Amazon and DRM changes

[John F]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

I'm going to be realistic here, nobody will care about it if they can use Kobo etc instead and brake their DRM schemes for piracy.

Sure, those that don't care, won't care. But looking at the number of posts in this thread, some people do care.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

I'm going to be realistic here, nobody will care about it if they can use Kobo etc instead and brake their DRM schemes for piracy.

Big Publishers will only sell to amazon, or demand same quality DRM.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

See this post. tl;dr: There's at least 40 known implementations of KFX encryption, and they've only gotten up to v11 so far.

It depends on how long DRM takes to generate, implement and crack. Resources etc

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by John F

Sure, those that don't care, won't care. But looking at the number of posts in this thread, some people do care.

Yes - some!

[VirgoGirl]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

I'm going to be realistic here, nobody will care about it if they can use Kobo etc instead and brake their DRM schemes for piracy.

There's a dual problem: Alternatives to Amazon such as Kobo, google play books and smashwords don't carry all the same books because they're in KU or Amazon exclusives AND there are enough "regular users" - people who are perfectly happy with reading the way Amazon tells them to read - that there is little to no incentive for authors to switch out of Amazon KU or sell on other platforms. Their sales and KU loans won't suffer all that much.

[mitra1]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

There's a dual problem: Alternatives to Amazon such as Kobo, google play books and smashwords don't carry all the same books because they're in KU or Amazon exclusives AND there are enough "regular users" - people who are perfectly happy with reading the way Amazon tells them to read - that there is little to no incentive for authors to switch out of Amazon KU or sell on other platforms. Their sales and KU loans won't suffer all that much.

In reality there is an alternative. If DRM is too strong i will stop to buy books and read only pirated books. Already today i didn't buy Sergio Bonelli editore comics because their DRM but i read only pirated (bonelli) comics while i always bought Ratman Zerocalcare fumettibrutti eccetera. I haven't no problems to stop other boughts if Drm is too strong.

[VirgoGirl]

Originally Posted by mitra1

In reality there is an alternative. If DRM is too strong i will stop to buy books and read only pirated books..

True, I know I have many, many more books I haven't read in my library than years left in my life, so that's on my list of things to do. But if someone is caught up in a series or an author that's Amazon only...

I know now I have to figure out if I really want to read a book by an Amazon author or if I should just drop it. One thing, though, that I find outrageous are books written in aid of charity groups that are not offered anywhere else except amazon, and now are in fact in KU. I bought a whole bunch and now probably won't.

[issybird]

Moderator Notice
Do not advocate buying pirated books no matter the justification.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by jhowell

There isn't much motivation for anyone to work on this as long as methods exist to avoid KFX entirely. As Amazon continues to close up the gaps in obtaining their older formats that motivation will grow.

You know, I can't help thinking that it would serve Amazon's interest just to quietly leave the K4PC 1.17 loophole alone. I mean, really, who was hurt?

I also can't help but remember that in the end it was Amazon that got music companies to sell DRM-free MP3s. I wish they would look at books the same way. But with MP3s, iPod ruled the world and Amazon didn't have their own MP3 player.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I also can't help but remember that in the end it was Amazon that got music companies to sell DRM-free MP3s. I wish they would look at books the same way. But with MP3s, iPod ruled the world and Amazon didn't have their own MP3 player.

You mean the same music companies that sold to Amazon at a lower price than they sold to Apple and then tried to claim that Apple was simply pocketing the difference? The same music companies who insisted on having DRM on music sold through the iTMS and then tried to blame Apple for the DRM being present?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

You know, I can't help thinking that it would serve Amazon's interest just to quietly leave the K4PC 1.17 loophole alone. I mean, really, who was hurt?

You and I think so, yes. But obviously not the people responsible for the change. Whether they try to curb book pirating or just want all of us to buy a Kindle, no idea. And why curb book pirating now when they didn't care for many years? Someone new in the management?

Anyway, stopping old versions of K4PC/Mac plus download & transfer for KU books certainly indicates a desire to put an end to any DRM removal.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You mean the same music companies that sold to Amazon at a lower price than they sold to Apple and then tried to claim that Apple was simply pocketing the difference? The same music companies who insisted on having DRM on music sold through the iTMS and then tried to blame Apple for the DRM being present?

You focused on the wrong half of that point. I don't care about the music companies.

I care that Amazon sells MP3s without DRM, but now are tightening the DRM on ebooks, even from companies that have specifically requested their books be sold without DRM.

[Wiggo]

I'm not that familiar with Amazon.

These Amazon only books. Are they mainly selfpublisehd ones, or are there also major publishers that sell only on Amazon?

If they are mainly selfpublished, then I shed almost no tears over them - too few good quality ones, imho.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

I'm not that familiar with Amazon.

These Amazon only books. Are they mainly selfpublisehd ones, or are there also major publishers that sell only on Amazon?

If they are mainly selfpublished, then I shed almost no tears over them - too few good quality ones, imho.

Mostly self-published, I think. The larger publishers aren't bound to exclusivity contracts to get their stuff on Kindle Unlimited.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The ultimate hole has existed for years, either screen shots on PC or camera image of ereader, with automated page turn, then either image PDF or OCR. Or paper ARCs scanned. DRM is a scam.

This.

Just a computer, a script to automate screen captures, make PDF and OCR.

For extra credit, OCR the images, export to text and clean up the formatting with another script.