Dealing with Kindle for PC/Mac 1.19 and KFX in calibre

[darryl]

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.

[pdurrant]

As far as I know, the tools check for whether kindle books are rented, and won't decrypt them if they are. Quite frequently the answer to 'my kindle book won't decrypt' is 'look at the log. It won't decrypt rented books'.

Whether the developers will battle for the latest kfx decryption I don't know. So long as 1.17 or 1.26 continue to work for my books, I don't much mind.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

As far as I know, the tools check for whether kindle books are rented, and won't decrypt them if they are. Quite frequently the answer to 'my kindle book won't decrypt' is 'look at the log. It won't decrypt rented books'.

Whether the developers will battle for the latest kfx decryption I don't know. So long as 1.17 or 1.26 continue to work for my books, I don't much mind.

Nor do I. In fact, I'm not that concerned with K4PC at all. Whilst it is nice to be able to decrypt kfx files my workflow is usually to download kf8 from the website. My interest is more in the medium to long term. I suspect v4 of the voucher is not beyond the developers for long. It is what Amazon may want to do with versions 5 to 28 that needs some thought.
It would be nice to avoid an "arms race" type scenario if possible.

[aborel]

Originally Posted by darryl

It would be nice to avoid an "arms race" type scenario if possible.

It would be nice if the book industry realized that DRM is a waste of time and resources. It didn't work for the music industry. It didn't work for the movie industry. Why would it work better for books?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by aborel

It would be nice if the book industry realized that DRM is a waste of time and resources. It didn't work for the music industry. It didn't work for the movie industry. Why would it work better for books?

The book publishers are more conservative than the music/movie industry. I suspect they'll cling to their old business models as long as they can.

Still, even in the movie industry there are some ridiculous restrictions left, namely geographical. Which are totally outdated in the modern world and one of the main reasons for movie piracy. But so far there's no sign of ditching them.

[lkmiller]

Thanks to all for reporting your findings!

I was wondering if I could try 1.26 with a sample of a Pearson book, but I'm not seeing a way to get a sample...just buy or rent. I also noticed they're only allowing two simultaneous downloads. Eesh!

It seems there is no way to get certain books in non-KFX format or even 1.19-1.24 type KFX. Disabling KFX downloads in any version of Kindle for PC/Mac results in not being able to download them at all. And I've previously seen reports they also have no "download & transfer via USB" option from the website.

Yes, the "official" DeDRM tools block the decryption of rented Amazon books. Even before KFX when etextbooks were usually in AZW4 format. I would be against setting decryption to fail on any *purchased* book...especially a high priced etextbook with even more restrictive DRM settings.

[darryl]

Thanks Laura. I've got mixed feelings on having decryption set to fail on any purchased book. Even having it fail on rented books is a compromise, since it facilitates 'lock-in' and may prevent reading on a device of one's choice. It is nevertheless in my view valid to distinguish between rented and "purchased" e-books in this way. To go that further step would of course be a further compromise, but worth discussing.

I too would like to have tried 1.26 with one of these Pearson texts. I suspect that it would download the text with version 2 or 3 voucher envelope and successfully decrypt. However, Amazon seems to have dealt with this by preventing downloads to this version. Given the price of these textbooks and the lack of samples it is just not practical.

[lkmiller]

I don't have any issue with 'lock-in' on a rented, borrowed, or subscription service book. Deal with the restrictions or buy it.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

I don't have any issue with 'lock-in' on a rented, borrowed, or subscription service book. Deal with the restrictions or buy it.

Agreed.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

I don't have any issue with 'lock-in' on a rented, borrowed, or subscription service book. Deal with the restrictions or buy it.

Originally Posted by darryl

Agreed.

I agree as well. I don't own the rented/borrowed/whatever ebook (as far as having a license can be considered ownership) so I don't remove DRM from them.

[W00fer]

The strange thing is

Book imported by Kindle4Pc 1.28 into Calibre 4.18 -> 1 mb
Book imported by Kindle4PC 1.26 into Calibre 4.18 -> 1.3 mb

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Links for the last version (1.26) which will work with the latest tools (without KFX downloads disabled):

Kindle for PC
Kindle for Mac

Those links don't work anymore. I got it from Softonic. Maybe not the best source in the world but okay: https://kindle-for-pc.softonic.nl/?ex=MOB-593.5

[darryl]

Originally Posted by W00fer

Those links don't work anymore. I got it from Softonic. Maybe not the best source in the world but okay: https://kindle-for-pc.softonic.nl/?ex=MOB-593.5

The links posted by Laura were as I recall from Amazon. They weren't publicised so Amazon probably didn't like them becoming public.

Everyone needs to be very careful downloading from other sources. I downloaded a number which were infected. This is the md5 checksum for the PC version of 1.26.

2c525f54784e7ff84b94f72fa9ec976c KindleForPC-installer-1.26.55076.exe

I strongly recommend checking any version you download.

[odamizu]

Wow, is it just me or does it seem like Amazon is actively monitoring this thread and the Apprentices' blog and GitHub discussions, and swiftly closing workarounds. Amazon links to older versions of K4Mac that worked for years now do not work. The only Amazon link that now works is 1.28.0.

I wonder if this is just to protect KFX or if they'll soon thwart our efforts to get KF8. I wonder if the option to "download for transfer via USB" will soon disappear. Yikes!

[pdurrant]

For Kindle for Mac 1.26.1:

MD5 KindleForMac-55093.dmg: 5856e9530113b846fc6d7f6e28db714e

[lkmiller]

Thanks for the checksum info, Darryl and Paul. I've removed the broken links and added those to my previous post. I see the Amazon link for Kindle for PC 1.24 in jhowell's first post here has also stopped working.

Originally Posted by odamizu

I wonder if this is just to protect KFX or if they'll soon thwart our efforts to get KF8. I wonder if the option to "download for transfer via USB" will soon disappear. Yikes!

Yikes, indeed!