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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

#411

Post by lesuorac »

criddell wrote: post #369
sib wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see much of an ethical problem with downloading a pirated version of an ebook that you already paid for but can no longer access. If I did that, I'd have no problem sleeping at night.

Afaik, format shifting for convince is legal so long as you're Anthropic.

It was mostly a passing mention in the lawsuit against them where the damages are just for pirating books they didn't also buy. The fact that they bought used books and scanned them since its cheaper than ebooks was allowed by the court.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#413

Post by pjmlp »

paufernandez wrote: post #398
pjmlp wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My university had that book, I think it can be used as a weapon actually, given its weight.

I wonder what kind of gun uses books as munition.

Human arms, projecting it into someone's else head as hard as they can. :)

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#414

Post by ranger_danger »

mycall wrote: post #324
chrisco255 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can have a visa revoked for any arbitrary reason, as they are a guest in the country and not a citizen. But yes, obviously serious threats of violence are not protected speech.

I wouldn't be surprised if publishing circumvention code would be argued in court to be violence against earning money for political oriented books (spending money is a necessary and inseparable part of political communication).

relevant article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#415

Post by chaostheory »

EliasWatson wrote: post #409
babblingfish wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The issue is that you usually aren't buying the ebook. You are buying a license to access that ebook and they can revoke that license at any time. Maybe you're okay with that, but many people want to permanently have access to the things they purchased.

Buying a license if you’re pirating, supports the authors while potentially offering you legal protection on the cheap.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#416

Post by cubefox »

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.

You may not like a product or service, or think it's too expensive, but that doesn't ethically justify just getting it for free illegally. It does justify abstinence: simply not buying the product or service, while also not illegally obtaining it otherwise.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#417

Post by fguerraz »

professorseth wrote: post #71

I worked on the team that implemented this, years ago! (around 2017-2018) Upper management really enjoyed telling us (the engineers) that we needed to implement more DRM, and we liked complaining that it was dumb. Fun to see someone reverse engineer what we implemented!

I don't think its dumb from a business point of view. You've got to make promises to the editors that the platform is going to drive the sales up, not down.

Is it hostile to customers, absolutely.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#418

Post by criddell »

lesuorac wrote: post #411
criddell wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see much of an ethical problem with downloading a pirated version of an ebook that you already paid for but can no longer access. If I did that, I'd have no problem sleeping at night.

Afaik, format shifting for convince is legal so long as you're Anthropic. It was mostly a passing mention in the lawsuit against them where the damages are just for pirating books they didn't also buy. The fact that they bought used books and scanned them since its cheaper than ebooks was allowed by the court.

I think the key part was they scanned the books then destroyed the originals. I suppose the analog here would be to log into Amazon and delete the purchased ebooks.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#419

Post by worldsavior »

choo-t wrote: post #355
worldsavior wrote: post #348

Can someone tell me another effective way to combat book piracy that is not Amazon's way? I don't understand the author complainant. If you don't like the app, don't use it! Pirate it all you want I don't care, but don't say it's because you didn't like the app. You want books? Buy them physically or find another way to obtain them digitally. There are authors to these books on Kindle, and they don't want their books…

> Can someone tell me another effective way to combat book piracy that is not Amazon's way? There simply no effective way to lock a book from copy while being able to read it. It will simply slow the process to free the book, at worst it will result in error or information loss (some links and fancy layout) > There are authors to these books on Kindle, and they don't want their books free on the internet, it's Amazon…

> We, as a civilisation, don't have to respect their wish. Free (as in beer) books are a necessity for a lot of people, and free (as in speak) book should be the norm, DRM introduce plenty of problem fir thé reader, with not a single added value for the customer.

Obviously you don't respect their wish, but Amazon needs to respect their wish.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#420

Post by worldsavior »

forinti wrote: post #365
worldsavior wrote: post #348

Can someone tell me another effective way to combat book piracy that is not Amazon's way? I don't understand the author complainant. If you don't like the app, don't use it! Pirate it all you want I don't care, but don't say it's because you didn't like the app. You want books? Buy them physically or find another way to obtain them digitally. There are authors to these books on Kindle, and they don't want their books…

From my experience, making it easier to buy books would help. I pay money and I want to get back a PDF, mobi, epub, or whatever. That's the kind of interaction I would appreciate. If you have to have a certain software or a certain hardware in order to read the book you've paid for, I'm going to look for alternatives.

> If you have to have a certain software or a certain hardware in order to read the book you've paid for, I'm going to look for alternatives.

As you should. It was the author's choice to publish on Kindle, and it's completely his fault.

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