Can books be taken away from my Kindle library by Amazon?

[RhD97]

Hello. I've been wondering if Amazon can remove a book from its catalogue and from my library, however much I've purchased it, by reason of a contract breaking or expiry.
If so, has it ever happened to any of you?

[pdurrant]

Technically, yes they can. They've done it once, when an unauthorised copy of 1984 was briefly on sale.

In practice, they will not.

But you should certainly keep your own copies of your books with the DRM removed on your computer if you want to be able to re-read them, just in case.

(This advice isn't Amazon-specific. I have bought books from several ebook stores that are no longer available, and I'd no longer have those books if I hadn't kept my own copy.)

[RhD97]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Technically, yes they can. They've done it once, when an unauthorised copy of 1984 was briefly on sale.

In practice, they will not.

But you should certainly keep your own copies of your books with the DRM removed on your computer if you want to be able to re-read them, just in case.

Thanks for your reply
How can I do that? Is there a thread or link where I can find a how-to?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by RhD97

Thanks for your reply
How can I do that? Is there a thread or link where I can find a how-to?

https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/

I also recommend calibre to store and organise your ebook collection.

[Deskisamess]

When the 1984 debacle happened, Amazon also gave all of those customers $30, as well as committed to never doing such a thing again. I believe they also gave the book back, along with the book Animal Farm.

It happened before I bought my first Kindle, the summer of 2009.

[RhD97]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/

I also recommend calibre to store and organise your ebook collection.

Can this procedure possibly be detected by Amazon and I could be punished for it?

[RhD97]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

When the 1984 debacle happened, Amazon also gave all of those customers $30, as well as committed to never doing such a thing again. I believe they also gave the book back, along with the book Animal Farm.

It happened before I bought my first Kindle, the summer of 2009.

Oh I see. I suppose it's just an exceptional case and I shouldnt worry about my already purchased books that are not in that situation

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by RhD97

Can this procedure possibly be detected by Amazon and I could be punished for it?

If you don't share your liberated ebooks with other people, no one will care. Many people here have done it for years.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by RhD97

Oh I see. I suppose it's just an exceptional case and I shouldnt worry about my already purchased books that are not in that situation

As things stand now, there's no particular reason to worry. But situations change. People have had their Amazon accounts closed for various reasons. IMHO better safe than sorry.

[RhD97]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

As things stand now, there's no particular reason to worry. But situations change. People have had their Amazon accounts closed for various reasons. IMHO better safe than sorry.

Oh I see.thank you better to be safe than take risks

[hobnail]

Besides 1984 there was also an incident where a Finnish woman bought a (free?) book while she was in London and when she got back home to Finland that book was no longer public domain, or something along those lines, I don't remember the details. But in any event after she got home Amazon deleted it from her Kindle. She raised a hue and cry and ended up getting her book back. No doubt a real corner case that we don't need to worry about. I think they may have issued a statement that they would no longer delete books from Kindles. But I'm old enough to have learned that never is not always truly never so I remove the DRM (besides which I read them on my Kobo so I need to do that so I can convert them to EPUB).

[crossi]

Both those programs are installed on your personal computer. Amazon has no way of searching your hard drive for any files. Nor would they be allowed to. The government if they obtained a warrant could but since they would have no justification for getting one no judge would approve it. Unless of course you were uploading thousands of copies of the books on some torrent somewhere and they could trace it back to you. So you would have a better chance of being hit by lightning than of suffering any penalties. Calibre of course is completely legal. It's just a library program for sorting and storing your books. But even if the government found out you had removed the DRM from your books as long as you had not shared or sold any copies I doubt anything would come of it.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by RhD97

Can this procedure possibly be detected by Amazon and I could be punished for it?

I buy most of my books as Kindle books from Amazon. I remove DRM from them and back them up because in the early days of ebooks I lost all my books when a company stopped selling them and withdrew their app.

I mostly read on my phone these days using Moon+ reader, but when I was using my Kindle I would send the DRM free books I'd made to my library to read on my Kindle. I did this because I have a lot of Kindles and it was hard to keep track of what was on which device and I was always running into the 6 device limit and in those days it was a big job to find out which devices it was on. So I called Amazon and asked them if I was putting my account at risk by doing this. I was assured I wasn't.

Then 2 or 3 years later I started hearing about people being locked out of their accounts due to abuse so I called them again. This time I was not only assured that what I was doing was okay, but I was told that a lot of people at Amazon do the same thing. I've been doing it ever since without worry.

My guess is that Amazon views DRM more as an assurance for publishers than as protection for themselves. That's just a guess but I'd be surprised if it's not true.

Barry