Amazon is making it impossible to remove the DRM from Kindle Books
https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-is-making-it-impossible-to-remove-the-drm-from-kindle-booksOpen linkView original on lemmy.world694
Comments307https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-is-making-it-impossible-to-remove-the-drm-from-kindle-booksOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
Don't buy Amazon products. Fairly simple concept.
The problem is some authors signing exclusivity deal with Amazon, which means breaking the DRM and converting it is the only way to read it on a different e-reader.
Too bad. Then theres no sale unless I can crack the DRM ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This. All of these problems are solved by people not giving money. But often it seems difficult for people to actually stand behind principle when the time comes -- convenience is a helluva drug.
i was dumbfounded that so many people stood up against Disney. it was so opposite of what modern americans do.
Well then those authors can go straight to corpo-sellout hell and die a painful death, I'd rather never read a book again than buy from amazon.
It's only takes one person to crack those books and spread them across the high seas and the only way to force authors to abandon Amazon.
There are always people who extra motivated by these challenges. The fact that these are written texts and shown on a screen means there will always be away to scrap the content off even if that involves a camera on a second device.
DRM only hurts customers who want to pay for content.
Yep, I had a Kindle library of a few dozen books, when they started their shenanigans locking down the desktop client earlier this year I downloaded all of them, de-drmed and converted to epub with Calibre. Hosting them on Calibre-web and accessing with KOreader on a Kobo. I continue to buy books on Kobo and Google Books, which let me download copies (albeit with DRM).
Makes me wonder after all these years why Amazon is locking down ability to move books around. I wonder if they're starting to feel some real competition and feel threatened! The market of cheap e-ink Android ereaders seems to be growing more and more
I started that process and hit a road block after getting all the books downloaded to my pc. Can you recommend any tutorials or guides that might help get everything converted?
I used this guide from a thread on Reddit. It relies on Calibre and a set of plugins https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1c2ryfz/2024_guide_to_dedrm_kindle_books/
Awesome, thanks!
Probably the opposite. They're confident they won't lose sales over this because they're too firmly established as a monopoly. And they know that with Trump in office they're not going to face any pushback from the FTC.
there’s so many others and of course torrents
It is remarkable how many books available for free on Gutenberg are sold in the same format on Amazon (it'd be one thing if they were special editions, new translations etc, but they're the same!)
People out to make a quick buck are banking on suckers not knowing about Project Gutenberg, or failing to check it, or not wanting to do a couple of extra steps to get something onto their Kindle.
Check out standard ebooks. They take public domain books and "clean" them up with really good typesetting, spelling fixes, and other things. All free too
Standard is fantastic! The books are better quality than what they charge for on “marketplaces” and can be read for free or downloaded wholesale for a song. Add to that they host an opds catologue that fbreader can browse and you have incredibly convenient public domain books right to the ereader.
Shoutout to Anna.
Have you noticed that the download interface page for Anna's archive has suddenly changed? I can't figure it out!
I have not but I believe you.
What URL are you using?
You can also use Book Bounty to integrate LibGen support into Readarr. It’s a workaround for one of Readarr’s biggest weaknesses, as torrents historically aren’t great for ebooks.
Didn't readarr get discontinued a few weeks ago?
It was officially unsupported, but it still works just fine if you use a third-party metadata provider. There haven’t been any breaking changes on the backend, so (unless sites change things) it will continue to work fine.
https://libbyapp.com/
Assuming you have a card from a participating library.
Every time I go to checkout a book on Libby it's like 6-10 weeks' wait. If I put a hold on it then I'm just not in a place to read/listen at that time and then I feel bad for hogging it instead.
Better to just pirate or buy from a non-DRM distributor.
The best books are on IRC.
Isn't goodreads owned by Amazon?
Anyone else notice that the download interface page for Anna's archive has suddenly changed? I can't figure it out.
I'm shocked at this unforeseeable turn of events.
The current timeline is truly a constant stream of unanticipated surprises
I will never, ever purchase a book I can't remove the DRM from.
And there are people out there who are absolutely fanatical about book preservation. They will photograph every single page and run it through OCR and recreate an ebook just so it gets preserved. DRM is absolutely pointless and stupid.
Exactly this. As an idiot I purchase DRM music when Microsoft had its own music store. Some years later they closed it and there was no way to validate music keys.
But thankfully I still have an old Roxio9( I think) CD, and back then Roxio didn't know what DRM was and would take the mp3 and burn it to DVD anyway, bypassing the key check, then I would just rip it back off the DVD...DRM is useless
For real.
When I still had Netflix and Disney+ I'd want to watch a show on my PC, but I'd just get black screen with only audio, because something about my setup the DRM didn't like. (Possibly that I have USB displaylink monitors.)
So I had to watch on another device.
DRM isn't stopping content being ripped. It's just making life a pain for paying customers.
Offering a clean, ad free, usable storefront to purchase media would do more to prevent piracy than anything.
But corpos dont like that.
That could've been iTunes if their interface didn't suck ass and if they didn't go for the subscription-only model in Apple Music.
I swear for years it was THE place to buy music. I mean I never did, I didn't have access to a card with online payments enabled as a teen, so I just pirated everything anyway. But it seemed like the default place.
I was so out of the loop a few years ago I found out they killed iTunes and was like WHY. idiotic.
Of course. It's all about control. They see users as property, an object to be sold and traded.
Do not ever allow yourselves to be disrespected like this.
Try explaining any of this to my friends lol. Obsessed with Google, the tok, xitter, and shitty data stealing llms. Disgusting garbage.
This is the entire foundational point Gabe made with steam.
Hell I still get a chuckle when people bitch able steam "drm". Since it's entirely optional and can literally be turned off by just adding a text file with the steam ID in basically every case. If it's even there to begin with
99% of the time the "drm" people bitch about is just the steam overlay dll crashing if steam is off. Cause you know trying to load something that's off doesn't really work.
You can literally just remove a single dll from like 95% of steam games and you have an entirely "drm" free game.
