, and converting to epub can always result in messed up formatting or chapters.
If you absolutely have to convert the files to epub for some reason, at least keep the original mobi files as well
I do.
