I get my books for my used Kindle off Libby because I have no expectation of ownership and I don’t want to give Amazon the satisfaction of my money.
Thanks for the heads-up. I’m downloading all of mine and finally making a Calibre library.
Get an old Kindle. The new ones make it hard for you to connect to your computer. They require you to download a “convenient” piece of software meant to allow you to transfer files. But conveniently it also makes it so you can’t transfer files easily without it.
Even just a couple of years back you could plug in your Kindle to your computer through a USB and just drag and drop files. It only reads the proprietary .mobi format but Calibre, an excellent piece of software, will automatically convert .epub files to .mobi for you and it has a great algorithm.
Then all you gotta do is look up whatever you want on libgen and for the price of one kindle you can have a virtually infinite library of books.
I’ve actually had my first generation Kindle for about ~14 years now and my newer one for about ~3 years. I won’t ever buy a new one, but the ones from ~3 years ago are excellent pieces of hardware.
You just have to disconnect it from the internet and never turn on the wifi. If you do, Amazon will fuck with your settings and make your life difficult.
Basically, if you’re on a budget a used Kindle from ~3 years ago is a great choice in my opinion. If you want something new, stay far away from Amazon.
Good news is that there are alternative ways to download these books from Amazon for backup purposes. It’s not as straightforward but it’s doable.
That said I will be refusing to buy from any storefront that doesn’t offer a way to download my books. Even adobe digital editions is a viable alternative.
Just pirate them at this point instead of giving your money to predatory companies lol
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?
Amazon will come into your house to take your digital copies of books you paid for (e.g. when they did that with 1984). No reason to think they wouldn’t take physical books after they’ve violated your digital sovereignty - it is only a question of if that were to ever become a viable option for them.
I recommend actually listening to some authors.
The “gatekeeping” back in the days before ebooks was infinitely worse than it is now. These days? Basically anyone who can fill out a webform can publish a kindle book. And other stores aren’t much harder. And those ebooks can be sold indefinitely.
Contrast that with needing to find a publisher who is willing to allocate some of their limited production time to you. And then hope that Borders et al are willing to put you on the shelf. And then realize that you are never getting another penny for that book because the first MMPB run ran out and you aren’t getting a second because you didn’t sell enough to justify it.
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?
While I don’t disagree, I still think using a Kindle device is stupid.
No reason that they can’t just go ‘oh we didn’t sell those books, we should clean up all that unauthorized content’ at some point in the future.
Buy something that’s not made by Amazon, even if it costs a bit more or has worse features, because well, they’re not to be trusted.
(Or custom non-connected firmware if that’s a thing for Kindles. Never really looked so no idea if that’s a thing.)
No reason that they can’t just go ‘oh we didn’t sell those books, we should clean up all that unauthorized content’ at some point in the future.
On our personal devices? That’s illegal where I am and I doubt they even have the capability to do that currently, anyway
Or custom non-connected firmware
Just don’t connect to the Internet and use Calibre to manage your library, there’s no need for custom firmware
I have both. My kindle’s old and I just keep it permanently on airplane mode and sideload it.
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.
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
Por que no Los dos?
You will own nothing and like it!
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.
I have a kindle, but I never buy my books at Amazon. I just but them elsewhere, de-DRM then on calibration and copy them in the kindle. Not as comfortable, but okay for.me.
You mixed up step 2, it’s supposed to be “Install KoReader”.
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?
Kobo allows epub
Kindle doesn’t? Mines 2 years old but my co worker got one for Xmas and theirs loads the epub I sent them no problem at all
Honestly the Kobo is better as a physical device imo but the Kindle is perfectly simple to commit crimes on if you have Calibre
And Kindle supports mobi files? It is just that those tend to get preprocessed into azw or the other one files. Much like Kobo tends to work best if you preprocess those epubs into kepubs.
The issue is that Amazon has repeatedly changed their mobi variants to fight against de-drm tools as well as increasingly locking down their apps and even devices to make it harder to get data off (and now on) to them.
There is absolutely nothing stopping Rakuten from doing the exact same with Kobo. And people should be aware of that rather than just stanning their favorite company.
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 never connect the Libra to any network, how can they do anything? I did actually install some updates since there were a few annoying bugs, but I just downloaded the firmware on the pc from https://pgaskin.net/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html and updated it offline. Now all those bugs seem fixed and poor Kobo still hasn’t seen the interwebs
Ah, my deepest apologies. I was not aware there was absolutely no issue or threat to anyone because you didn’t connect a kindle to the network either.
there is nothing stopping them
how can they do anything?