Silksong is a great example with how popular it's been Iv seen thousands of people bitching moaning and crying about how it has drm on steam when it for a fact doesn't. It just has the single dll so it can use the overlay. Just deleting the dll so it doesn't load up the overlay and ta-da its fucking drm free.
I couldn't get Netflix to play at high resolution on my old Roku because of some DRM crap. And I was a legit customer! Once again, piracy would have provided a superior experience.
Kobo is cool Now just fyi. Works well with calibre.
The biggest issue I have is ebooks are almost all excusevly sold on amazon. I would give authors my money and not sail the high seas if it ment no DRM.
I'm sorry but the idea that most ebooks are exclusive to Amazon is absurd. While they are trying and would love that to be true, it's just not.
That was my first thought too, but I'm not so sure. I'd love to see data on it. I did a quick search and couldn't find any numbers, but I did find articles talking about Amazon requiring exclusivity in some cases. https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/amazon-exclusive-options-createspace-kdp-select-and-acx
100% they have pressured some smaller publishers and authors into exclusivity, especially self published authors that use their print on demand services. But most books you can find at competing digital storefronts.
I hear what you're saying, but I'd still like to see numbers before taking a stance.
To clarify:
"Traditionally published" books and even many "self published" books are sold in all major storefronts and often on the author's website (if they have one).
The issue is that Amazon has REALLY REALLY good tools for self publishing and, at least until recently, Kindle Unlimited (?) was a great way for authors to make money without the power of a traditional publisher or the grindset for true self publishing. And Kindle Unlimited requires amazon exclusivity.
The "good" news is that Amazon is dicking everyone over with changes to Audible and the like (it is allegedly a big reason why Sanderson basically made his own publishing house) and a lot of the big names in SFF are increasingly considering their options. That is a drop in the bucket compared to Romantasy and the like, but it is not nothing.
So best recommendation is to politely nudge your favorite authors and to signal boost booktube/booktok/bookgram/whatever to keep pushing on this. One of my guilty pleasure "litrpg" authors has been open about this in the past that they use Kindle Unlimited but, at least on their discord, are increasingly looking into alternatives because so many of the diehard fans actively don't want to give Amazon money but still want to give them cash.
Just to keep adding on: Funny enough, Christopher Ruocchio's "whatever happened between him and DAW" is actually increasingly being used as an argument for why it is okay to change publishing formats. For those unaware, Ruocchio's Sun Eater series is spectacular in that it starts as Space Rome and Barbarians At The Gates before... going places. But he had scope creep and wanted to do an extra book but his publisher (DAW) had given him a specific deal and did not want to renegotiate and it was a huge clusterfuck that more or less led to him changing publishers midstream.
Which is generally acknowledged as a death sentence for a series because it makes any form of promotion nigh impossible because the old publisher actively does not want to encourage sales of new books (that is "their" money) and the new publisher can't sell the books that are generally required reading for the new ones. But between a lot of fans who had fallen in love with the series and prominent booktube influencers going REAL hard on it, he managed to successfully switch publishers and should be finishing up early next year?
But considering how many authors are in essentially the same mess where the first ten books are on Kindle but the next twenty might be on Kindle+Kobo+whatever? It is a very scary prospect that could literally end their literary career but... it is also increasingly doable.
Nice read. I'm no longer at keyboard. Good points.
Someone posted a comment somewhere else in this post with a list of sources of ebooks. Hope it helps!
Between Kobo and Google Books I haven't had a problem of not finding a book. Are you talking about small authors self-publishing on Kindle? I could see that being an issue
Boox is the best. Stock software, NO DRM. Downside is they are more expensive upfront
Boox's Neoreader is surprisingly good, but KoReader just frog blasts it. And since it's just and Android app, it's trivial to install and keep updated
Agreed, that they are just an android tablet makes them far more useful than most ereaders as you can install apps from the Play store. I probably use mine in the kitchen more than as a reader.
Also Canadian, though now majority owned by Rakuten.
How hard is to install KOreader on a Kobo?
KOReader is trivial to install but I would also say it is nowhere near as "required" as it used to be for the majority of readers.
In fact, a few months (year or two?) back when amazon started this bullshit in earnest, the main dev(s) behind Calibre finally picked up Kobos and DRASTICALLY improved support for the devices. Still some wonkiness with usually having to eject and re-connect to actually update metadata but everything "just works".
Yeah, the wonkiness is particularly apparent on .cbz files. I got a color Kobo to read comics, but .cbz files don’t natively support metadata embedding. (It’s basically just a .zip file, so you could embed the data in the file… But the Kobo wouldn’t read it without actually open in the file.) Getting the comics to actually list the author and series has been a big struggle.
Oftentimes, comics will outright disappear from the kobo’s book list in Calibre, meaning you can’t even manage them at all; Pushing the file again doesn’t help because it’s already on the device, but Calibre can’t read the database so it’ll try anyways. The only solution when it happens has been to completely factory reset the kobo. Which is… Not a great solution.
Yeah. CBZ files have no metadata (I think there is actually a semi-standardized way to add it but almost nobody does?) so it won't work well with metadata based systems. From discussions we had back in the day, the cbz/r/7z/tgz/whatever archives were mostly a necessary evil for file sharing. As long as you didn't modify the scans, people could re-compress or whatever their files and still have a good chance of coming up as alternatives in DC++ and the like. And, at the time, PDF readers were basically Adobe Acrobat and not much else.
These days? Nobody really used DC++ anymore and the general etiquette is to keep an un-touched version in your torrent folder if you want to seed. And basically every web browser is a better PDF reader than anything before 2020. So there isn't much value in not just reformatting to a PDF and removing the need for a special cbz reader.
All that said: I haven't followed the changelog, but it might be worth checking if you have the latest Calibre version. Basically all the package managers are months, if not years, out of date and a LOT of work has been put in to making Kobos a first class citizen.
Basically a one-click install on supported devices. You just need a PC and a USB cable. Highly recommended
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Installation-on-Kobo-devices
Easy enough. You can also install QuillOS which an open source operating system for Kobos.
Not to hard
Fairly intuitive, if you can drag the right file to the right directory on the device.
