Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks

Post by nippoo » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 1:01 PM UTC

icqFDR wrote: post #44

I’d advise anyone buying e-books on Amazon to think it through carefully. My account was banned recently because, years ago, I ordered two paper books that Amazon said would be split into two shipments. Both books arrived without any issues, but later Amazon refunded me for one of them, claiming that one package never arrived. This happened 4–5 years ago. Apparently, during a recent review, they decided this counted…

Post by g947o » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 1:02 PM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #26

PaulRobinson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as “a unicorn” that “doesn’t exist”, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the above a lot more, and much more besides.

> Books enter the public domain. ...and then they get re-packaged with DRM on Amazon's store, mostly because people uploading public domain books on Amazon have no idea what they're doing. > Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses. You can read DRM-free stuff on a Ki…

Post by foormanek » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 1:03 PM UTC

Post by robin_reala » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 1:07 PM UTC

nippoo wrote: post #51

icqFDR wrote: post #44

I’d advise anyone buying e-books on Amazon to think it through carefully. My account was banned recently because, years ago, I ordered two paper books that Amazon said would be split into two shipments. Both books arrived without any issues, but later Amazon refunded me for one of them, claiming that one package never arrived. This happened 4–5 years ago. Apparently, during a recent review, they decided this counted…

They failed to deliver a Pixel phone to me - they never even tried to deliver it and the status said "permanent delivery failure" so I assumed they'd automatically refund me. Fast forward a few months, I never received a refund and they claim they have no record any more. I could chargeback my credit card but I imagine I'd also be permanently banned from Amazon - so instead I accept they've just stolen $1000 from me…

Post by Finnucane » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 1:08 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #20

Hah, they actually did a slight rollback! When I first heard about them stopping the downloads, I immediately downloaded all the books I purchased from Amazon and went from buying ~1 book per week to 0. Seems a lot of us doing so had some sort of effect. Unfortunately, it seems like this will be chosen by the publisher, so of course probably most of the books won't be downloadable at all, and Amazon can now point the…