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How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

blog.pixelmelt.dev

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Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#211

Post by ycombinatrix »

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'm gonna argue that video games can be better cost to value ratio.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#212

Post by marcosdumay »

wffurr wrote: post #76
nekusar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why buy an ebook then? Just buy the physical if you want, and pirate it. Dont pay for your own hope that you can pick the lock of your own paid for jail cell.

Then I have a physical book to deal with.

Donate it to a library so other people can know about it.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#213

Post by nxor »

renewiltord wrote: post #34
wredcoll wrote: post #6

I personally have bought many fewer books over the last couple of years, from amazon, as they've made it harder and harder to, you know, read the books I've paid for. Pirating books is not hard. They're probably the smallest possible thing that people are interested in copying with the broadest variation in acceptable formats. I know I'm screaming into the void, but if I'm paying real money why is the experience from…

In general, if I don’t have to pay someone to produce something I can provide a better experience to my customers than those who do. It’s why archive.is is so much better to read on than a news site. Might as well ask “when I engage with GPL projects it’s so much worse of an experience than if I just bundle the code and distribute it without a license, why?” It’s often cheaper to not comply than to comply. But my kin…

Regarding archive.is:

I use it too, but people work hard writing articles. How will they earn money if no one pays them?

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#216

Post by rkagerer »

nocchedure wrote: post #138

The Github repo (which was working for me until 5 mins ago) just 404'ed. https://github.com/PixelMelt/amazon_book_downloader Kind of expected, but I was surprised at how quick that was.

Amazon engineers [who are in a senior enough position to care] read HN too.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#217

Post by SamDc73 »

I had a jailbreaked kindle a while back, but did update it by mistake and couldn't make it work again (didn't try that much honestly) and I switched to boox (which is android based e-reader)

I use it with my self-hosted calibre-web where I can sync my books to both KOReader on my boox and phone with the OPDS protocol and I use syncthing to sync my progress and highlights too ..

it's a bit of work to set up but I know it will work for a very long time, where with your solution, I wonder how long before Amazon will make it harder yet again?

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#218

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

gruez wrote: post #155
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> because DRM effectively removes the work from the public domain in perpetuity. This doesn't make for a good anti-DRM argument because the concern can simply be addressed by requiring a DRM-free copy to be deposited at the library of congress (or similar[1]) so it can be released in 150 years (or whatever) it actually becomes public domain. Moreover how would you even define what "DRM" is? Is spotify refusing to pro…

>This doesn't make for a good anti-DRM argument because the concern can simply be addressed by requiring a DRM-free copy to be deposited at the library of congress

Then do that. It's not my job to try to argue your side of things. No one does that, as you well know, so my argument not only stands, but wins.

>Moreover how would you even define what "DRM" is?

Anything that interferes with copying the work in question.

>Is spotify refusing to provide a .mp3 file download for their streaming service a "DRM"?

Yes. This is an obnoxiously juvenile question. The nature of streaming services is that they send the media to the node (on demand). If that is done in a way that makes it difficult to play it a second time except to "stream" it again, you can hardly claim this is incidental. They go to great lengths to prevent it.

>For games, is it "DRM" to add mandatory online requirements even for single player?

Again, yes. There is no other purpose to such a requirement, and no one makes it a secret that this is done specifically to thwart so-called "piracy" attempts.

>What if there's an ostensible reason for the online requirement, like if the gameplay is computed server-side a-la world of warcraft?

You mean like with Blizzard, where they sued the programmers who did bnetd and prevented people from connecting to third party servers which computed gameplay? That wasn't even done to further piracy, by the way, they were just being dicks.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#219

Post by renewiltord »

nxor wrote: post #213
renewiltord wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, if I don’t have to pay someone to produce something I can provide a better experience to my customers than those who do. It’s why archive.is is so much better to read on than a news site. Might as well ask “when I engage with GPL projects it’s so much worse of an experience than if I just bundle the code and distribute it without a license, why?” It’s often cheaper to not comply than to comply. But my kin…

Regarding archive.is: I use it too, but people work hard writing articles. How will they earn money if no one pays them?

Yeah it’s a classic tragedy of the commons. Any individual gains from piracy. C’est la vie. As HNers are proud to say: Your business model is not my problem.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#220

Post by latexr »

ashton314 wrote: post #29
harshreality wrote: post #23

I don't know what state it's in (haven't used it in years), but do apprenticealf's DeDRM tools, which has been forked to nodrm/DeDRM_tools, still handle kindle PC app downloads? Tinkering with old versions of the PC app might work even if the current version doesn't, and there's a registry hack to disable kfx downloading and get azw3 instead, which worked at some point... it's outlined in apprenticealf's DeDRM repo,…

The thing that killed the download -> crack DRM workflow is that Amazon removed the "download and transfer via USB" option. I haven't bought an ebook from Amazon since. The only viable option would be to buy the book and then pirate a de-DRM'd copy.

Might as well send the author the money directly, instead of spending it all on publishers and middlemen that you’re specifically trying to avoid. When you do, include a note on how their chosen method of sale is most hostile to legitimate consumers and recommend some DRM-free book stores.
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