Why not just remove the Amazon from the ebooks?
amazon: finally we defeated piracy
one kid with a computer: snickers
I've been slowly filling my wife's Kindle Oasis full of pirated books over the last 2 years. I got it initially because it had internet service everywhere and I could just email her the epubs to simplify loading things.
A couple of weeks ago, even though airplane mode is always on for this thing, (so no wifi either) -- this thing wipes something like 400 books from her library overnight. Granted, they were all pirated, but they're doing some nasty stuff there. It looks like there's renewed effort to combat this.
Sooooo, I sold it and bought her a Kobo Libra Color. Now, I just have her open up https://send.djazz.se/ -- give me the 4 digit code, and I can upload books to her that way. Goodbye Amazon. Don't let the door hit you.
Cannot recommend Kobo enough. You can jailbreak it if you like, but I didn't get much benefit from that personally. I'm partial to the overdrive integration, but if you're loading epubs you probably aren't using that. If in the US, I'd recommend at least setting it up, since it's pretty easy and maybe more immediate for some books, but obviously she won't get to keep the epub after.
Not that I would know from experience, but I hear there are Calibre plugins that will allow a user to pull the DRM'd book (downloaded via Overdrive) to a computer and remove the DRM.
I've read that it's a polite thing to do because you're able to return borrowed books much more quickly so other users can check them out.
I originally had planned on doing that, but honestly I've not plugged my kobo into my computer since I in earnest set it up. Out of the box I jailbroke it, then I realized I liked it a lot and didn't want to get confused as to what I was recommending to friends/family vs what was actually jailbreak stuff, so I decided I'd reset it and use it the standard way for a bit to get the hang of it. Once I did that I've never had a need to plug it into a computer and figured it wasn't worth the effort.
I hope I'm not considered impolite for using it as intended, though I totally understand people who would want to do as you suggested. Anything to decrease hold times lol. Also not that I would know from experience, but I imagine others greatly respect and appreciate the people who do that, provide the means to do that, or the end results of that.
Bonus points for no jailbreak required : D I didn't even realize there was a jailbreak for it (or what benefits there are to jailbreaking it... I should do some research but I haven't found anything I couldn't do with the stock firmware and it sounds like you generally came to the same conclusion).
Mine is using the stock firmware, wifi off unless using Overdrive, but I plug it into my computer to charge and load it with books. It just shows up as a mass storage device like a USB thumb drive and you can copy/paste books onto it (or use Calibre). After disconnecting it will scan for new/changed files and auto-import any recognized formats into the reader application.
The benefits to jailbreaking it are that you can change the layout of the device, remove store icons, and just in-general tidy up the UI a bit. I haven't seen anything game-changing from the jailbreak; like adding apps or something.
Kobo is on my Xmas list. I still have a gen 2? Kindle and it’s still pretty workable.
The white one with a keyboard?
Mines grey with a keyboard.
Dang you will be impressed with the screen on anything you pick up. Resolution and contrast on the text is much better these days.
That's weird and sounds like some kind of software problem. I can't see how that would happen otherwise. I have a Voyage and don't have wifi configured on it at all, just add books with calibre and it's been fine for a decade.
It's not a software problem, the Oasis has free cellular service for life.
If you turn your Wifi off on an Android phone for example - it still scans and uses the wifi to keep track of your location, for instance. It's an anti-consumer pattern that companies are using. Airplane mode? -- Sure, for YOU. But Amazon probably still allows cell service to connect every couple of hours for exactly this kind of thing.
The error message she received wasn't sly about it either. It said something very direct along the lines of "We have determined that you are not eligible to read this book so we have removed it from your device"
Free cellular for life, except Amazon has basically limited it down to nothing
I loved my oasis, but the whispersync was, for all intents, busted, for the last few years.
Finally moved to a boox go color, installed calibre, and couldn't be happier
Back when Randall Munroe released his "What if" in eBook format, it essentially was only available with DRM.
When I emailed him about it, asking for a place to buy it without DRM, he responded with DRM unfortunately being mandated by his publisher, and finished his email with a link to this comic of his:
https://xkcd.com/488/
Just wait until you can only stream books, not download them, with random words replaced with synonyms using an algorithm that lets them track down who the originator of any scanned copies is.
That might sound ridiculous, but streaming-only to prevent perfect copies and hiding purchaser identifiers in the data are both DRM techniques that have been explored in other media already. There's no limit to how anti-consumer publishers can get when they think there's slightly more money to be had.
Log2(8.2billion) is about 33. That means if each word only had 1 synonym, you only need to change 33 words to uniquely identify who was responsible.
21 words need to change if each has 3 options. 17 words for 4 options.
Then we change an additional 100 words in the process, and their tell becomes a tale.
Then it just takes two accounts to stream, compare, and patch. :) with every escalation the people have found a way.
There's no impossible because if you can see it, it can be captured and digitized, but there is a level of complication that can make it unreasonable. They could make it unreasonable to crack the drm outright and require you to screenshot/OCR it. Then they can limit the OS to make to difficult to automate capture.
Bottom line, they're just kicking payers off their network when it's easier to pirate it than to buy it through their service.
Something something, piracy is a service problem. That’s why Spotify et al. still thrive, but more and more the Netflixes of the world are being replaced with yaaar
It's also a pricing issue as well.
The analog hole works on a lot of stuff
That's my post apoc Youtube plan. Play on a sanctioned browser with videos and use comskip, write them off to my storage.
We're going back to my TV->AVI setup from 2003, only maybe we'll use HVEC this time.
Lol, just read the Arch Wiki about Bluray playing. Unreasonable only takes a bit longer.
Especially engineering people get creative out of interest if they're denied access. And that's a beautiful thing.
MakeMKV is in AUR :) Sure, it's not playing a disk...
So just like what people do with paper books.
What GOOGLE did WITHOUT PERMISSION to paper books. ;)
I've imaged a few short books with a cellphone and page correction software.
It takes dedication to make a pleasant final product. But those vacuum book scanners are freaking amazing.
