Amazon has removed Download & Transfer option

[Ma'am-I-Am]

Originally Posted by A Lurker

If we have a way of removing DRM from kfx files on the device, then why are people upset about losing the D&T function? Perhaps I'm missing something, but it looks like we just need to switch from getting .azw files from Amazon's website to getting the kfx files from our devices? Is there a downside to this?

I realize some people might not have an Amazon device and were purchasing books from Amazon's website to read on a Kobo or other app. Without D&T they'll have no means of getting a copy of the book. I get that. But for people who do have a device, won't we be able to continue to use Calibre to save copies of our purchases?

In my case, I liked D&T because it was easy and right there on the page. No futzing around with other software.

[pdurrant]

I am increasingly happy to have jumped ship to Kobo. Their price matching means I'm actually paying less than if I'd stuck with Amazon.

Most recent example: Goodbye to Russia by Sarah Rainsford, recently dropped in price to £4.39 from £11.70 at Amazon UK. The price at Kobo is £11.99. Kobo's price-match (with the extra 10%) means it cost me £3.95 net at Kobo.

And I can download the .acsm file directly from the Kobo web site, and import that directly into calibre (thanks to deACSM and DeDRM) to get a drm-free ePub in one step.

I wish I'd switched years ago!

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

But as to ebooks, there I must own the things. I absolutely DO NOT want to read borrowed or rented stuff. I buy the books and I want to be able to do with my purchases as I see fit. And no, I'm not going back to paper. If worse comes to worst and any DRM becomes unbreakable, I'll just stop buying any more books and read only what I already have.

I pretty much feel the same, and have enough books, ebooks or physical books still unread in my collection, that I won't be able to read them all before I die anyway.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Most recent example: Goodbye to Russia by Sarah Rainsford, recently dropped in price to £4.39 from £11.70 at Amazon UK. The price at Kobo is £11.99. Kobo's price-match (with the extra 10%) means it cost me £3.95 net at Kobo.


I wish I'd switched years ago!

Nice to see another satisfied Price Match Customer. It's much underrated and under-publicised Kobo benefit imo

[Timboli]

I noticed the following today, under the BUY-With-1-Click button.

By placing your order, you're purchasing a license to the content and you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use.

Don't think I've seen that before at Amazon, or for some reason it just stood out today.

On another note.

One of the many reasons I mostly turned away from Kindle ebooks, was the change Amazon made to our purchase emails, that according to them wasn't a receipt.

It used to be, that the subject line of the email had both the order number and the title of the ebook, and inside the email was detail about the ebook. And then some years ago, it became just the order number and no other details inside or out. That was a pain for the way I do my records etc, and meant relying totally on Amazon record access etc. I've always believed in having some record of my own to back up my memories.

Anyway, just recently, Amazon have returned to including the ebook title both inside and outside the email, though the order number now only exists inside. The author value hasn't been restored but the ebook cover at least, is inside the email.

No idea what prompted them to be sensible again, in that regard.

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I don't see the reasoning behind eliminating download and transfer if other methods still work.

While it's not the only other method, if you aren't running a modern enough version of Windows, and perhaps many Amazon customers, like me aren't, then you cannot install a version of K4PC that will fully work.

That's not to say I don't have access to a Windows 11 PC, but generally I use my older one for the web. That also includes using older calibre and DeDRM.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Timboli

I noticed the following today, under the BUY-With-1-Click button.



Don't think I've seen that before at Amazon, or for some reason it just stood out today.

On another note.

One of the many reasons I mostly turned away from Kindle ebooks, was the change Amazon made to our purchase emails, that according to them wasn't a receipt.

It used to be, that the subject line of the email had both the order number and the title of the ebook, and inside the email was detail about the ebook. And then some years ago, it became just the order number and no other details inside or out. That was a pain for the way I do my records etc, and meant relying totally on Amazon record access etc. I've always believed in having some record of my own to back up my memories.

Anyway, just recently, Amazon have returned to including the ebook title both inside and outside the email, though the order number now only exists inside. The author value hasn't been restored but the ebook cover at least, is inside the email.

No idea what prompted them to be sensible again, in that regard.

I had a dig through Amazons Kindle terms and conditions and found this -



"1. Kindle Content..........Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by Amazon"



So you own nothing if you use Kindle as intended by Amazon

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by Graham44

I had a dig through Amazons Kindle terms and conditions and found this -

"1. Kindle Content..........Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by Amazon"

Yep, that has likely always been there.

What I am talking about is something that appears to be new, that you see without digging down into terms & conditions.

There was a time, when showing such would have deterred customers from making an Amazon purchase.

A few media stores are now being more obvious about your purchase only being a license. Before that, they liked to pretend you still owned your purchase, even though you didn't really if you checked the terms & conditions.

Hoodwinking for profit they likely call that.

[SeaBookGuy]

Recently, I had a book that would not open. Amazon rep confirmed that the license agreement had ended (withdrawn by publisher).

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by Timboli

I noticed the following today, under the BUY-With-1-Click button.

"By placing your order, you're purchasing a license to the content and you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use."

Don't think I've seen that before at Amazon, or for some reason it just stood out today.

