Are Fair Use Rights coming to an end?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sadievan

I do something very similar.

Buy book -> Download to K4PC -> Import into Calibre to remove DRM -> Backup to flash drive and external hard drive.

I don't keep all my books on my Kindle.

Carol

I should have said that I transfer the book to my Kindle only when I want to read it. Like you, I don't keep all my books on my Kindle.

I use Microsoft Synctoy to back up my Calibre library to an external hard disk every time I make a change to it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ring0_event

Of course, that makes perfect sense, so stupid of me. So am I right in concluding that if K4PC is completely bypassed nothing has changed, and that the tools should continue to work as before? Or is that threatened as well?

There's no evidence that the stand-alone Kindle method is in jeopardy... but then again, there was no advance knowledge when Amazon temporarily "broke" that very functionality with the 2.5 software update (pre-K3). The workaround to that particular change was a long time coming (and is, in fact, why so many got used to using the K4PC method in the first place).

But if history is any indication, changes to the DRM scheme (or just updates that break various aspects of the tools) for the various Kindle for * applications have been much more frequent and aggressive than the changes to the DRM scheme of files intended for the stand-alone devices themselves.

Who knows? Use what works for you until it doesn't work anymore.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I should have said that I transfer the book to my Kindle only when I want to read it. Like you, I don't keep all my books on my Kindle.

I use Microsoft Synctoy to back up my Calibre library to an external hard disk every time I make a change to it.

Same here but I use Second Copy.

Carol

[ring0_event]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

There's no evidence that the stand-alone Kindle method is in jeopardy... but then again, there was no advance knowledge when Amazon temporarily "broke" that very functionality with the 2.5 software update (pre-K3). The workaround to that particular change was a long time coming (and is, in fact, why so many got used to using the K4PC method in the first place).

But if history is any indication, changes to the DRM scheme (or just updates that break various aspects of the tools) for the various Kindle for * applications have been much more frequent and aggressive than the changes to the DRM scheme of files intended for the stand-alone devices themselves.

Who knows? Use what works for you until it doesn't work anymore.

Thanks for your reply, and FWIW, I hope that everyone here will find a workaround suited for their use. I do buy paper and ebooks from Amazon, but if they threaten too much trouble, I'll look for other alternatives. I don't mind buying books, but I insists that I be allowed to convert and use them in the future without jumping through hoops!

[5thWiggle]

@cfrizz
Ones I can think of at the moment are Jetbook, Pandigital and Entourage Edge

also Aldiko for Android. Or get the Nook app.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

About what? The constitution?

Yes. Fair use is not anywhere in it. Not is your "right" to take things that don't belong to you.

[kc24zz]

Originally Posted by sadievan

Could it be that the K4PC 2 was triggered because at some point you had K4pc on this or another computer and this is a second install of it. I believe when I installed k4pc it added numbers to the installs. I went in and changed the name to something I found easier (k4pc-laptop, k4pc-desktop, etc.) Just a thought.

Carol

I only had the 1 version on my laptop and no reason for anything to change.
I removed and de-registered both copies and tried to reinstall the new version without success. I may try again just for fun, but I won't purchase anything unless it works reliably.

As for why I buy from Amazon- they have a lot of titles not available elsewhere, usually in their terrible topaz format.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by taustin

Yes. Fair use is not anywhere in it. Not is your "right" to take things that don't belong to you.

It's not!!! Wow, guess that'll come as a nasty shock to a few people...

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by carld

They don't do that either. Bezos has said that Amazon in DRM agnostic. DRM is required by the publishers.

Looking at how aggressively Amazon improves its DRM this claim doesn't seem very credible.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Amazon doesn't use DRM to stop pirates, they use DRM to tie people into their system (they want you to use either their software or hardware to read the books bought from them).

Originally Posted by carld

They don't do that either. Bezos has said that Amazon in DRM agnostic. DRM is required by the publishers.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Do you believe him?

Belief has nothing to do with it. Amazon already sells many e-books without DRM. All books published by O'Reilly Media do not have DRM, such as "Programming Perl",
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Pe...dp/B0043D2DOQ/
Any book with "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited" in the Product Details listing will be in mobi format without DRM.

I bought "Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History Vol. 1
http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Jesus-Re...dp/B002OHD23E/
and copied it to my Pocketbook 360 and started reading.

Any or all of the big 6 could wise up and drop the requirement for DRM and Amazon would sell those books without DRM.

[susan_cassidy]

I've been lucky recently, and several series that I've bought have been DRM-free (like the earlier Aaron Elkins books, the earlier Priscilla Royal books, etc.)

[Avarwen]

DRM at least to me isn't too big of a deal if want to be able to use different ebook apps on the same device I'd own a tablet. If this is such a huge deal then just don't buy e-books and support paper books till they get rid of DRM.

[kc24zz]

Originally Posted by Avarwen

DRM at least to me isn't too big of a deal if want to be able to use different ebook apps on the same device I'd own a tablet. If this is such a huge deal then just don't buy e-books and support paper books till they get rid of DRM.

As long as you don't mind paying full price for your rentals.

[Avarwen]

Originally Posted by kc24zz

As long as you don't mind paying full price for your rentals.

Most of the time I don't pay over $7.99 for a book. It seems that most books eventually go down in price. DRM only becomes a problem if you want to read a book on something outside of the the device said book was meant for. Now that we have more ebook store choices it's not as much of a problem. For me right now it's not a problem.

[speedlever]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Unfortunately, you have to do it one at a time. That's one of the reasons why I never wait to remove the DRM... too many things can go wrong. If you're ever planning on removing DRM, you should do it immediately after purchasing. Preparation to (maybe) do it later is preparation wasted... this scenario where you have to re-download everything is a perfect example of that.

Ok. Thanks for the info. To this point, I've basically been lazy with my Amazon purchases thinking I can always go back and get them.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Totally agree. My "workflow" is:

Buy book -> Download to K4PC -> Import into Calibre to remove DRM -> Transfer to Kindle.

That way I know that I have the DRM-free version safe in my Calibre library.

My work flow needs to be modified. I do the same thing with non-Amazon purchases except I skip the K4PC part and d/l to my computer, then import to calibre, which strips and imports in one shot, then convert and email to my K3 in another shot. It's really a painless process.
- buy book
- d/l to PC
- import into calibre
- convert and email to K3

For my Amazon books, I just d/l directly to my K3 (didn't even have K4PC installed.) Now it looks like I'll have to use K4PC and subsequently installed it yesterday getting the K4PC 2 which confused the heck out of me.
Former workflow
- buy Amazon book
- send to K3

New workflow
- buy book
- send to K4PC 2
- import to calibre
- email to K3

I'll have to temporarily move the 7 items currently d/l to my PC, d/l the rest and do an import into calibre before restoring those 7 items back to my storage folder. Some of them have some funky file names that don't relate to the content.