This entire thing has been made needlessly complicated. Easy fix though.
Oh you sweet summer child, judges will bend over backwards to slap people with multi-decade-to-life charges for 'hacking,' even if the 'hacking' is just the rightsholder accidentally presenting data to you.
To be fair, if you OCR the pages via camera, you haven't actually circumvented DRM. That means it's a completely legal backup, as the DRM on the original file was untouched and unaltered. This definitely does fall under fair use.
Theoretically, yes. Realistically, judges historically believe anything prosecutors tell them about hacking and circumvention.
There's been people thrown in jail for the rest of their life for the crime of clicking a public URL that the company didn't intend to be public.
Source?
The closest i've heard was a journalist being accused of hacking for the crime of choosing "view source" in the right-click menu of a web-browser.
If you scroll down a bit, I actually already answered that question in this exact threat, one reply down.
In general I agree, but I am going to have to ask you for a source on that last one.
Looks like I mixed up two different cases- the cause of one, and the duration of another.
weev (who apparently is a giant asshole) was the one who got sent to jail for accessing a completely public URL AT&T wished he didn't in 2010. The EFF took up his case. His sentence was later vacated by another court because so many civil rights lawyers kept joining his team pro-bono so the court tossed it out on a blatant technicality to get the issue to go away, so he only served ~2y.
As for the CFAA being used to slap people with life sentences, there's too many examples to know which one I was mixing it up with. Aaron Swartz is the classic example.
Still 2y more than he should've, geez...
You didn't circumvent it by breaking the encryption, but I'd say you still circumvented it.
Just do it in a country with reasonable laws
They already ruled on this in favor of allowing you to back up what you already own. See video games, DVDs and CDs, video tapes, this is well established already.
They actually walked that back using blu-rays as an excuse. If there's any sort of DRM/encryption/etc, you're completely unallowed to circumvent it, even for personal backup.
The goold old analog hole.
Tangent, but I have had an incredibly poor experience getting a library eBook onto a kindle. Libby gives out time restricted epubs - fair enough, I am actually borrowing the book, that makes sense. Kindle, despite being the "goto" ereader, and epubs being a standard format, cannot read them.
So, despite wanting to legitimately borrow and read the book, instead I am borrowing and DeDRM'ing it (which is its own convoluted process).
Why is Amazon pushing so hard for piracy? Its one thing to make their store easier to use, but breaking all other valid use cases just leaves the one remaining option...
I have a kobo ereader, it connects to my local library through the overdrive system and I am soooo happy.
Yeah, definitely considering that as a replacement.
Seconding their enthusiasm. I love my Kobo Libra Color.
This one is my second but the first one is still working fine many years later. I just wanted color.
The color is a trade-off. It looks more or less like newsprint: a little faded, but still capable of some lively imagery. It also means that black and white pages aren’t as high-contrast. The “white” parts (that are really never fully white on any e-paper display) are a little less white, meaning it’s not as sharp and you’re more likely to need to turn on the backlight or to turn it up a couple percent.
I’m not too bothered by the trade-offs, and I like it when I can see things in color. It lasts ages even with the backlight on low, so that’s not a major problem. It also includes pen support and USB-C, so all in all I’m perfectly happy with it.
I got a Kobo about a year ago (Libra Color) it is just great. The kobo store keeps having sales on books I want for $2 so as much as I intended to use the overdrive connectivity, I just keep buying books on it!
Which is the right way to do it, make the ereader work properly, and then make the store so attractive that you use it anyway.
I think this explains why Amazon is locking down their books and making libraries non-portable. There is more competition
That's what they want. If you don't agree don't get a kindle.
They list EPUB as a supported format. Nothing on their site says DRM EPUB doesnt work.
Amazon is full of shit. EPUBs only work by using send-to-Kindle which converts it to a file that works (either AZW3 or KFX. Despite the misinformation, EPUBs do not work on Kindle, except if you jailbreak, as you can then use KOReader to read them natively.
That last point is salient, as it means the hardware supports the format just fine. Amazon intentionally does not directly support EPUBs in their software.
Really? I’ve never had an issue. Libby sends me directly to Amazon to “check out” the book, so I don’t have to upload it to the Kindle manually.
Apparently for america, it works relatively seamlessly, but the rest of the world doesnt. No idea why, but that is what my brief research told me.
Ah, gotcha. That sucks.
Amazon and Kindle have always been upfront about only supporting their proprietary format and people just chose to ignore it.
Never had any trouble with my Nook.
I dont think that is true at all. They describe it as an e-reader and its reasonable to assume that that means it can read e-books. They even list EPUB on the supported formats section of the specs. No caveat there about only partially supporting EPUB.
I transitioned from a Kindle to an iPad. It just works better and you can get refurbished older iPads with an excellent
OLEDscreen and warranty for less than a new Kindle in most cases.The only iPads with OLED screens are the current generation of iPad Pro with the M4 chip. Every other iPad is an LCD screen (very good LCD, with deep blacks and very good local dimming, but still LCD).
Ah. I thought Retina was marketing speak for OLED. I stand corrected.
Retina is marketing speak for “pixels small enough to be individually indistinguishable by the human eye at proper viewing distances.”
For anyone stumbling along. "Retina display" is their marketing speak for higher pixel density than "average".
Yeah but the goal of a ereader is to not have to read on a normal screen but on something that look more like paper
Oh, you mean paperwhite ereaders. You can get those too. Android based.
(Pedantry incoming)
Paperwhite is actually Amazon branding. E-Ink is a brand as well, owned by the E Ink Corporation. The generic name would be electronic paper or e-paper.
Edit: Clarity.
Not entirely true. E-ink is trademarked by the e-ink company, sole manufacturer of e-ink displays.
https://trademarks.justia.com/788/55/e-78855402.html
That part isn’t Amazon-related.
I meant its branding, not Amazon owned, I should clear that up though it is misleading as written.
I don't know why people buy an stuff like this and get surprised when this happens.
Plenty of other electronics that you have full control over.
Plenty ? Really ? And what are those ?
Four times the prices and from four years ago ?