As far as I can tell this is only on the US Amazon site. It was likely done in order to comply with California's AB-2426 bill, which requires online sellers to clearly indicate that digital good purchases are in fact licenses (emphasis mine):

(b) (1) It shall be unlawful for a seller of a digital good to advertise or offer for sale a digital good to a purchaser with the terms “buy,” “purchase,” or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental, unless either of the following occur:
(A) The seller receives at the time of each transaction an affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser indicating all of the following:
(i) That the purchaser is receiving a license to access the digital good.
(ii) A complete list of restrictions and conditions of the license.
(iii) That access to the digital good may be unilaterally revoked by the seller if they no longer hold a right to the digital good, if applicable.
(B) The seller provides to the consumer before executing each transaction a clear and conspicuous statement that does both of the following:
(i) States in plain language that “buying” or “purchasing” the digital good is a license.
(ii) Includes a hyperlink, QR code, or similar method to access the terms and conditions that provide full details on the license.

[TheSmitty]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Recently, I had a book that would not open. Amazon rep confirmed that the license agreement had ended (withdrawn by publisher).

Curious what book that was?

But, yes, this is why removing DRM and backing up the book is a must regardless of where I buy the book.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

As far as I can tell this is only on the US Amazon site. It was likely done in order to comply with California's AB-2426 bill, which requires online sellers to clearly indicate that digital good purchases are in fact licenses (emphasis mine):

Yeah I just checked the same Kindle book on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and the US sites says you are purchasing a license to the content the UK site just says by clicking you agree to the Kindle store terms of use, sneaky

Oh and Kindle books are dearer in the UK, for the same book in the US it is $4.99 in the UK it is £4.04 but $4.99 at todays exchange rate = £3.93 according to Brave - although I guess they have to set the price when the actual book goes up for sale, it can't change daily.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Recently, I had a book that would not open. Amazon rep confirmed that the license agreement had ended (withdrawn by publisher).

Out of curiosity, what book is that? Kinda want to know what publisher would withdraw something

Originally Posted by Timboli

While it's not the only other method, if you aren't running a modern enough version of Windows, and perhaps many Amazon customers, like me aren't, then you cannot install a version of K4PC that will fully work.

That's not to say I don't have access to a Windows 11 PC, but generally I use my older one for the web. That also includes using older calibre and DeDRM.

I honestly don't have a windows 11 PC. All my personal systems run Mac or Linux. While I know Linux users are a tiny minority, mac users are definitely a thing.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I am increasingly happy to have jumped ship to Kobo. Their price matching means I'm actually paying less than if I'd stuck with Amazon.

Most recent example: Goodbye to Russia by Sarah Rainsford, recently dropped in price to £4.39 from £11.70 at Amazon UK. The price at Kobo is £11.99. Kobo's price-match (with the extra 10%) means it cost me £3.95 net at Kobo.

And I can download the .acsm file directly from the Kobo web site, and import that directly into calibre (thanks to deACSM and DeDRM) to get a drm-free ePub in one step.

I wish I'd switched years ago!

How do you price match with Kobo? I will sometimes buy from Amazon if they're the cheapest, like the other day I got one that Amazon had for $1.99, when it was $10 elsewhere (Monster by A. Lee Martinez). I prefer doing Kobo when I can, for the same reasons.

Originally Posted by A Lurker

If we have a way of removing DRM from kfx files on the device, then why are people upset about losing the D&T function? Perhaps I'm missing something, but it looks like we just need to switch from getting .azw files from Amazon's website to getting the kfx files from our devices? Is there a downside to this?

I realize some people might not have an Amazon device and were purchasing books from Amazon's website to read on a Kobo or other app. Without D&T they'll have no means of getting a copy of the book. I get that. But for people who do have a device, won't we be able to continue to use Calibre to save copies of our purchases?

Not having D&T makes it much harder to back up your amazon purchases in bulk. By having D&T, people could run a script and download everything, but on kindle going one at a time is dreadfully slow. I have in the neighborhood of 3000 books in my Kindle library, can you imagine doing that on the device itself? I'd have to periodically make room because my Kindle doesn't even have enough storage capacity to hold all of the books at one time. Also, in my experience, AZW3 files were remarkably like epubs (basically HTML files in a zip archive), so conversions were quick and space efficient, and I've seen horror stories about conversion from KFX files being much larger. Also, not all Kindles support KFX, so there is some concern about support dropping for the older formats, and additional work being done to additional security to the DRM (which does happen, and it takes time to reverse engineer).

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Recently, I had a book that would not open. Amazon rep confirmed that the license agreement had ended (withdrawn by publisher).

That should only apply to a loan, or Amazon continuing to sell it. The Amazon rep is in error if you purchased rather than borrowed the ebook.

Actually, after the 1984 debacle, Amazon insisted they would never remove books again and they would compensate the rights holder.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Recently, I had a book that would not open. Amazon rep confirmed that the license agreement had ended (withdrawn by publisher).

That sounds more like a technical problem. I would not trust Amazon customer service in this case. Books removed from sale by publishers are not removed from customer accounts. And even if they were it would manifest as a failure to download, not to open.