Amazon and DRM changes

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If I lost a Kindle, I'd wait until I was 100% sure I could not find it before reporting it to Amazon.

It's malicious marketing that you can't disable purchase from the ereader and that if you turn off 1-click, it's still on in Kindle. That's why swift notification to Amazon is needed. How do you know if not stolen rather than lost? Also they should remove adverts for free after a year automatically on resold and remove blocklist in on demand of original owner except in cases of non-return of faulty item.

Also ALL websites with purchases should have an option to either use a PIN or re-enter payment method etc. On regular Amazon it should re-prompt for card number if you make a small address change. I don't know if that blocks kindle.

Also subscriptions other than things like Web Domain shouldn't have automatic renewal, other than maybe a checkbox available 3 months in advance to "renew this time".

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's malicious marketing that you can't disable purchase from the ereader and that if you turn off 1-click, it's still on in Kindle. That's why swift notification to Amazon is needed. How do you know if not stolen rather than lost?

You could always deregister it. That would mean that a thief/lucky finder got a perfectly good, fully functional Kindle, but it would also remove your own exposure and leave you open to reregistering it if found.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by issybird

You could always deregister it. That would mean that a thief/lucky finder got a perfectly good, fully functional Kindle, but it would also remove your own exposure and leave you open to reregistering it if found.

Yes, good point.

[hyegeek]

Looks like Amazon is making another change only this time, it might be a good thing. I just saw the following on good e-reader

“Effective January 20, 2026, readers can download EPUB and PDF files of their DRM-free books from their Manage Your Content and Devices page on Amazon. Only verified purchasers of your book can access the EPUB/PDF files. Customers who borrowed your books through Kindle Unlimited or other services can’t download the EPUB/PDF files, even if the books are DRM-free.”

This should be interesting.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by hyegeek

Looks like Amazon is making another change only this time, it might be a good thing. I just saw the following on good e-reader

“Effective January 20, 2026, readers can download EPUB and PDF files of their DRM-free books from their Manage Your Content and Devices page on Amazon. Only verified purchasers of your book can access the EPUB/PDF files. Customers who borrowed your books through Kindle Unlimited or other services can’t download the EPUB/PDF files, even if the books are DRM-free.”

This should be interesting.

There already is a thread about it:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums//s...d.php?t=371082

[sherri0629]

Is it possible to have two versions of K4PC on your computer? I have Kindle Unlimited so I download a huge amount of books, both older and newer.

Books prior to April need K4PC v 2.4 and I'd hate to lose the ability to fix those. But I know 2.8 is needed for the newer books and latest fixes.

Can you have both versions or would it require a separate computer and/or separate amazon account?

Thanks for any help.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by sherri0629

Is it possible to have two versions of K4PC on your computer? I have Kindle Unlimited so I download a huge amount of books, both older and newer.

Books prior to April need K4PC v 2.4 and I'd hate to lose the ability to fix those. But I know 2.8 is needed for the newer books and latest fixes.

Can you have both versions or would it require a separate computer and/or separate amazon account?

Thanks for any help.

You can have two separate Windows user accounts on your computer and a different version of K4PC under each. They can use the same Amazon account, I think - it's just as if you had K4PC on two different computers.

[tym]

Originally Posted by hyegeek

Looks like Amazon is making another change only this time, it might be a good thing. I just saw the following on good e-reader

“Effective January 20, 2026, readers can download EPUB and PDF files of their DRM-free books from their Manage Your Content and Devices page on Amazon. Only verified purchasers of your book can access the EPUB/PDF files. Customers who borrowed your books through Kindle Unlimited or other services can’t download the EPUB/PDF files, even if the books are DRM-free.”

This should be interesting.

Now that you can remove DRM from Kendal books again. Not sure what the point of that is?? Maybe for the people that dont have a windows pc??

[hyegeek]

Originally Posted by tym

Now that you can remove DRM from Kendal books again. Not sure what the point of that is?? Maybe for the people that dont have a windows pc??

Turns out, this change is actually muddying the waters a bit more. It looks like the actual result is that you may not be able to tell if a book is DRM free before you purchase it. So far, I've looked at a few free books and the ones that have had an EPUB did not also say simultaneous use unlimited.

Unless that changes, I think all they've managed to do is make me less likely to purchase. I decided long ago, I'm not paying any money on what amounts to an invalid contract. Any contract where one party can change the rules at will and the other has no recourse is not valid, so even with the ability to remove DRM or possibly (no way to know) download an EPUB, they won't get my money.

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by tym

Now that you can remove DRM from Kendal books again. Not sure what the point of that is?? Maybe for the people that dont have a windows pc??

This is *not* about removing DRM. This is directly downloading books without it. This is the same kind of confusion people had over Amazon "blocking books over USB" when it was really just them not *providing* Kindle Store purchases for direct download which changed nothing about copying *your own* content over USB.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by hyegeek

Turns out, this change is actually muddying the waters a bit more. It looks like the actual result is that you may not be able to tell if a book is DRM free before you purchase it. So far, I've looked at a few free books and the ones that have had an EPUB did not also say simultaneous use unlimited.

Unless that changes, I think all they've managed to do is make me less likely to purchase. I decided long ago, I'm not paying any money on what amounts to an invalid contract. Any contract where one party can change the rules at will and the other has no recourse is not valid, so even with the ability to remove DRM or possibly (no way to know) download an EPUB, they won't get my money.

I think you can tell on some of them. If the eBook is DRM free like Tor or Star Trek eBooks, they will be able to be downloaded.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tym

Now that you can remove DRM from Kendal books again. Not sure what the point of that is?? Maybe for the people that dont have a windows pc??

This is only a partial solution. Not every eBook will have a downloadable ePub available. As for now, if the eBook is not listed as DRM free, you won't know if you can download it or not until after you've made the purchase.

There are two ways to remove the DRM. One is to use a Kindle that does not get firmware updates and is a K3 or older. I have a Kindle Touch I use and i download mostly KF8 with some Mobi and I can remove the DRM. The newer firmware has changed the DRM and hidden the key so you cannot find the key to remove the DRM. It may or may not be possible to find the key if the Kindle is jailbroken. But nobody has done that yet that we know of.

The other method is to install the DeDRM 10.0.15 plugin in calibre and get the key from a running copy of K4PC for Windows to install in DeDRM. This has to be done for each book you buy that has DRM.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The other method is to install the DeDRM 10.0.15 plugin in calibre and get the key from a running copy of K4PC for Windows to install in DeDRM. This has to be done for each book you buy that has DRM.

Just a note: you don't have to get the key for each book separately - you can still download several books at once and run the key extractor once for the bulk of them. But you have to run it every time you buy and download something new, yes.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Just a note: you don't have to get the key for each book separately - you can still download several books at once and run the key extractor once for the bulk of them. But you have to run it every time you buy and download something new, yes.

Thanks for that. I thought it was for each book individually.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I think you can tell on some of them. If the eBook is DRM free like Tor or Star Trek eBooks, they will be able to be downloaded.

As shown in previous posts, not always. And even then it may be pdf.