Kobo e-readers are 1-to-1 alternatives that allow you to easily transfer epubs or PDFs to it with a USB cable.
As far as I can tell, Kobos are bootloader locked now https://old.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/1ewadpc/kobo_is_now_using_secure_boot_on_at_least_one_of/
You can still transfer epubs and most books on the kobo store are sold without DRM (publisher choice)
That's a far cry from
mentioned in the first comment
Not arguing with your point, it’s valid. But I wanted to make it clear from OPs point about book DRM that this is not an issue with Kobo. The books themselves as mostly DRM free and you can put whatever you want on the device.
It's not necessarily about the devices. Kobo books are very easy to remove DRM from, and don't require owning a physical Kobo device or their app to do so. All it requires is two Calibre plugins. And EPUB is not a proprietary format, unlike AZW3 and KFX.
Also, I might be wrong, but it seems Kobo has a lot more DRM free books in general, compared to Amazon.
Kindle has always required either the Kindle app or an actual physical Kindle to de-DRM.
Having your cake and eating it too isn't on the menu
Kindles were loss leaders to get you in their ecosystem, just like all the shitty cheap tablets they sold.
The from four years ago part is real, but honestly, 4 year old devices read books about as well as current devices as long as you're not trying to go all fancy.
It's just matter of time before they're all locked down, even the bad ones from 2020.
Just like android where basically it's all bootloader locked, except for a few suspiciously special models like the Pixel. Or a "new" 1000$ model with hardware from 2018.
Instead of pretending there isn't a problem because there are still option, you should realize the WINDOW IS CLOSING
A Raspberry Pi with an E-INK screen is surprisingly doable.
The raspberry pi has no low power modes / suspend states, to prevent it being used as a cell phone or tablet.
The standalone eink display are also very expensive, more than a entire eink reader and there is very little choice and they cannot be harvested from a working device.
Low power states is a good call,
Looks like there's a lot of work on using ESP32 for this kind of thing, even a couple open projects, but they end up bit-banging the screen into submission. not super elegant.
You can get 7" eink panels for $50.
Unless Kindle prices came way down, Boox are comparable in price, nicer in features, and allow side loading any eBook or Android APK (including the Kindle APK, if you can still get a copy of it.)
https://shop.boox.com/
I don't think you've used anything but a Boox in a long time, and have forgotten what the standard is. Boox has 1/10 the battery life, takes forever to wake up, and doesn't support deep sleep properly (so it either drains battery when sitting idle, or shuts off entirely taking 5+ minutes to power back on). It's decent hardware with very badly designed software. Neither Kobo or Kindle devices have these problems, they have battery that actually lasts, deep sleep when idle for any length of time, and power back up, even from deep sleep in 10 seconds or less.
Agreed, the battery life is way worse. I find the features of full unlocked Android to be a worthwhile trade.
But my point is that the prices of various eInk Android tablets aren't unreasonable anymore.
Edit: Although, for anyone worried - I literally don't remember the last time I charged my Boox. It was sometime last month - and I read with it most days.
The battery life can be fine, when configured with conservative screen refresh settings.
But I think there is still a difference - when I binge-read something for many hours multiple days in a row, I'll notice that I need to recharge my Boox sooner than my Kindle needed.
Oh yeah definitely. It's a slow EInk Android tablet on a very old version of Android. If you need more than just an EReader it's the only reputable brand.
You can read books for free on just about any general purpose computer.
My wife doesn't let me bring the Thinkpad to bed anymore
I am honestly surprised it took this long! Kindle has been around a long time and it's not like Amazon was any less evil back then. It makes me wonder if the competition has been starting to make them nervous!
I have five published books, all without drm. Amazon better not put that shit ON my books. It's not there for a reason; I want people to share.
The real question is how can I find out what those 5 book are without you doxing yourself.
But have you considered that Jeff needs another few billies?
Thank you!
Curious, as someone who's an actual author, do you have any legal option at all for preventing Amazon (which I assume technically act as your publisher in this case?) to put DRM on your books, or demand them to remove DRM if they added DRM without your notice?
Likely not, Amazon is a private market place and if their requirements to use it requires the drm his option is very likely use the drm or fuck off.
Not having good publicly controlled legal market places is one of the biggest failings of the internet.
Yeah you can easily pirate any book, or even just get them free at the library. This just fucks over the authors and people who want to buy their books legally. People don't buy books because they have to, they want to.
Yep, I could pirate all my books and audio books if I wanted. All it would do is fuck over the author tho.
As much as I hate audible it's the only legal choice I have for many of the books I listen to. Since basically every other legal option has out of the nearly 500 or so audio books I have less then 50 of them.
It's annoying.
Books were among the first things to be pirated and are still among the easiest because the amount of data is so small. People we're doing that on dial up Internet.
And to repurchase. Never forget that aspect of the scam. Sell but don't actually sell, make the customer keep on paying.
Fuck you Jeff!
I would recommend people buy their books off ZLibrary instead, where they come with no DRM.
Switched to kobo.
Why are people "buying" DRM infested books? They don't own anything. "Their" books can be taken away at the whim of the seller. Their rights can change with a change to the EULA. There are other legal ways to use e-readers (not Kindles) that let you keep and back up what you buy.
It's the herding and conditioning. The sheeple have not woken up.
So many things make so much more sense when we realize this.
Amazon can go suck a fuck!
How exactly does one suck a fuck?
One just does
Get the fuck drunk enough and it will suck itself.
DRM-free.
You never saw a video where someone cleans up their partner after the good time?
Let me show you.
I love Amazon.
Their website makes it so easy to look up books for Anna's Archive.
It's a great way to find the ISBN to chuck into annas or MaM
I mean, this is how you get me to stop buying Kindle books.
What do you mean buy kindle books
I stopped when they removed the "download and transfer via USB" option. Before that I bought books, downloaded a copy and removed the DRM.
Now I just download books without DRM for free.
