Quote:
Originally Posted by B.Tackitt
I'm sorry but you are completely mistaken as to what unlimited simultaneous usage means. It has nothing to do with DRM or formats... It means that if you have multiple users on your account (I have 9 personally, 2 K1's, 3 kindle for pc, 3 K2i, and an iPad) they can all read the book AT THE SAME TIME.
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Well, as the person who originally told the OP that DRM-free was what "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited" in the Product Details meant, I'd hate to have been spreading incorrect info.
Since I may have perhaps been mistaken about what Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited actually meant, I decided to test things by setting up a new user on my computer and registering a separate install of Kindle for Mac under a new Amazon account.
I "purchased" the top 3 $0.00 versions of Alice in Wonderland which said SDU:U in the product details, downloaded, and then switched over to my regular login account and tried them in my original K4Mac registration.
Worked perfectly well, and Calibre was happy to accept and convert them to ePubs, and the other zero-cost PD titles which claimed unlimited device usage I'd picked up earlier could also transfer back and forth between separate accounts/reader apps.
Now, I did notice that a lot of them seemed to list "Public Domain Books" as the publisher, so it's possible that this is simply because any public domain books may be automatically DRM-free, or it's just a single-publisher quirk.
But I don't think that's the case, as there's a version of
Alice in Wonderland by "Bunny Books" which costs $2.80 and completely omits any SDU info, whereas this
"Raleigh St. Clair" version with active table of contents at $3.00 does say SDU:U.
Similarly, all the books noted by the authors responding in this thread as being DRM-free also have SDU:U on their product pages, whereas the publisher promo freebies I picked up yesterday again omit the info entirely and very definitely can't be transferred between K4Mac installs and still be readable.
So it seems that Amazon is using the Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited tag for distinguishing *something* in an ebook, and I don't think it's solely a self-pub versus non-self-pub issue, since this guy who's very definitely self-pubbed has
no such SDU info on his book here.
He laments in two posts on the Amazon Discussion boards that he wished he hadn't chosen the default DRM option for his book because
he was sure it was turning people off and there
seems to be no way of turning it off in turn.
Conversely, a random spot check of the Kindle titles listed under the
"drmfree" tag on Amazon, again shows that the Product Details have "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited" showing, at least on the part of the obvious indie author offerings and the O'Reilly computer books.
Probably the fastest way to find out what Amazon really means by putting this note in the Product Details of some books but omitting it from the vast majority of others is to email them and ask.
But thus far, the ones I did try were completely DRM-free and I certainly hope this holds true for anyone else who possibly went and got stuff on the strength of it.
Maybe some people who've gotten non-PD Kindle books with that particular distinction can confirm/deny if it holds true for their copies.