Deauthorizing a computer from Adobe Digital Reader without the computer

[MasterGame]

I've seen the basic instructions on deauthorizing a computer from Adobe Digital Editions, but they assume that you are using the computer you want to deauthorize. If the computer gets stolen, or its motherboard gets fried, or you gave it away before you remembered to deauthorize, etc., and you no longer have use of that computer, is it still possible to deauthorize the computer from ADE to free up a slot to authorize a new device?

[taming]

You are allowed to authorize six computers and six devices before you have to open an Adobe web ticket and ask for your counter to be reset--process that takes about a day. In addition, Adobe trickles extra authorizations into your account over time to help people avoid the to-be-expected instances of too many of one or the other. One stolen/lost/borked computer every once in awhile will not be an issue.

[MasterGame]

Thanks. My concern was that over the course of years, many people would use up all six of their device slots, and it wasn't clear that Adobe had anything in place to wipe the count. Without that, access to previously purchased material would cease. Glad to hear there's a solution.

[Ken Maltby]

There is another solution to the threat that DRM holds over your ebook purchases.

Your ebooks can function very well without being infected with DRM.

Ebooks without DRM will always be usable even if the servers that support the DRM
scam are unavailable.

Ebooks without DRM can be used on any device that supports the underling format the
ebook has and had before it was infected.

Luck;
Ken

[MasterGame]

Of course ADE only affects ebooks with DRM. Unfortunately, most of the recently published titles and bestsellers are only available with DRM. So either we have to live with it, or we have to engage in the legally questionable but morally OK behavior of stripping DRM (which is a hassle).

Hopefully, the book world will learn the lesson that the music world eventually learned, which is that DRM is more trouble than it's worth for everyone involved, including the publishers.

[pietvo]

Originally Posted by MasterGame

I've seen the basic instructions on deauthorizing a computer from Adobe Digital Editions, but they assume that you are using the computer you want to deauthorize. If the computer gets stolen, or its motherboard gets fried, or you gave it away before you remembered to deauthorize, etc., and you no longer have use of that computer, is it still possible to deauthorize the computer from ADE to free up a slot to authorize a new device?

Deauthorizing doesn't free up a slot.