Once they started mentioning stuff like this I sold my Kindle and got a moann. Its a little odd to use at times, but I love the size and the fact that I can just throw whatever book on there that I want. I use Anna's archive for whatever book I'm looking for or go through my friend's calibre library and I have over 200 books on my reader. I can also use libby with no issues. Its been fantastic breaking away from being stuck in the kindleverse.
Anna's Archive
https://standardebooks.org/
There are so many alternative ereaders that are better than the kindle, that I don't get why people buy it.
I once borrowed one from a friend and it didn't even let me organize media in directories from a pc. The directory structure got all messed up and it was a pain to follow my study sequence. Any cheap Chinese ereader would allow that.
Kindles are cheap. That's pretty much it. I don't think it's a great mystery. Amazon subsidizes their hardware to get you into their ecosystem even more.
They also consistently put their ebooks on sale. I've gone cold turkey on buying from them and have noticed they often have the best prices on books. They want people to build a library and be locked in.
Maybe my different experience comes from living in the global south. All of the are expensive in here, so kindle has no price advantage
Prime Day and other sales push those prices down pretty regularly to the point I think most people are like "ah fuck it why not" and just grab one
Which ones do you recommend?
Not OP, but i am happy with my Pocketbook Verse pro.
I mentioned some in this other comment: https://lemmy.zip/post/49532624/21704502
I'm pretty happy with Kobo. I've had the same model for about ten years and it's still working great. They had color temperature changing for the backlight before it was cool. The syncing to Pocket was neat before stupid Mozilla killed it, and now they've pivoted to Instapaper. Plus I can install KOreader to also read stuff on my own ebook server, though I find the Kobo firmware is quite nice so I often just stick on that.
Tell me alternative vendors which provide good quality case and not breaking easily eink screen
Pocketbook. But of course a lot more expensive than a Kindle since it's not subsidized by Amazon's store
I had bad experience with their new models which easily broke eink screen after 2 month it was just laying on the table and one day I came and saw lines of screen.I know there was model which called aqua which is very nice and hard to break l but that was not my model
Kobo?
I used a cybook odyssey for more than 10 years, so I guess bookeen devices can be a good choice. I'm currently using a refurbrished tolino vision 2 and the experience is also much better than the kindles I tried.
But if I had more money, I would probably have bought a device from boox. They make nice ereaders, some even with android,being much more flexible than a kindle. Devices from bigme and the meebooks also look nice, but I don't know if they have good cases.
I'm sure there are other good options around. These are just the ones I know.
I have an android based ereader and honestly I would buy a cheaper non android one if I had to replace it. I never really use any app besides the reader app and the battery only lasts a few days max. Non android ones last way longer because they have no stuff running in the background. Edit: not a kindle though I'm comparing it to a Tolino / kobo
That's interesting to know. I'd be devastated if I spent more morey for one and felt like it wasn't worth it. Those devices are too expensive around here.
By the way, don't you find it useful for reading stuff on the internet, like web articles, news, etc? When I looked for one, I also imagined myself connecting a bluetooth keyboard and using it for writing.
I thought I would use it to read Wikipedia pages but it turns out I only really read Wikipedia when I am encountering a link on my phone or PC and while I have it set up to sync links I save to the reader, since I want to read the thing right away I'm not gonna bother switching devices. Same with articles, I never find myself switching devices to read one. Maybe it would be different if I had a daily newsletter I'd read on it but I don't use those, while I could use the ones from my library they are always lent out at the times I'd read them.
As for writing, my device is a standard 6 inch one which I'd find too small to write on, as I already own a laptop as well which is simply more ergonomic for writing. I also tried reading manga on it for which android has some great apps, but turns out I don't enjoy manga as a medium at all.
I do love the ereader for actually reading books, it's so comfortable but that's the one feature I could have on any generic one. And like I said, I use it for about 2-3 hours a day and I find myself charging it once a week.
I use have old android ereader which hold battery for weeks
Interesting, what brand and how many hours per day do you read?
2-3 hour
The Paperwhite was magnitudes cheaper than a Kobo. I wanted a Kobo but just didn't have the funds at the time. I use the Paperwhite and have never connected it to wifi, thank God for them not tanking usb downloads. Yet.
Kindle Unlimited is the big thing that keeps my wife on her Kindle. She goes through books like candy and it’s made it seriously economical without the trouble of loading it via her computer.
I rock a Kobo and used an Onyx for almost a year and they are indeed great (Onyx especially if you want to still use Kindle and don't mind a free 5G Modem).
The issue is the ecosystem. Kindle Unlimited is, even with the current Amazon bullshit, a SPECTACULAR resource for self-published authors. And it restricts what authors can sell in terms of ebooks.
There are-ish ways around it (drying up every day as per the article). But if you are buying an ereader it is generally because you like to read a lot. And the Amazon ecosystem is still nigh unbeatable.
I bought a digital movie from Amazon prime in 2015. It fell off and they didnt give me a refund. The music I got from a burnt CD in 2004 is still on the C: drive of my current PC. I don't think it pays to do the right thing in the long run.
🌏👩🚀🔫👩🚀
Remember to pay your local pirate.
again displaying, that DRM only hurts legitimate users. a pirate has never had the problem of backing up, moving or sharing his library...
Yarrrrrr
When I got a kindle (10 years ago) I did it on the basis that it was possible to strip the DRM of the books and load them on another device. I'm not going to be tied to some shitty platform for ever more. I must say though that when I have bought books on other places, the process of stripping the DRM and getting the book onto the device has been an absolute ballache - presumably the same for any device when you're not using the native store.
I won't be going back to physical books though. I bought a hardback for the first time in ages and my wrists don't like it. Nor does my partner when I'm reading while they're trying to sleep.
Same, I used to have some Caliber extension that stripped DRM. Last used it 2-3 years ago and worked for Adobe DRM at least.
We'll soon be back to monks transcribing at this rate.
Oh no, clumsy me, dropping these links, what a mess.
They’re also facing problems ripping books from Amazon, sadly.
Yes, but they will probably have older titles 9 out of 10 times.
DRM on Kindle it's a known fact. That's why Richard Stallman calls it Swindle
I have an ereader and I've never bought an ebook. The fact that they're priced the same as paperbacks is absurd.
