Amazon October 2020 File Ingestion Requirement

[slowsmile]

Originally Posted by jphowell
The fact that Amazon has aggressively locked down KFX DRM while at the same time allowing the long-broken DRM of MOBI/KF8 to continue unchanged makes me suspect that their long-term goal is to move to KFX only, at least for newly published books. This month's change is a step in that direction.

I would certainly agree with what you say above. I've always believed that Amazon's move to a single format like KFX was inevitable for the sake of easier conversion management.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by slowsmile

I would certainly agree with what you say above. I've always believed that Amazon's move to a single format like KFX was inevitable for the sake of easier conversion management.

Eh? It makes no difference. They could have a dozen formats and it wouldn't matter. It's automated and the file delivered depends on the Kindle or Kindle App they know you have.

It's only 3rd party booksellers selling to Kindle users that have a slight difficulty with the abilities of different Kindles. The Dual Mobi file is larger, but for almost all Kindles and Apps it solves the problem by having essentially KF7 and KF8 in the same file.

The KFX is only about Amazon control and DRM, and is adding DRM when publishers have opted to have no DRM. The "Enhanced Typesetting" difference is purely invented to justify the KFX. Most models and ALL that can do KFX could do identical screen rendering from a azw3 / KF8 file with a simple firmware update.

KFX isn't needed at all.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The fact that Amazon has aggressively locked down KFX DRM while at the same time allowing the long-broken DRM of MOBI/KF8 to continue unchanged makes me suspect that their long-term goal is to move to KFX only, at least for newly published books. This month's change is a step in that direction.

Their desire to avoid obsoleting older Kindle devices is currently holding them back, but as those slowly go out of service Amazon may be able to justify it, especially if they offer a generous trade-in allowance.

So if they do this, how do you think that they will handle download for USB? I can't see them getting rid of it, as there are still places that don't have available wifi.

Shari

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

So if they do this, how do you think that they will handle download for USB? I can't see them getting rid of it, as there are still places that don't have available wifi.

Shari

If Amazon dumps the download option, then they will become another B&N.

I'm waiting for the day Tor and Pocket Book and any other publishers that want no DRM fight back against KFX. KFX is going against what these Publishers want.

What I want to know is can Amazon get in trouble for DRM on KFX when the eBook's listing says it has no DRM?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by shalym

So if they do this, how do you think that they will handle download for USB? I can't see them getting rid of it, as there are still places that don't have available wifi.

There are already lots of KFX-only books. All books in Arabic, Indian languages, and Traditional Chinese are KFX only. None of those books can be download for transfer via USB. Those customers live with that restriction and I have not heard of much fuss over it.

If that was extended to a larger set of books I suspect that there would be relatively few complaints and most of those would be from people who want to use the download as a step toward DRM removal and escape from Amazon's ecosystem. I am not sure how much Amazon would care about that.



This is all speculation. Amazon is slow to change and likes to avoid pissing off customers so perhaps I am reading more into this than I should.

[jhowell]

The change described in the first post of this thread is supposed to take effect today.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The change described in the first post of this thread is supposed to take effect today.

Hitch looks around, checking for explosions, wormholes, sinkholes or just disastrous events of any kind....

Hitch

[jhowell]

This change appears to now be in effect. Version 3.48 of the Kindle Previewer was released today with the following release notes:

New in Kindle Previewer 3.48.0:

1) Updated eBook file conversion and preview requirements for reflowable books (in all languages except Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Russian) - https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/artic...on-Requirement

2) Improved error messaging for Enhanced Typesetting books.

3) Kindle Previewer no longer supports opening Mobi files created from legacy versions of KindleGen or third party applications. We recommend using an EPUB file when creating a reflowable book.