I wonder how long before this US administration makes "copyright infringement" a felony...
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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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And then copyrights all pending legislation...
The optimist in me says they're doing this to avoid piracy.
The pessimist in me says they're doing this so they can purge books because of the Trump administration.
Either way, I can't say I'm a fan.
Por que no Los dos?
You will own nothing and like it!
The optimist in me says they’re doing this to avoid piracy.
Won’t pirates just buy their source copies on a different platform, so now Amazon loses the original sale as well?
The "original sale" in that case is not even pennies. So... not sure why amazon would care?
Also: Many smaller authors basically depend on kindle because of the ease of use of the web portal and incentives to do larger discounts for their audiences. One of my favorite guilty pleasures has talked about exactly this (although he IS investigating alternatives).
And, much like with video games: The Sandersons of the world will be pirated. MAYBE a Dalglish will be too. But nobody cares enough to go after a Samphire or Shel.
both seem just as terrible to me
Reminder that piracy is a service issue.
100%. I have always pirated, but the amount of things I pirated went way, way down when Netflix had a decent library of things to watch and was affordably priced.
I stopped pirating altogether thanks to Spotify, Netflix and Steam.
But now I've cancelled Netflix and I have a 24 TB NAS filled with movies
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Absurd. Glad I have a Kobo.
Yep. Not to gloat, but I never touched Amazon's ebook marketplace.
My current e-reader is a second-hand Kindle that has a permanent message asking if I would just please connect to a WiFi network just one time just for a moment PLEEEEEASE.
I get my books from libgen, Gutenberg, or Kobo, and keep them on my computer. They're organized in Calibre, and I transfer them over on a USB cable.
I know I switched ages ago but I've never managed to port my existing library of ebooks off the kindle
I switched to Kobo a few years and couldn't be happier. I hated supporting Amazon.
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That's why I avoided Kindle and picked a Kobo. Sure you can remove DRMs from the books you've bought. But at some point they could block you from doing that. They can change anything at anytime and there's nothing you can do about it.
That is no different than Kobo. Thus far, Rakuten have been pretty good about not caring more than the bare minimum. But there is nothing stopping them from doing the same bullshit with firmware updates to the kobos and drm updates to the store and apps.
I am finally migrating from kindle to kobo (tried kindle to boox last year and it was bad...) but I am under no illusions that I am just hoping one company is better than another. I mean, the other is Amazon so it is a pretty safe bet. But still.
Well there's a key difference, Kobo allows epub. I don't think they could legally remove it from devices already on the market?
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This is why you never connect your kindle to the internet. Calibre forever
This doesn't track.
To pull my books into calibre, I need to first download them onto the Kindle, which requires wifi.
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Ugh, thanks for the warning. Time for me to download and de-drm all my old kindle books and never again buy anymore.
Try this python script: https://github.com/Jedi425/BulkKindleUSBDownloader
Source: https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/114002221924654676
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I sure am glad I got a Kobo for myself for Xmas and ripped all my books to it. Guess I'll be recycling my Kindle for good.
I just got a Kobo color (don't recommend the color feature; no book is ever going to use it except the red-letter Bible and House of Leaves) and gifted the old Kindle to a friend. I e-reader is an awesome gift actually because for a lot of people it's something they would never evenly in years take a chance on, but that they would love it if they tried.
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Its possible to buy DRM free ebooks from itch.io and it is where I get everything that I can.
Adding on to this that Barnes and Noble sells DRMed ePUB files that are relatively easy to strip DRM from using Calibre.
So if you can't find a book anywhere else, at least they don't use a proprietary format and still allow you to download your books using their PC software.
I was a semi-early adopter in the ebook space and I have refused to get onboard with the kindle ecosystem from the start. There's no reason for their proprietary format other than complete control over things they pretend to sell you. Amazon is also the Walmart of books and uses their position to browbeat publishers and authors into taking smaller cuts of sales.
One of my friends got a book published and I waited and waited for it to be available anywhere else. Eventually just bought what was probably a print on demand copy from Amazon because that's the only place his publisher sold books. I never buy physical books anymore but I'd rather do that than buy a kindle book.
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resist.
Stop buying whatever it is that Amazon/Meta/Google/Etc sell. They will not stand for you. They will not respect you.
At some points, it may seem like they changed and that they are now good. They are not. They will never be. Resist them.
You know I am starting to think going to the library is a better idea than buying their products. You can literally just walk in.
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The only surprising thing about this is that the functionality existed in the first place.
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This is what the class war looks like in nuts and bolts...
Most idiots are not even aware of the original tragedy of the commons so they are doomed to be degraded into owning nothing and being happy to pay monthly fee to exist without as much as an objection.
After all, a normie got nothing to hide!
Knew this would happen
I'm glad I started converting all my amazon books long ago. When I finally got a Kobo last month, there were no issues since the work was done.
If only there were some way to get books to read in a format where a billionaire's trillion dollar company can't gatekeep them.
Some sort of physical product, perhaps one made out of trees?
If only there was a library for geniuses where I can read in a format that billionaires aren't able to gatekeep what I read on my e-ink device.
Some sort of website, perhaps one on the internet?
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I read somwhere how to solve this
1 - factory reset
2 - deactivate wifi for life
3 - upload books with calibre
This will wipe out any content you have, as i understand
I upload books with Calibre and never had to reset anything. It’s great.
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Makes it harder to pirate or share, so more profit with the benefit of censorship. They could make updates to material on the fly if they wanted. Assuming you need an Internet connection, no privacy and limits where you can read. It's hard because you can't avoid things like AWS but you can stop paying them directly. Sadly, even now, it's hard to convince people to give up on Amazon and similar corps.
I rarely use my Paperwhite Signature since I like my Boox Nova 2 more. The Kindle is mostly just for the serial now to strip DRM via Calibre.
My wife recently joked that it’s my “Kindle Paperweight.” With this announcement it’s no longer a joke. I doubt I’ll buy anymore books from Amazon.
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I'm quite glad that I never bought fully into Kindle/Nook/Kobo and instead went with an eInk Android tablet.
Kobo connected to calibre web is the ultimate freedom/privacy ereader
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The article literally says you will still be able to push books via Calibre etc, but won't be able to download books into Kindle from PC.
Example: If you don't have a WiFi at home, there is an option to connect Kindle via USB to your ethernet connected PC and download books from Amazon that way.
And this option is going away, as most people have WiFi.
Anywho, fuck Amazon (for other things, but not this one).
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I’m guessing audible will follow soon after.
