I own the 1000s of ebooks I've downloaded to my personal media server.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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It is entirely possible to use a Kindle for epub only (that is, never "buy" a book from Amazon). There are lots of epub around, including from places like Gutenberg.
Additionally, the Libby app allows you to use your Kindle in conjunction with your local library's electronic collection, which (in my case) is quite sizable and allows you to "borrow" DRMd books for a finite amount of time.
I use Calibre to remove the DRM from all ebooks I buy. Not that I buy a lot of them, but hell if I’ll let Amazon be the keeper of the keys.
Yup, making a DRM-free backup somewhere is the only way to protect the content you paid for from the whims of the overlords.
Damn right I don't.
Yarrrrrrr
Don't do that. Authors make next to nothing from their books. You don't have to support Amazon, but at least buy a paper copy or audiobook to support the author.
Unless it's J. K. Rowling. Fuck Rowling.
I buy DRM free books off humble bundle. Even if I already have previously downloaded them. I will not give money to anything with DRM on it if I don't have to. These authors aren't getting money from me because they don't offer a product I want (DRM free books). Other sources do have this product so they can blame themselves or their publisher for losing sales.
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I remember an email I sent to Randall Munroe once, asking where I can buy his ebook "What if" without DRM.
He emailed me back that unfortunately there is no place to buy it without DRM, because of the publisher, but he also linked this comic in his email:
Here's a DRM-free copy for sale:
It'll look like this:
Once you buy this, it is truly yours. Nobody can take it away from you. You don't have to agree to any EULA to read it. No account needed, no activation, no sign-up. You can even resell your copy if you want. There are no technical restrictions on it whatsoever. You can enjoy it any time of day, anywhere in the world, and there's no need for an Internet connection.
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My Kindle never saw any WiFi connected to it. Everything goes through Calibre. I only read dead authors, so I don't feel bad about pirating my books.
Sometimes I go buy used books at my local bookshops just because you should support your local bookshop.
I am now of the opinion that you should just download books off indexing sites/IRC/ Usenet/torrents and if you like the book and want to support the author, buy a physical copy, or buy 2 and put one in a neighborhood free library. That maximizes the good you are doing and helps your community instead of just generating Bezos bux.
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This should be like a PSA when signing up for internet service. Like, hello new internet user! Welcome to the glorious, uncensored world wide forum of information, of which there is a 30+ year established culture of lying and manipulation in order to get you to buy things and/or steal your information in order to advertise to you. By the by, should you sign up for one of the hundreds of content streaming services, YSK that none of the content is yours to own ever. If it's not physically in your hands, it's not yours.
Even if you can physically hold it, you better be damn sure it will work without internet.
Unless you download the pdf/epub off a very legal website. And only buy the books of small authors you want to support.
Throw the Kindle to the ground and get a Kobo, they let you pirate books a million times easier
Happy Prime Day to the GROUND!
Jokes on Amazon I can almost always find a copy of what ever book on libgen that I end up owning crazy how that works
Can't delete a title since I don't have it ever connected to internet.
Everyone should generally assume that unless you have something tangibly in your hand, you either do not own it or you may very easily and/or suddenly lose access to it. You could test this by trying to access the content without having to sign in to something.
All these streaming and subscription services should be considered ease of access conveniences. In other industries, you pay a premium for something to be prepared for you to consume. In the subscription industry, you're paying less because you're not paying for the content but for a license to temporarily consume the content (and probably because your info is being sold to advertisers).
Fun Fact: If you were to rip a Bluray to your computer, you're legally not permitted to watch that movie if you're no longer in possession of the disc. This is because you're not purchasing the content of the disc but the license to view the content. Decrypting DRM is illegal not based on whether you own the content but because the DRM encryption itself is separately copyright protected.
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If someone want an alternative there is ebooks.com. The two titles I got from there were way cheeper than on the store linked to my device. No nonsense app or anything, just download the file from the store and do what you want with it.
You misspelled Library Genesis.
The two titles I got from there were way cheeper than on the store linked to my device.
I searched a few books on both kindle store (web) and ebooks.com. The prices for the books were the same down to the penny.
Do you have an example of a title that is cheaper on ebooks.com?
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Steam, Kindle, Audible, what was that movies site?
