MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Dealing with Kindle for PC/Mac 1.19 and KFX in calibre

darryl · 06-23-2020, 03:36 AM

Amazon has sent a message here. That is, that its education business and in particular its sale and rental of Pearson textbooks is important to it. jhowell foreshadowed this in an earlier post, but I think the speed of Amazon's response surprised us all. I suspect that its arrangements with Pearson are in jeopardy should it be unable to provide secure DRM for Pearson textbooks. Also, of course, if the Pearson "experiment" is a success, Amazon may well be able to attract other educational publishers. Clearly Amazon planned for its DRM to be rendered ineffective by the tools, and has established a framework for a quick response by means of its voucher envelopes in the future.

Before .kfx, Amazon seemed to have little concern for secure DRM. Arguably it even benefited if enough users of non-Amazon readers purchased e-books from them. Even now, I doubt that Amazon or even Pearsons would be too upset about the odd tech-savvy reader removing DRM from their "purchased" e-book. What does concern them is these books becoming widely available as pirate versions. Sadly, when Amazon updates its DRM it does not prevent decryption only of these high priced Pearson titles. It prevents decryption of all .kfx e-books. Ironically this extends even to e-ink Kindle firmware, devices on which it appears these Pearson books are simply not available.

I have no love for Pearsons. I presume the DeDRM plugin is already set up so as not to decrypt rental books, including Pearson's textbooks. Is it worth considering setting them up so they fail to decrypt these high priced textbooks whether sale or rental? After all, the ridiculous pricing and their target audience does I think make the piracy risk far higher and damaging than is the case with your average e-book. Would this likely be sufficient to avoid an "arms-race" type situation with Amazon? Would such a practical compromise be against the ethos of the project? Would it set an undesirable precedent? I'm not advocating any particular position here. Simply raising some points for discussion.

06-23-2020, 03:36 AM	#871
darryl Wizard Posts: 3,108 Karma: 60231510 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura H2O, Kindle Oasis, Huwei Ascend Mate 7	Amazon has sent a message here. That is, that its education business and in particular its sale and rental of Pearson textbooks is important to it. jhowell foreshadowed this in an earlier post, but I think the speed of Amazon's response surprised us all. I suspect that its arrangements with Pearson are in jeopardy should it be unable to provide secure DRM for Pearson textbooks. Also, of course, if the Pearson "experiment" is a success, Amazon may well be able to attract other educational publishers. Clearly Amazon planned for its DRM to be rendered ineffective by the tools, and has established a framework for a quick response by means of its voucher envelopes in the future. Before .kfx, Amazon seemed to have little concern for secure DRM. Arguably it even benefited if enough users of non-Amazon readers purchased e-books from them. Even now, I doubt that Amazon or even Pearsons would be too upset about the odd tech-savvy reader removing DRM from their "purchased" e-book. What does concern them is these books becoming widely available as pirate versions. Sadly, when Amazon updates its DRM it does not prevent decryption only of these high priced Pearson titles. It prevents decryption of all .kfx e-books. Ironically this extends even to e-ink Kindle firmware, devices on which it appears these Pearson books are simply not available. I have no love for Pearsons. I presume the DeDRM plugin is already set up so as not to decrypt rental books, including Pearson's textbooks. Is it worth considering setting them up so they fail to decrypt these high priced textbooks whether sale or rental? After all, the ridiculous pricing and their target audience does I think make the piracy risk far higher and damaging than is the case with your average e-book. Would this likely be sufficient to avoid an "arms-race" type situation with Amazon? Would such a practical compromise be against the ethos of the project? Would it set an undesirable precedent? I'm not advocating any particular position here. Simply raising some points for discussion. Last edited by darryl; 06-23-2020 at 03:47 AM.