291–300 of 538 posts
After researching the webviewer, and finding basically the same as pixelmelt, I found someone else already made the script, I've been using https://github.com/teticio/kindle2pdf + tesseract to convert amazon books to text. So that repo also disappeared. Neither is mentioned in https://github.com/github/dmca
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.
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…
I wonder when/where did they make it against the law to even tell anyone. I remember(1) time when law guys made illegal (in US i believe? or EU?) creating software that circumvents certain DRMs, so I made plans to create a txt DRM that would rely on having a preambule like this : !copy !save if there is a !copy the text editor would not allow you to copy the text (like the acrobat reader does), and !save would not al…
The Serial Copy Management System (SCMS)[1] is a DRM standard built into digital audio tech like DAT, MiniDisc, DCC, and consumer audio CD recorders. It works by adding just 2 bits — but no encryption or obfuscation whatsoever — to the digital audio signal that tell the recorder if further digital copying is allowed. Importantly, SCMS only ever blocked making a digital copy of a copy — you could always make a first-generation copy from an original, but not chain further digital copies. The requirement was pushed by copyright holders: in the US, consumer devices had to implement SCMS to ensure you couldn’t endlessly duplicate perfect digital recordings, but pro studio gear was exempt. SCMS doesn’t restrict analog copying, just digital serial copying. Most people found it annoying rather than effective.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That’s not the case with an Amazon eBook where the marketing and reasonable expectation of the average consumer is they’re buying the eBook itself. Good luck proving that in court without reasonable doubt. Look at the image again. It’s extremely vague about what you are in fact buying. https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/content/images/2025/10/image.png
Whether it’s correct, and whether you can argue it in court against a multi-trillion dollar company’s legal team are indeed two very different things. I wouldn’t be confident in court, but I would be confident that most users expect that ebooks they “bought” in the past could be viewed on their new Kobo eBook reader.
Exactly. And because this conversation started because someone was asking about suing them, what you can argue in court is what matters for this thread.
I don’t agree with what Amazon is doing and thus don’t buy DRM ebooks from them, but that’s beside the point of the argument.
> I wouldn’t be confident in court
Which was my argument. Everything else you added were tangential arguments no one was refuting in the first place.
> but I would be confident that most users expect that ebooks they “bought” in the past could be viewed on their new Kobo eBook reader.
You think most people who buy books for ereaders expect that when they buy a book for Kindle, they can just load it up on their Kobo? I wouldn’t be that confident without a survey, but I would welcome seeing one.
People don’t seem to have trouble understanding that when you buy an app on iOS, that doesn’t work on Android, and vice-versa. It is plausible they might have the same intuitive understanding regarding the Kindle and Kobo stores.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd . Found not guilty, but he was charged and tried.
Being found not guilty supports my contention. But that case was about distributing circumvention software, not traditional speech. Obviously distributing software that bypasses DRM is directly addressed by the law.
It does, but you're still bankrupt.
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,…
I pay for a tool called epubor that strips DRM from kindle, kobo, Adobe, etc and converts it epub. It works with the current version if the app. It gets updates when it stops working. Feels jank to pay for the book AND pay to free it, but that's the world we live in.
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 personally know people that pirate everything and PAY FOR PIRATING SERVICES. This blows my mind even more! I know that globally it's probably still cheaper to pay for those services rather than paying for 4 different streaming services each month, but god, if I go pirate than I would go for 0$/month expenses.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder when/where did they make it against the law to even tell anyone. I remember(1) time when law guys made illegal (in US i believe? or EU?) creating software that circumvents certain DRMs, so I made plans to create a txt DRM that would rely on having a preambule like this : !copy !save if there is a !copy the text editor would not allow you to copy the text (like the acrobat reader does), and !save would not al…
Your idea has a precedent. The Serial Copy Management System (SCMS)[1] is a DRM standard built into digital audio tech like DAT, MiniDisc, DCC, and consumer audio CD recorders. It works by adding just 2 bits — but no encryption or obfuscation whatsoever — to the digital audio signal that tell the recorder if further digital copying is allowed. Importantly, SCMS only ever blocked making a digital copy of a copy — you…