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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

#501

Post by noisy_boy »

bityard wrote: post #465
emptybits wrote: post #44

Hell hath no fury like an engineer angered! This was such a good read and epitomizes hacking: "Was it worth it? To read one book? No. To prove a point? Absolutely. To learn about SVG rendering, perceptual hashing, and font metrics? Probably yes."

This is essentially how I find myself defending a lot of my DIY stuff. "Wait, you work in tech, why would you ever work on your own car when you can clearly pay someone else to do it???" Because I like to learn things.

Recently I had to do some changes to a 3d rendering my contractor provided so I learned Krita to do it. Dare I say the results were not bad. But as good as a professional designer? Of course not. Was it satisfying to be able to show him exactly what I wanted? Hell yeah.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#502

Post by noisy_boy »

Thats why I bought an android based e-reader that allows me to install whatever reader, copy files wherever I want and basically be in as much control of my devices as these constraining times allow. I will never be a willing hostage to Amazon's shit.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#503

Post by rendaw »

professorseth wrote: post #124
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)

One argument I heard was that this was actually due to "kindle unlimited". I think publishers didn't really care that people were removing drm after purchasing a book, but with amazon's push to a streaming model people started subscribing and mass downloading books to read after unsubscribing. Both unlimited and book purchases used the same drm.

Maybe streaming is inevitable, but streaming is at least partially pushed by the streaming services who make more money on streaming than they do purchases.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#504

Post by vikarti »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #130
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.

Potential issue: what EXACTLY DRM is? Is "you can only read this book/view this video on tivoized device which have it's own cellular connection to mothership and no USB/Ethernet/WiFi" counts as DRM for this purposes? What about "you can only buy this book at some obscure store which have it's own obscure reader which only work on specific versions of specific OS"? What if said OS is out-of-date? What about "you can buy only from specific store, store provides you reader app als specifically allows you to gift reader and books to friends,etc but reader app is personalized and will tell your name on start up"?(btw,I did buy some books protected this way in 00s)

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#505

Post by vikarti »

limagnolia wrote: post #144
awesome_dude wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. For one thing, DRM also works in Amazon's favour (reselling multiple copies) For another, DRM is a pretty big sticking point for copyright holders, music, text, whatever. It's the one big thing that publishers all think that their business model depends on

Most music is sold without digital restrictions, and many video games are also sold without digital restrictions.

> Most music is sold without digital restrictions

Thanks to Apple

>many video games are also sold without digital restrictions

Thanks to GoG and (to a lesser extent) Steam

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#506

Post by vikarti »

darkwater wrote: post #299
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…

> 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. 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…

They pay _for service_ of just press play and view

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#507

Post by arendtio »

Since I discovered that sometimes the quality of Amazon ebooks is much inferior to the ebooks directly from the publisher, I don't give a damn about their poor DRM system (security as well as user experience) and just buy directly from the publisher.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#508

Post by charcircuit »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #258
charcircuit wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why rules for us but not for them? Fair use exists for both people and corporations. Just because a corporation copies something in a way that is fre use, that doesn't mean that people should be able to freely copy it.

How could training of AI models possibly be considered fair use?

Because an AI model is not a market replacement for a book. ChatGPT doesn't compete against Little House on the Prairie.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#509

Post by cwillu »

boredhedgehog wrote: post #304
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…

The solution is being shared in the very forum thread you linked, but apparently didn't read.

Like the hn commenting guidelines you apparently didn't read :p

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#510

Post by nolok »

Spivak wrote: post #458
nolok wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most genres really. Even a 60 euros for a 6 hour experience comes at 10 euro per hour, cheaper than music and on par with movies. Add replayability, multiplayer, longer games, cheaper games, ... and many many games are under 1 euro per hour, sometimes far under. Even someone playing fifa or call of duty has a price to hour ratio thats absurdly good. And the range available is insane, used to be if you liked some genr…

Cheaper than music?! Not while Spotify is around. Assuming my listening stats are accurate I hover around 2¢/hr annually.

You don't own that music / the licence to that music. If you want to use renting service as the price, then PS Now, Xbox Gamepass, EA Play and the like are what you should use and then the price is much, much cheaper.
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