Amazon and DRM changes

[DNSB]

The friend of mine has done so basically stating the program did not work as expected. I haven't heard if he had received the refund as yet.

[JSWolf]

I expect BookFab to be pulled for good. If they are going to keep selling it just to remove the DRM from KePub, then they are no better then they others cheats.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I expect BookFab to be pulled for good. If they are going to keep selling it just to remove the DRM from KePub, then they are no better then they others cheats.

Or they could "borrow" from a newer version of DeDRM and hide the processes in the background.

[xyzzy_foo]

I have already purchased the BookFab Kobo Converter in addition to the BookFab Kindle Converter, and I have no intention of requesting a refund from them. After all, these are apps I bought with money saved by not purchasing eBooks recently.

It would be great to have a completely alternative solution that doesn't rely entirely on calibre (I'm not a big fan of calibre; it's not very user-friendly for East Asian languages), but such a thing doesn't exist yet. Since Epubor has released solutions for some Japanese eBook stores that DeDRM doesn't cover, I have to buy their apps to verify those.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Graham44

Just a general observation/ question (?) - apart from having to get your already owned ebooks away from Amazon (if you missed the download deadline) why are people looking for such convoluted/ complicated and in the case of bookfab expensive ($72 or $90!!) solutions to the problem Amazon have created? Why not just buy elsewhere? Surely most countries have alternatives to Amazon for ebooks? - or don't they?

It seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to carry on buying from a company that clearly doesn't give a rats a*** about their customers.

If a book is Kindle Unlimited, you have to buy it from Amazon. I still buy books from Amazon if they are in KU, but I don’t spend a lot on a book usually 99p. If a book costs more than that and it’s not in KU, I always go to Kobo or smashwords and if it’s DRM free then I send it to my Kindle. If it’s Adobe, then I read it on my kobo.

I do hate that Amazon have stopped us downloading our books but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Well, there are people who only read one or two genres (and in a very narrow sense - not fantasy in general, but specifically fantasy romance, for example). And if it's a genre that has many Kindle exclusives, they don't have much choice in where to buy the books they want to read.

Personally I read a variety of genres, and never even knew single-genre-folks existed before joining MR. But yeah, they do exist.

I am a narrow genre reader. Historical Romance or Historical Mystery/Paranormal & Mystery/Detective. It has to be historical or I won’t look at it. I also like fantasy but that’s behind historical.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

If a book is Kindle Unlimited, you have to buy it from Amazon.

Not if it's a big publisher. It's only works published via "KDP Select" rather than KDP or big publisher's API (they don't use KDP) that are exclusive.

Also there are SP authors or small publishers not using KDP Select that don't bother publishing elsewhere. Sometimes even paper editions.

Over 90% of English Language ebook sales worldwide are Amazon. Part of this is content suppliers being conned into only publishing on Amazon.

I think I read than in USA about 80% of paper fiction sold online is from Amazon. They have also been buying up publishers as well as other companies. They are a publisher and retailer and monopolist. Totally unregulated businesses is bad for the consumer, content creator and competition. You end up with a dystopian one corporation or organisation per thing (usually American), especially on the Internet.

[xyzzy_foo]

There's good news and bad news. I need to tell you the bad news first.

Amazon is definitely monitoring MobileRead, and appears to have deployed countermeasures against the Sats K4PC method. Reports indicate it no longer works with the latest Kindle eBooks.

Now the good news. Sats was already aware of this and has released a new DeDRM that addresses the issue. The game isn't over yet.

[kennyc]

Interesting...

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

There's good news and bad news. I need to tell you the bad news first.

Amazon is definitely monitoring MobileRead, and appears to have deployed countermeasures against the Sats K4PC method. Reports indicate it no longer works with the latest Kindle eBooks.

Now the good news. Sats was already aware of this and has released a new DeDRM that addresses the issue. The game isn't over yet.

So you... post about it on a site you know is being monitored? Interesting choice.

[xyzzy_foo]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

So you... post about it on a site you know is being monitored? Interesting choice.

I had already lost all hope for Kindle when KF8's availability was cut off.

By the way, could you update DRM workaround: Kindle for Android's OP post? This information is already outdated and worthless.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

I had already lost all hope for Kindle when KF8's availability was cut off.

....

Yep. I'm done with Amazon.

[JSWolf]

As long as I can download with my Kindle Touch, I'm good. Butas for buying from Amazon, I didn't actually do that much. Most of what I got from Amazon were First Reads books.

[Sats]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

There's good news and bad news. I need to tell you the bad news first.

Amazon is definitely monitoring MobileRead, and appears to have deployed countermeasures against the Sats K4PC method. Reports indicate it no longer works with the latest Kindle eBooks.

Now the good news. Sats was already aware of this and has released a new DeDRM that addresses the issue. The game isn't over yet.

I am somewhat confused. Which reports? The latest thing I released was to potentially address the issue with KF8 books, which apparently still sporadically appear for some people (not something I can control), and which no longer work with newer K4PC due to config file changes. I still don't know if it worked or not, mind you. Likewise, the last countermeasure I am aware of is "don't let certain books download for K4PC at all", which is not something I can bypass without doing something like what BookFab did, which is risky and would not even work, probably.

(Note that it is likely that Amazon is monitoring github as well, so anything I push, they will know)

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

I had already lost all hope for Kindle when KF8's availability was cut off.

I confess I am a bit old fashioned and still remember when "ebooks" were mostly poorly OCR-ed text files made from somebody scanning unbound physical book. So anything that roughly holds layout and has few typos feels a bit like a luxury still. But for each their own. Aside from testing, I only buy books from Amazon maybe one or twice a year, simply because I already have account that sells me books in the region that I want.

[cgsmom]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yep. I'm done with Amazon.

Yeah! After D&T went away, I stopped buying from Amazon as well. I can still buy from BN and Kobo. But this week I got an email from Amazon advertising “Shadow of the Solstice” by Anne Hillerman for $6.99. It is $14.99 everywhere else and my library doesn’t have it yet so I bought it. I had to update my tools and use my Colorsoft, but all is well.