You can strip the DRM if needed
Yea Audible too. I can't remember the name of the tool but you can connect to your account and it pulls all your purchases locally DRM free. It was handy for setting up Audiobookshelf
Thanks for the reminder! I've gotten a bunch of free audible books and haven't backed them up in a while.
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I can't wait until a Senator or comparable "it's not a problem until it happens to me" lawmaker loses access to their digital library and goes on the warpath. That's the only way out of this "you will own nothing" hellhole we're in and moving deeper into.
This is why they rarely pull your whole library, it's too noticeable and all these services have is public faith they're going to still be there. More often the case you'll just lose access to a purchase here and there and usually goes undetected especially if you have a large collection.
California is at least taking a step forward in legislating that "sellers" can't call it a purchase if you're only getting a revocable license. Shops wouldn't be allowed to use the word "buy" or "purchase" unless you get to own the product.
Yeah, I read that the other day. Wish it would do more than that, but it's a start I guess.
Probably won't happen until Millennials and younger are in meaningful numbers in Congress or Parliament or whatever. A few Gen X politicians might be affected, but the rest probably don't have gigantic digital libraries of things they've "bought."
I haven't used Kindles personally ever, but I helped my neighbor export their kindle collection a few years ago.
It dumped it into mobi files to use with calibre. Then from there, you can convert them into epubs.
I recall it being straightforward. Probably something a kindle owner should do periodically to back up their collection.
Another problem with DRM'd platforms is that you don't really know how long this will be easy or even viable. I recall these tools breaking in the past as Amazon changed their encryption, and it took time for them to be updated.
For anyone with a large library on Kindle, Audible, or any other DRM-infested platform, I recommend stripping that DRM sooner rather than later. You might think "I can always do it later" but there's no guarantee that will be true.
Also, shoutout to ebooks.com for having a dedicated DRM-free section and a simple checkbox to filter search results to only show DRM-free items. Not sure where to go for DRM-free audiobooks though. Anyone got suggestions? Personally I will simply not buy books with DRM, regardless of how easy it might be to crack it. If I'm going to have to break the law anyway (thanks, DMCA!), I might as well pirate it and find some other way to toss the author a few bucks.
You can get Audiobooks from Spotify using the app Soundbound. You need to insert a list of plugins, then it works.
Apart from that, youtube? Or sailing the high seas?
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My understanding is they arent mobi files anymore but a proprietary DRM format. That being said, there are many wonderful calibre plugins that break the drm.
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There are also Kindle books sold without DRM at the request of the author.
Yup, mine are drm free.
I know that would allow you to back up the ebook file elsewhere and use it however you please, but could Amazon still potentially delete the file from your Kindle device?
Doesn't even really let you do that.
A "DRM Free" kindle ebook still basically requires a physical kindle (or shenanigans with apps) to even access the raw file of. If you just go to your content library to try and download it to transfer via USB you get told to pound sand and buy a kindle. That might change if you have a physical kindle registered to your account (I currently read exclusively via my phone and my onyx boox) but... yeah.
And yeah, as long as it is in The Cloud, amazon can do whatever they want. I am not aware of having any books removed from my account but I do recall having the option to "upgrade" an ebook to a newer version in the case of publisher screw ups.
Yeah—I finally got a physical Kindle in part to simplify the process of downloading and backing up my ebooks.
To be fair, though, their devices and apps have mutually-incompatible file formats, so if the only point of downloading a file were to put it on an offline Kindle via USB (which is the only use case they acknowledge), they’d need to know what device you’ve got so they can convert the file to an appropriate format.
My understanding is a lot of those were just wrappers for mobi files to add even more drm, but I haven't looked super closely.
I dunno. I used to be super hardcore about ripping every book and putting it in my calibre library. Then I eventually realized that... mostly I don't care. There are very few books I am going to re-read and the majority of those were so good that I either want the hardcover to put on a shelf or don't mind buying again from a vendor that gives the author a better percentage.
Yeah. In my case, though, a lot of my library consists of relatively expensive reference works that I use regularly and that would be prohibitive to replace if Amazon decided to play games with them.
I don’t know.
You can put unmanaged files (in a readable format) onto a Kindle via USB, though, so if you’d backed up the file somewhere you could presumably put it back again manually.