this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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On February 26th, Kindle customers will lose the ability to download eBook purchases directly to their PC. If you want to switch to a rival eReader brand in the future, I suggest that you use the soon-to-be discontinued "Download and Transfer via USB" feature to archive your Kindle library.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Wait, people who have Kindles buy their books from Amazon?

I always just got mine from a certain private mouse tracker.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (5 children)

That was amusingly well timed:

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I've jailbroken every Kindle fire I've ever owned, is this something new?

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[–] Flatfire 4 points 1 day ago

I wonder if this is at all related to the EU changes to eBook DRM standards, where the standard Kindle Adobe DRM isn't compliant

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

To all the people who are saying "I'll just pirate books," you are aware you can buy eBooks from places that aren't Amazon, right?

Have a look at https://bookshop.org/ebooks You can buy books/eBooks and support local bookstores that aren't Barnes & Nobles or Amazon.

I'd suggest you download/archive your Kindle books and then buy your eBooks from elsewhere. You can still load those onto your Kindle.

Saying "I'm going to pirate because one specific website is changing its policy soon," is pretty stupid.

EDIT: Turns out I was wrong about bookshop.org, you actually can't load their eBooks into a Kindle. You need their app since they have their own DRM. Looks like I got all worked up about something without looking it up first.

See: https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Addendum: that specific site is dog shit. Imagine thinking you just bought an ebook but instead you bought a lease to some DRM shit that only works on their app.

EPUB or GTFO.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

I hear you saying that, but the books I want to buy are never on those sites.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago (10 children)

reMarkable, PineNote, Bookeen, etc...

I'm not saying anybody deserve to be mistreated ... but come on, at this point if you buy something from Amazon it's Stockholm syndrome. Just do NOT. It's that easy.

F*ck Bezos and other billionaires. Stop making them even richer from your pain. Stop your mind from being literally enslaved!

[–] major_jellyfish 18 points 2 days ago (6 children)

There is a whole community of people out there who will pretty much refuse to buy brand new electronics. And thats for very obvious and valid reasons.

Kindles can be found for dirt cheap if not free 2nd hand. And so many users have a kindle for this reason. Myself included. Id never throw out or discard an electronic device that continues to work. For the same obvious reasons as why i dont buy new ones.

And so this information is super relevant and important to users like me. Regardless of how much people like you might be convinced that "we had it coming" or whatever.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (9 children)

I am sorry, what?

Turn on PC or phone. Download ebook from torrent site. Enjoy.

It's not difficult to switch?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Try explaining how to do that to your non-techie relatives, especially the older ones who like reading. Yes, this makes is more difficult to switch.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oddly enough, pirated ebooks are a malware minefield. And hard to find.

That said, I have about 8000.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Where are you going to that they are a malware issue?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago (15 children)

It eludes me how people pay to 'buy' something that they cannot download in the first place. If I don't have it as a file on my computer, I don't own it. You wouldn't pay to 'buy' a physical item if that meant only being able to look at it at the store, without the ability to take it home and do whatever you want with it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago

If buying is not owning…

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I use a library app called Libby to read non torrented books. But I’m not sure if it’s available on the kindle. It’s good to support your local library, even if it’s only digitally

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Libby is able to sync with your kindle, and then you just choose "send to Kindle" on your phone when checking a book out and the book will appear in your Kindle library.

https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6017.htm

If you have a Kindle, this is 100% the best way to read books.

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 3 days ago (11 children)

thus I have my personal library backed up on calibre. Wonderful software that's been around for twenty fiveish years.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

In the meantime, hackers have just released a new jailbreak and made it a more open platform than ever :^)

[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)
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[–] [email protected] 56 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'll continue pirating, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

PSA: “Archiving” is a general legal-neutral and safe term you can use with co-workers.

Wether i am also a pirate one may speculate but i am always an archivist.

[–] stardust 24 points 2 days ago

Turns out it really is archiving when government decides to go renegade and start deleting everything they disagree with or wipe from history. Archive away beautiful data horders.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

library genesis exists, people. anna's archive, anyone?

digital drm is the one fucking thing they push onto us that we don't actually have to fucking deal with. thanks to our team of ~~rippers and crackers~~ people who hate this system.

leave amazon. leave netflix. leave whatever fucking streaming service you subscribe to, and stop being sensitive about rich people's money.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If it's alright for Facebook, it's alright for me. Yoho

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

I'm really glad that I downloaded my entire Kindle library a month ago, and converted it all to either CBZ or Epub.

Fuck Bezos.

One tip for the audiobook-fans: Download your Audible books while you still can. It's only a matter of time before Bezos locks those downloads too. Libation will help liberate your library into DRM-free files.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Well, you should not use Amazon anything. Valuable lesson learned.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I resisted eBooks for years, preferring physical books from the library or new/second hand stores. I got gifted a Kindle from a well meaning relative a few years ago and I have a small collection on there, mainly built up when I was commuting.

This news came just as I am backing up my own data, moving off of the big name Cloud services and going back to open source software. (In confession the convenience of M365 etc won me over so the last 10 or so years I fell into the trap!)

Anyway needless to say my 40(ish) Kindle books quickly got downloaded and archived this week. Thanks to Calibre I've also fixed the covers to a book series that suddenly got updated to an awful 'new hip' version! :)

I'm now intrigued about repurposing the Kindle hardware as it still works and I don't want it to go to waste, but with this and other recent events I'm done personally proving data or money to these big corporate companies as much as I possibly can.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

ebooks have managed to pull the same scam that game developers pulled on gamers 20 years ago.

"ebooks will be cheaper! and with the fact that we wont have to pay for printing, shipping, storage, etc, You'll pay a lower price while the author/publisher still receive more money than they would have from the physical book! its a win/win for everyone!"

aaaand then as soon as they were accepted ebook prices became the same (or near enough) price as the physical version, and in a few rare cases, even more expensive. Resulting in the massive promised profits for publishers, and maybe authors, but no gain but lots of demerits (like obnoxious drm, and shit like amazon going onto your device to delete it cause they lost the rights or something, which has happened) for end users/readers

And thats first party, brand new books.

There is no second hand market for ebooks, like there is from physical. Si theres no browsing a place like Half Price Booked or whatever to find something that isnt in your normal wheel house but thanks to being pre-owed, its cheap enough to roll the dice on.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Joke's on them, I get all my books from Z-Library anyhow.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My solution was to just redownload all my books from z-lib after I bought them already.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Am I an idiot for enjoying my Kindle Paperwhite as an eReader, while at the same time never actually buying books from Amazon?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Locked-in platform closing the door. How surprising.

Accepting DRM in the first place is the problem. Hard to avoid, but still. I just got a boox; great value, can't use adobe DRM. Didn't have any problem there. Of course, money is going everywhere except big "publishers", but that's hardly an issue; they choose their business model, I choose my customer model.

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