I have stopped buying Kindle Ebooks a few years ago. Luckily our German book sellers have gotten their act together: Our book publishers sell most of their books without DRM but with digital watermarks. I am using a Pocketbook InkPad Color 3 (bundled to a local book seller) and a Tolino Epos 2 (a “localized” Kobo reader). Are they as good as an Amazon Paperwhite? I don’t care any longer. Preserving access to the books I have bought and being able to choose how to read them is more important to me.
All my books are sitting inside of Calibre. My old Amazon Kindle books were stripped from their DRM. With the latest news, this apparently will not be possible any longer in the future.
Having choice is important to me. Maybe it is important to others, too.
If we are just buying the license to the books, music, TV shows and movies and does not own them, I often asked myself why I bother. These companies do know that the pirated versions are widely available in the internet, right? Why do they punish their paying customers?
It’s still possible at the minute it seems by using the Kindle app on the desktop but they’re certainly making it harder. The newer versions of the Kindle wouldn’t let you view/download the files from the website - hence I’d kept my previous Kindle around, solely for the serial number and ability to download online. Was far less hassle than having to disable my internet to download a specific Kindle app etc etc.
I believe this news from The Verge states that the ability to download online, using a browser via amazon’s Content and Devices link, will not be available after 26 Feb 2025.
They aren’t punishing them, IMO. Most people accept the limitations of digital media. Others probably never think about it unless they have a problem.
I used to rip my CDs and DVDs, and used Calibre to remove DRM from my Kindle books. I even had software to remove DRM from moves I purchased from “the fruit company”. I had hundreds of these “backups”, until one day I asked myself why?
Amazon and Apple aren’t going anywhere, at least not in my lifetime. I was already getting mail from AARP before SJ introduced the iPhone.
I rarely reread a kindle or audible book. And have never listened to any of the 40 - 50+ hour audiobooks for a second time. And, usually, the only time I rewatch a movie is when I find it on some streaming service I happen to be using that month.
So years ago I decided to quit paying to store all of my “backups”, deleted all of them, and have never regretted it. YMMV
I have a Colorsoft, and download and transfer via USB already isn’t available for it. (I’m not sure it ever was available for it, and I think the same is true of the newest Paperwhite.)
It’s still relatively straightforward to get books into Calibre. The books files are on the Kindle, which is just a modified Android device. So with any app that lets you access the Android file system (I use OpenMTP), you can access them and drop them into Calibre.
It’s an extra step, and I don’t like that Amazon is doing this. But those who want to can still take steps to preserve their books.
No one in this thread speaks for the authors. I’ll bet author groups “encourage” Kindle and other publishers to help prevent outright theft of their works.
Authors are caught between readers, ebook pirates, publishers, and the need to make a living. The few really successful authors do fine. The rest have a day job.
Sorry I wasn’t clear - I bought one of the newest models of Kindle during the Black Friday sale. The news was at the time that if you had one of the new Kindles (just the new one), then this option was no longer available to you at that time. See this article from October last year.
I really do like how it is done with German books over here (if not bought via Amazon): you can buy Ebooks from your local bookstore, sometimes you can buy on the website of the publisher.
The Ebooks come as ePub with a digital watermark documenting the purchase.
If there is one thing I really am grateful for what Steve Jobs has accomplished, it is his open letter “Thoughts on Music” (via web.archive.org) and the effects this had on music purchases - and yes - over here also on Ebook purchases.
“The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. (…) Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. (…)”
This is the way of things. DRM and before that, “copy protection”, created a whole new class of grifter that sells the snake oil of “use this to increase your sales”. The people who “copy things”, were never going to buy. The people that buy, were always going to buy, even if they had a free copy. It has been proven over and over again. If someone wants to use your software, listen to your music, read your book on a kindle, they will do it. Even Mozart copied music by memorizing performances so he could play it at home.
Until Congress modernizes Copyright laws we are in the world we live in. It really does suck for the authors though.
I keep everything mostly legal (pay no attention to the emulator behind the curtain Pokemon games are pricy on the used market). Part of my excitement for an Apple TV Android App is that I can build an offline box of my paid library with a Raspberry Pi and not sail the open seas. But Kobo Hardware is outpacing Kindle in my estimation so this seemed like the time to leave the Kindle Garden.
Still use Audible for Audiobooks because I have a DRM ripper and the free with membership titles are really good.
Just going by what I have read, it seems a lot of authors are paid up front, then the publisher takes ownership of the ip. Authors have to renegotiate to do anything else with these books. In this case, I believe the author is unaffected by future sales or lack thereof. Brandon Sanderson with TOR and Michael J Sullivan with ORBIT are two cases that come to mind.
My reason for stripping off the DRM has nothing to do with storage. I don’t use a Kindle and I’m not a fan of the Kindle apps for other devices. I strip off the DRM so I can read the book in the app of my choosing.
I’ve had good luck purchasing my nonfiction ebooks from Kobo (as Epubs) and using Calibre to convert to PDF so I can use in my CustomGPTs and Notebook LM (as discussed on the recent MPU with Michael Hyatt).
After reading a book, it is really nice to be able to use LLMs to ask questions and help me apply what I have learned to my own work and personal life.
As a bonus, the Kobo reader on the iPad allows one to actually write in the margins of the book!! That has always been my workflow with print books and helps me visually remember important ideas and sections of books.
If you have “no time” to do your research, please refrain from posting nonsense. There are many author and publishing forums and blogs that could open your eyes.
The world of authors and publishers has changed a lot from your understanding that “it seems a lot of authors are paid up front.” Here’s a couple of links that might help you.
Checking facts with players who are still in the game - The Idea Logical Company May 8, 2024 by Mike Shatzkin - It is four years since Covid … a big chunk of my “professional” activity these days is helping authors decide how to bring their book to market, with “through a regular publisher with an advance-against-royalties deal” being among the least likely of the possible options … there were 500,000 titles in English available in 1990 and more than 20 million are available from Ingram today … It doesn’t take a math genius to reckon that a pretty stable total book purchasing and readership constituency will result in dramatic reductions in sales per title.
That is true but then, the beauty of streaming service like Spotify and Netflix turned many who “copy” into legitimate customers. They made it easy (to stream and watch), and the subscription is affordable. I wouldn’t mind subscribing to Kindle Unlimited if they had a good collection and is affordable (actually, the price as it is now is not expensive, but the lack of good catalogue of books made the price seemed overvalue).
But, for those customer who always buy, then, it’s not wise to piss them off with more and more restriction like the current topic of removing ability to download/backup? Or, perhaps, the percentage of customer who cares about download are probably so miniscule that it doesn’t matter to amazon.
I think that is a good point which I hadn’t considered.