I like to go check out the book I want from the library, and when it gives me the Amazon DRM version I just go search for the epub version online and download that. IIRC, completely legal as I have legal access to the book...somehow.
IDC personally. I remember publishing houses basically forcing the Internet Archive to stop letting people downloading books during the fucking pandemic. They killed fair use, fuckem.
My kindle only knows about library books.
OK, so kindle is off the list of potential readers.
Any recommendations for a good reader that can do epub, PDF, and maybe even html with CSS?
I have a Kobo and it does OK. Nothing special.
You might try one of the larger Kobos to be able to read PDFs comfortably. The little ones might be a bit cramped with most PDFs. For html I've never tried that with Kobo, but a lot of people swear by the Android e-ink tablets from Onyx and Boox, though those are sometimes pricey!
Also saying Kobo. I've got the Kobo Libra Colour and love it.
It's the only ereader I've ever owned but I used the spouse's Nook and Kindle a couple of times in the past and the Kobo kills it. Granted, we're talking about a nearly new release of the Kobo vs a 5+ year old Kindle so it's not a fair comparison.
Because of eInk and auto-sleep, the battery lasts me well over a month of casual reading (~30min before bed) with the occasional multi hour weekend session. Backlight is present and is totally readable in dark areas at <10% brightness; 100% brightness is like a supernova in your face. While the Libra Colour is not specifically a note-taking tablet like a reMarkable, it does just fine for quick notes/todo lists/etc but I did splurge on the ($60) stylus. There's a "notes" application that comes pre-installed.
eBook support for writing in margins (or over text), underline/circling, highlighting, etc is really nice but occasionally the highlight is flakey when trying to highlight the end of a paragraph. That seems to have been specific to certain epubs rather than an "always" thing, but it happens in around 20% of epubs I've used.
EDIT: Notes and highlights you do in an epub (and presumably other formats) are exportable to your PC via Calibre ("Annotations"). I love this because I like to highlight things I find interesting, particularly good quotes, and this gives me an easy way extract them while retaining a reference to which book it was and where exactly in the book it was. Example attached.
I like my kobo
Seconding a Kobo. They have Overdrive (library) integration in the US and their eink and full color options are both great.
I came across this giant comparison table of eReaders last time I was researching an upgrade. While it doesn't list supported file types, anything running an android operating system that lets you download apps for reading from google play would meet your needs.
https://comparisontabl.es/e-readers/
I use my remarkable 2 for that. Pretty expensive compared to other typically ebook readers but I use it to take notes too and it's basically a pen and paper replacement for me.
Boox Go 7 Color II
Install KoReader on it (it runs Android so it's literally just installing a new app) and you've got the best reading experience out there
So they encrypt it via keys they download to protected storage.
I hope their market share will tank after a few public outrages. Make sure you're not one of the victims.
This is why it sucks that physical print media is on the decline, because one could just scan their own PDFs or if possible epubs instead of dealing with this if physical print media was still commonplace.
Are you suggesting that most people would rather scan 400+ pages of a physical book than deal with ebook DRM? Because that sounds like the worst, most tedious option to me. I'm confident most would never consider scanning a viable option.
There's specialized hardware out there since the 80s(?) That does this sort of thing for you. All it takes is one person and now the book is "out". I worked with one for historical texts. Worked really well. It was so cool to see it in action.
A lot of younger people are into physical media. Its cool to see.
Yeah, not to mention the actual advantages that come with the format, such as search, highlighting, multiple bookmarks, notes, etc. Yes, you can do most of these with a physical copy, but not without marking up your original copy or having extra materials on hand. Just way more convenient overall.
That's even assuming the book you want is available and wasn't a super limited printing that you couldn't even begin to afford in the first place.
Have you ever scanned a book? It's an arduous process and I don't think most people would go through all the hassle. The files will also never look as clean as an ebook that was made from scratch. There are plenty of other readers and book stores that aren't at this level of greed, and most libraries have some way to borrow ebooks these days.
I have a pocketbook instead of a Kindle cause of this lol
I think it was 10? years ago when I grudgingly tried a kindle because it was so ridiculously cheap and the people around me loved theirs.
The Kindle was an Ad bomb. After engaging internet only, no TV, no ads, since, 2003? (Whenever xfiles, Buffy, DS9, and Firefly were done.) The kindle hit like a sledgehammer with the native ads system. I returned the failed tablet to Amazon.
I don’t know how people live with that level of ad consumption and I grew up with TV commercials. Libby on iPad mini. It’s fine.
I bought personally second hand kindle and jailbreaked and using koreader no other way, my device enitely always offline
The not-ridiculously-cheap Kindles do not have any ads. Yes it's scummy and gross to sell something with built in ads, but I expect most people who "loved theirs" did not have the cheap ad-supported one, they had the more expensive models. The ad-supported cheap versions are not representative of the general quality or experience of a more common and typical Kindle.
That said, it is still a locked down piece of shit. There are much, much better options. Kobo is great hardware that is as straightforward to "hack" as copying a file into a directory, as it's running a stripped down Linux basically. Kobo with KoReader is all I need.
Boox is even easier than kobo, all you need to do is....nothing at all. It just accepts all formats with no lockdown out of the box.
They were my first choice, but like this user I found they were quite fragile, arguably poorly designed, and either way you'll get no sympathy from customer support. Two different models, both in cases, both screens broken, one within days of receiving it. Very disappointing.
Granted, I torture my devices. I read in bed and almost every morning I find the ereader has fallen on the floor at some point during the night. It takes a pretty beastly device to withstand the abuse I put it through, and my Kobo does that without breaking a sweat. That's why I recommend them.
I built a 3D printed ereader stand that has a RAM mount ball on the other side.
Right now it's sitting atop a manfrotto monopod between my bed and side table. Eventually want to mount it on the wall, but the monopod has worked well enough I don't see too much need to change things up.
