Comment on Amazon upsets ebook lovers by ending support for old Kindle devices
definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
One wonders whether these old devices just don’t have enough telemetry built in for Amazon’s liking.
I think it’s likely more about DRM.
Old Kindles are incompatible with Amazon’s .kfx format ebooks and newer, stronger DRM. With an old Kindle, it was trivially easy to rip Kindle books to retail-quality epubs.
With these devices ceasing to work with Kindle books starting next month, that loophole closes.
Also, old Kindles will continue to work with already-downloaded Kindle books and DRM-free books, but new files can only be added by USB cable, not using Amazon’s services.
The newer DRM also has working exploits, but it’s not nearly as easy, and they’ve indirectly hinted that one of the remaining methods may be closing soon. But, fundamentally, static media DRM (books, music, movies) is inherently beatable; the full content gets displayed to the user, so it can be intercepted and ripped. Worst case, someone will make a screen-capture app that uses perfect OCR to recreate the book. That’s already a solved problem, basically, it’s just horribly inefficient.
So Amazon will continue to play whack-a-mole, turning millions of devices into e-waste, without even causing a blip for book pirates and those needing format shifting for accessibility.
With an old Kindle, it was trivially easy to rip Kindle books to retail-quality epubs.
Heh, yes. The encryption key for their old DRM was derivated from the Kindle’s serial number. Wanted to crack your library? Go to the webpage, download them all there (yes, that’s now blocked, too) open them all in calibre and use a plugin to deactivate the DRM (trivially to find back then). Enter your serial number and you’ve freed your whole library.
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 7 hours ago
Ebooks are to me like music and movies/TV shows. I pirate first, and if I like it, I go back and pay. But the critical thing to remember is that discovery is the gateway. They want to act like it’s the '90s, and you have to pay $20 for a CD to find out if anything but the one track played on the radio was any good.
Must suck that people know how to try something on for size before making a purchase. That used to be common at things called “shopping malls.”