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How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

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Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#121

Post by professorseth »

chmod775 wrote: post #47

For books only available through Amazon my workflow used to be buying it, downloading it with their desktop app, importing into Calibre, converting to epub and stripping DRM, then pushing it onto my Kobo. They broke that a while ago by making their DRM even worse, so now I just pirate those books.

While Amazon does some shady stuff, at least _some_ of the blame here belongs on the big publishing companies.

One of the big publishers put heavy pressure on Amazon to patch this exploit or else they would pull all their content from the platform (or so I was told).

(I worked at Kindle 2017-2019, and was on the team that wrote the code that OP reversed engineered)

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#122

Post by babblingfish »

chmod775 wrote: post #114
Aurornis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so now I just pirate those books. I know someone who wrote a (technical) book and how hard it is to get sales in the age of easy internet piracy. I understand the desire to use the books as you please, but please remember that buying the book and downloading a pirated copy for your own use are not mutually exclusive choices. You can still purchase the book to support the author even if you're not using the exact sa…

I'd rather donate money directly to the author. I will not under any circumstance still reward Amazon for what they're doing.

You could support your local bookstore. Bookstores are closing down all over the world. Most authors do not support a way to pay them directly. For example, traditionally published authors have all of their royalties handled via their agents. For a non-trivial amount of sales, direct donation would be an accounting headache for individual writers.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#123

Post by bee_rider »

babblingfish wrote: post #119
bee_rider wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Videogames could give them a run for their money, I guess, but only certain genres.

Vampire Survivors ^^^

Well that’s just not fair; cheap and endlessly replayable. And multiplayer now, which is giving it a second wind for me.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#124

Post by professorseth »

bariumbitmap wrote: post #120

The Kindle DRM situation is really bad right now. It used to be possible to install the DeDRM plugin in Calibre and get decrypted KFX files from the Kindle for PC application. That hasn't been possible since early 2025. The pros can still break it but they aren't sharing with the rest of the class anymore. > Even the maintainer of the DeDRM plugin has gone underground, refraining from issuing an official new release…

While Amazon does some shady stuff, at least _some_ of the blame here belongs on the big publishing companies.

One of the big publishers put heavy pressure on Amazon to patch DRM exploits or else they would pull all their content from the platform (or so I was told).

(I worked at Kindle 2017-2019, and was on the team that wrote the code that OP reversed engineered)

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#125

Post by sib »

babblingfish wrote: post #107
chmod775 wrote: post #47

For books only available through Amazon my workflow used to be buying it, downloading it with their desktop app, importing into Calibre, converting to epub and stripping DRM, then pushing it onto my Kobo. They broke that a while ago by making their DRM even worse, so now I just pirate those books.

Books have got to be the least expensive form of entertainment out there. The value to cost ratio is incredible. Consider buying books to support authors and publishers. If you can't afford it, then libraries are nice too. I personally know people who pirate books, but pay hundreds of dollars a year for streaming services or battle pass type video games. It blows my mind. Books are so cheap people! I recently bought…

I have more than 100 books that I bought with actual money on Apple's iBooks (or whatever it was called back in 2010-2012). I no longer use an iPad and would like to be able to read them on my Kindle. Because of DRM, I can't. I'm all for supporting authors and the various editors, etc., but I feel like I've already done that in this case.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#126

Post by professorseth »

semiquaver wrote: post #82
professorseth wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on the team that wrote this code. We knew it was reverse-engineerable, we just didn't care. Upper management seemed happy enough that it was pretty obfuscated, and we were happy that they didn't force us to do more about it.

Replies like this are why I love HN (assuming it’s true)

It is, I promise :)

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Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#128

Post by LoganDark »

semiquaver wrote: post #108
dannyobrien wrote: post #98

Fun fact: this is one of the few situations in the US where a prosecutor could claim that this is criminal speech (though I hope and trust they would not, and if it did it would get thrown out by any court respecting the First Amendment). Not a civil issue, like libel or fraud, but the sort of talk that can get a policeman to come and drag you off to jail. If you've ever wondered why DRM is so roundly hated by engine…

> they made it against the law to even tell anyone. I’m no fan of the DMCA, but I am pretty skeptical of your apparent claim that this post itself is a potential violation of 17 USC § 1201. Obviously the act of circumvention itself qualifies, as does the code in the GitHub repository the post links to, but can you point to any prosecution of someone for a _prose description_ of circumvention (as opposed to actually m…

The post includes a link to a GitHub repository containing code to circumvent the DRM, which probably counts as "technology" and "component".

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#130

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

dannyobrien wrote: post #98

Fun fact: this is one of the few situations in the US where a prosecutor could claim that this is criminal speech (though I hope and trust they would not, and if it did it would get thrown out by any court respecting the First Amendment). Not a civil issue, like libel or fraud, but the sort of talk that can get a policeman to come and drag you off to jail. If you've ever wondered why DRM is so roundly hated by engine…

That law should be changed. If you distribute your intellectual property with DRM, that work should forever be exempt from copyright protection. You get to choose one or the other, but never both, because DRM effectively removes the work from the public domain in perpetuity.

Even accidentally releasing a demo or preview with DRM should invalidate copyright on that software/movie/book/whatever.

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