With a cheap Bluetooth tiktok ring remote bought online, I've had a very enjoyable reading experience in bed, and if I drift off there's no worry about the device
Interesting I have had the exact opposite experience with my leaf 2. I've had it for almost 3 years now, never in a case, just drop it in my bag loose with everything else. Not a scratch on the screen at all and it just works. But yeah, since I've had literally zero issues I cannot speak to the quality of customer service, I haven't needed them.
Are there any good "open" alternatives to the Paperwhite? I've been drooling over getting an e-ink reader for like a month straight now. https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/kindle-models.html
Most of the current models can be jailbroken, but I'd definitely rather another route. (Not having to deal with checking second-hand market seller's firmware versions etc)
Wait, can't you just load non-Amazon books on the Kindle? I thought this is only about the ability to redistribute books you buy from Amazon.
I mean I'd still sure like to hear if there's a good alternative. But if not, I think you can still use it, just don't buy Amazon books for it. Recommend researching first though.
Edit: I found a company called Kobo. 6 and 7 inch colour models available, as well as 6, 8, 10 inch black and white models. Marketing for the 6" Clara Colour model claims good repairability and iFixit seems to agree. And yes, the colour ones are still e-ink.
You sure can.
I've used calibre in the past.
I just use a USB cable. No extra software required.
If it works it works
I use Calibre with a USB cable. Calibre is great if you do a lot of reading or manage a lot of books.
I second the Kobo. Bought one when my old kindle died, no regrets.
I only read books uploaded through calibre
PocketBook if you want openness and long runtime (book-replacement), it runs plain Linux.
Kobo/Onyx if you want Android flexibility, with possibility to flash LineageOS/PostmarketOS (though they're slow for tablet use).
But personally, if you're not using it to transcript notes (recommendation Remarkable) or want more than merely reading books, i would go with a tablet.
I have a super note, which is an eink tablet, reader, it's quite nice and drm free but a bit pricey.
Pocketbook readers are pretty nice
Bad corporate behaviour is a political problem.
Here we are talking about technological solutions for political problems. Why?
Such is the nature of the hacker spirit, for better or worse.
My kindle is from 2011, got it for free from someone getting rid of it. It's old and dumb as shit and Amazon fortunately doesn't care about it anymore.
Since I got it, it never had an Amazon DRM-ed e-book loaded on it. I intend to keep it that way.
This is why I bought some Chinese android ereader than an amazon Kindle.
So happy I just exported my collection last week and have closed forever my Amazon account the same day.
I must say, escaping Amazon is the significant action I took in my life that was completely inconsequent on my daily living.
How can you export it? I would love to get rid of Amazon for books
I used Calibre with the DeDRM plugin. But I had a very old reader, using the AZW3 format, for anything newer than that, you will also need the KFX input plugin.
But maybe now it's already too late for all this.
Impossible? So cameras and OCR don't work anymore?
If a human can see it, it can be pirated
Few have the resources or time for that. And Google and Internet Archive were both sued for doing that with even public domain/orphaned/out of print material
Amazon is making it impossible for me to consider a Kindle.
Buy a pocketbook and don't log into any accounts. Fuck em. I keep mine airgapped.
I feel like nothing is impossible.
So I had an e-reader once but left it in the drawer because I found reading on my phone (dark mode) was so much more convenient.
I use librera which has tts and I alternate between reading with my eyes and listening to the robot voice narration (eg while driving). Those language packs have come a long way!
calibre ftw always and forever
If you have a kindle you can hack it and load PDFs onto it. The koreader is better anyway.
I need to root my Kindle...
Might be too late. Winterbreak hasn't worked since 5.18.1 and the latest firmware is 5.18.5. If you've been updating your firmware normally, jailbreak has been unviable since around April or May, at least for the 11th and 12th gen devices.
Moved away from amazon and kindle a while back
Just imagine giving money voluntarily to Amazon.
Authors would be foolish to publish on Amazon. Guarantees your book will be forgotten.
What does this mean? What prevents me from OCRing the pages on a video that quickly goes through it?
There are so, so many better ebook readers to choose from. Honestly just a phone with an oled screen is better than kindle.
As much as I hate proprietary shit, Kindle is just the best ebook reader out there. It lasts forever, in terms of both battery life and the device itself, smooth, top notch UI... etc
When I first bought my new Kindle PW, I immediately turned on Airplane mode and never turned it off. I use Calibre & DRM free ebooks and I had 0 issues.
Having used both, i prefer the kobos. They just eat up everything you throw at them.
Just chiming in as another kobo guy. I like it's UI better personally but most importantantly it displays books, holds books, battery lasts forever, and is an eink display - like it's an ereader, I'm not in the percentage of people who can meaningfully discern between the two.
Kobo being theoretically repairable and not supporting a trillion dollar inshittification machine was good enough for me to swap.
Kobo is a subsidiary of Rakutten, its not amazon but as far as i recall they are no saints either. But the devices are easily disconnected from all their BS, so at least some bonus points there.
Kobo with calibre-web sync. Hands down the best ereader I've ever owned.
I’ve been too lazy to set it up until now. Ahahah i guess i’ll look into it this afternoon just for the sake of it. Thanks for the kindly reminder.
Check out some of the newer versions of calibre-web like the Automated one. I would like to switch but I'm waiting to be able to factory reset both ereaders or get new ones.
I bought a kindle when amazon sold them for a special price of 25 Euro. It's a cool device for reading books, but I found their UI horrendously cluttered and filled with "suggestions" instead of focusing on the content I already have. I have since jailbroken the device and am using koreader on the device to read my ebooks transfered as epubs via calibre.
That has the advantage that when I buy DRM-free books in epub format, I am not relying on amazon to properly convert the file to a kindle proprietary format.
Of course it's the best there is, they have billions made on the backs of millions workers, they can and will invest so much money in a product until it eclipses everything else so they have a monopoly on a niche. After all the competitors are starved because no company that only makes ereaders will have a profit so thick to create a competing product, they can introduce things like proper DRM or whatever their heart desires.
Related, Article about how ama. used their unfairly gained wealth to copy successful products, rigged search results, to promote their own brands
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-rigging/