This is not an anti-Kindle rant. I have purchased (rented?) several Kindle titles myself.
However, YSK that you are only licensing access to the book from Amazon, you don’t own it like a physical book.
There have been cases where Amazon deletes a title from all devices. (Ironically, one version of “1984” was one such title).
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html
There have also been cases where a customer violated Amazon’s terms of service and lost access to all of their Kindle e-books. Amazon has all the power in this relationship. They can and do change the rules on us lowly peasants from time to time.
Here are the terms of use:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950
Note, there are indeed ways to download your books and import them into something like Calibre (and remove the DRM from the books). If you do some web searches (and/or search YouTube) you can probably figure it out.
Duh. Same goes for Steam games and most of digital content.
If you want to keep it, there’s usually always an option to sail the high seas.
Not an American, but I did buy digital books on Amazon and Kindle.
Have you seen the new ruling about games from California? Doest that apply to ebooks (since its digital goods?) Or not?
Kobo and epub only. Anything else, you don’t own and you shouldn’t pay for it.
Technically, we’re one update away from Kobo taking our device away too. I do love my KOReader on my Clara 2E though
Doesn’t matter. All my books are epub. If kobo starts eating dick, I go somewhere else.
Amazon is on my shit list and will not buy any products from them ever again. They are one of the worst monopolist mega corporations. They treat their employees like slaves, are anti-repair, anti-consumer.
I gifted an older Kindle to my sister, and the screen broke (out of warranty). I contacted Amazon about it, and they basically said they don’t make replacement parts and don’t service the kindles, they can only give me a small discount for buying a new one.
I looked up a guide on doing it myself, and even if I find a replacement screen, it’s really difficult. The screen is glued with a strong adhesive. The entire device looks very cheaply built and deliberately made really difficult to repair.
Any Kindle owner should go find out how easy it is to get library books on their Kindle. It’s totally the way to go. You don’t have to buy their shit and deal with their rules.
Like hell I don’t. Calibre plus NoDRM says otherwise.
Buy, rip, refund, repeat.
i support this against amazon, also kindly put it on libgen or anna’s for humanity’s benefit
Nah, no need to be a shitheel. I’m cool with paying for books, authors gotta eat. I wouldn’t refund a book I’ve read.
That’s why you shouldn’t buy books from Amazon or other online ebook stores instead just download the ePubs elsewhere.
I’d also highly recommend KOreader if you have a Kindle or Ereader which supports it, as it supports many more formats and has a nice interface.
The interface is 100% of the reason I won’t use it. It’s by far the worst experience for navigating a library I’ve ever seen. It’s just access to your filesystem, except with effectively no files on the screen at a time.
There’s no tags, no ability to choose between by author, series, publisher, genre, etc, just a really bad presentation of your filesystem.
You don’t own your Kindle books because you bought them from Amazon
I don’t own mine because I pirated them
We are not the same
edit: I actually try to circle back around and buy physical copies of any book I really enjoy. But I’m much better about paying for video games, tabletop games, and even journalism than I am fiction… I think my bezos resentment gets in the way a bit there.
Better to give to their patreon if possible. Awesome authors like Shirlatoon have them. Because, quite frankly, fuck the publishers too.
I’m subscribed! It’s one of my favorite series. Also, The Mark of the Fool is another good series.
If you like HWFWM check out the Mayor of Noobtown.
Hwfwm?
I’ll just keep using my local public library.
Most of them lend eBooks these days so I know I won’t get to keep them regardless, but I also don’t have to pay for them.
And the author is getting paid.
yo ho yo ho…a pirate’s life for me…
Sorry, what are we talking about?
You are right I get my books for my kindle from torrents. I do not own them. I also don’t pay for them.
(Also library has epubs, librarys are great)
I have a few kindles, have upgraded over the years and have been able to use them all in the same manner:
With a new device I connect it to the internet and update the firmware to the latest version (the factory installed version has had a lot of missing functionality in my experience). Then I block it from my network, delete the AP entry and put it permanently into airplane mode.
When purchasing an ebook from Amazon you can download it for usb transfer and I organize it on my laptop with Calibre.
Calibre can also strip drm, but if you’re transferring it to the device you downloaded it for it isn’t necessary.
Amazon may at some point in the future change all of this, but the content I have already downloaded can not be revoked and is usable outside the Amazon ecosystem if the drm is removed.
If it’s on a kindle they can and will delete it off your device, Drm or no
It’s like you completely ignored the part where he removed his Kindle from the Internet.
I’ve used Calibre and stripped DRM off eBooks, definitely recommend.
Does that still work? Last time I tried I had no luck
For Kindle specific ripping, I think it changed a year back and now you need to have a kindle connected before the Amazon servers poop out some magic unlock key/the whole book. After that you’re golden, but during the rip you need a kindle device…
They explain the Kindle difference when using Calibre DeDRM tool in this article.
It’s a really nice app. Very customizable.
Sounds like a lot of work. Since , and I am showing my age, limewire I will just put on my pirate hat and read as I decide.
Takes a small effort to set up (install Calibre, install NoDRM plugin, apply Kindle serial to plugin), but once it’s done, the rest is literally drag and drop, it removes DRM from your books automagically.
Ugh. I was looking for a Book and found it on Barnes and Noble. according to the blurb I was supposed to be able to download it after purchase. But after purchasing it I quickly found out that you can only download it if you have the Nook app. Which isn’t available in Canada. Where I’m from.
I was able to find the .apk and install it on my phone but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.
same goes for steam, epic launcher, etc. with the exception of gog (though generally if steam removes a game, they at least let you keep your copy if you already own it)
GoG, and physical games are only licenses as well. If you have any physical games from the era of instruction manuals you can find it laid out clearly inside, generally towards the end.
But GoG’s offline installers and physical games can’t be taken from you by the publisher etc (servers for online games and updates aside).
Neither can installed copies of games if you write protect the files, back them up where the launcher can’t get to them, etc. Licensing, DRM, and legality really aren’t the defining factors here. There are shades of better or worse, but at the end of the day it’s about simply being able to back up the media in a form that can’t be touched by the corporations.
