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Originally Posted by sirmaru
What I have just learned from Harry's post above is that all those Sony epub eBook files probably can NOT be stripped of DRM by Alf since I acquired them 2 generations ago of PC's. Thus, Alf will not find any decryption codes for them on my current PC.
I would have to go back to Sony and install their current PC reader and then re-download the epub eBooks again to convert them to Amazon format if I wanted to open them on my Kindles.
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If these Sony books are in EPUB format and use Adobe DRM, then you can indeed install Adobe Digital Editions, re-download the books, and have Alf remove the DRM.
If the books are so old that they are in Sony LRF format, then I don't know if DRM can be removed. I wasn't e-reading at the time of LRF and don't know the format.
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My question to you or anyone else, who cares to answer, what would happen then to my highlights and notes on all those epub eBooks? Would they come over with the Calibre / Alf conversions? How would I get them all in the Amazon Cloud? Would they have to be sent as eBooks or Documents?
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You will lose all highlights and notations. They are stored on the reader (or nowadays, in the cloud, probably), while Alf and Calibre only handle the books.
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One more question: can the Calibre / Alf combo decrypt my old MS PC Reader and Adobe Reader DRM protected eBooks. I cannot get those readers again since I have long forgotten my ID's and passwords when I acquired them?
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Not if you have lost the ID's. You must be able to download, open, and thus read the original, DRM-ed books. If you can do that, Alf can remove DRM. If you lost your ID's, you can't decrypt the books anymore.
Alf doesn't actually "crack" DRM. It removes it by decrypting the book, using the key (YOUR key, based on YOUR ID) that Adobe Digital Editions itself uses. This is the reason you must have ADE installed and working properly.
As said, this means that you can't un-DRM books from someone else. Your neighbor can't just give you some DRM-ed books and then ask you to remove the DRM, because these books are encrypted while downloading, using HIS ID, and thus HIS key. You can't decrypt them with your key.
It also means that you can't remove the DRM of your own books anymore, if you lost your ID (and thus, your key).
Obviously your neighbor could un-DRM his own books and then give them to you, and you would be able to read them. That would be illegal however. You reading them wouldn't be, but the fact that he gave them to you is. (In the Netherlands, removing DRM for your own use, if you know how, is not illegal. Distributing the un-DRM-ed material afterward *IS* illegal.)