The only surprising thing about this is that the functionality existed in the first place.
early models didn’t have wifi, only usb or cellular from one provider or another–and those models’ 3g connectivity was killed off years ago.
this will obsolete all the non-wifi kindles still in use.
You can still use calibre to sideload onto them. Where you get the books is another issue.
So it just obsoletes them for the model users that buy ebooks from Amazon and put them on their Amazon device without conversion in between. Even though this user group should be Amazon’s favourites.
lol, lmao even.
The specific devices impacted by this are pretty old (I think only the first and second gen ones? So at latest 2009), so honestly I doubt they’re very worried about it.
It’s the old bait and switch, they had to have this feature to build initial trust in ebooks.
… a 17 year bait and switch (or however long Kindles have been around for)?
Amazon spent 20 years being unprofitable on purpose. You think they don’t have long term strategies?
Profitability as reported by companies, especially tech companies, is complex. Also understand that most of that 20 years (assuming that is an accurate statement) was the era of venture capitalism and infinite funding.
But yes. Amazon did spend decades inventing and taking over e-commerce.
But that is not what you described. You described a “bait and switch” which implies that they designed the old keyboard kindles with built in wikipedia support as some long con to get around the eventual invention of a de-drm plugin for the eventually invented Calibre library manager.
The reality is that this is just a case of locking down walled gardens to take advantage of market share. Everyone is doing it. It isn’t some deep conspiracy and is more just the logical end result of a walled garden with large market share.
I’m sad that the Kindle Oasis doesn’t get a new model. Mine has served me well for the past few years, but it’s starting to show its age.
I felt the same about my Voyage, but I’ve resolved to move to kobo once it bites the dust.
I jumped from the Voyage to the Paperwhite when they switched to USB-C and added a warmth slider for the screen. It’s really nice, especially with an origami case (even if that case isn’t as nice as the origami case for the Voyage).
A physical (or physical-ish) button is pretty much my main driver. I also like the little bit more freedom I’d have with a kobo.
Yeah, I do wish they hadn’t killed the pressure button. But I tend to swipe anyway.
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.
I bought a Kindle so I can pirate all my books. Am I resisting?
At least install KoReader before they find a way to firmware-lock the device.
Using calibre to just upload books directly.
I’ll check out KoReader. Never heard of it.
You could have made a better choice, I suppose. And some authors/editors do deserve the money.
Pirating is not necessarily resisting. Are you taking money from authors who really really need it? Or are you taking money from rich CEOs who are worsening the environment, ruining future generations, slaving, etc?
Ya good point.
Seems like I’m doing it backwards lol
Giving money to Amazon for the hardware and then stealing from the authors.
I should do some more research before buying my next ebook reader.
Pirate the books, then donate the purchase price directly to the authors to bypass the middleman.
I’m waiting for them to get rid of the send-to-kindle email thing to receive books from calibre. I’m surprised it has survived for this long. I’ve wanted to try out a kobo but can’t justify it cause my 10+ year old kindle still works perfectly fine for reading. But once they remove that feature or drop support for my device, it’s kobo time.
Check out boox for a properly open(-ish) platform, it’s android based.
Apparently Boox has been a stomping all over the GPL licensing terms. You can find a lot of info on it, but here is a non-reddit link: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=277431
That’s why I don’t download or purchase ebooks from Amazon, but only get them from places I can download a non-DRM’d copy. I’m not looking to break any laws, but if I pay for it, I want to be able to have it whenever I want even when the Internet is down. Recently a buddy gave me his old blu-ray juke box, and now I’m doing the same thing with my favorite movies as well. And building a home lab. It’s finally time I decreased (not completely ended) my reliance on the cloud, given the shit show my nation collectively voted for.
My wife borrows a lot of ebooks from our library, which are delivered to a kindle through Amazon. I’ve used this USB download option to remove the DRM from some of those borrowed books. Guess I’ll have to figure out a new approach now…
I think it’s worth noting that the bigger issue here might not be the drm, but the access Amazon has into your device. Regardless if you can download ‘another’ version of the book or not (that is something you can find out for yourself relatively quickly) there is no reason it should be considered ok for the company to insist that it can connect to a device you own and modify the contents of it. Even with ownership of the books being a topic, certainly there should be little questions of whether you own the device, and along with that being able to control access to it.
Surely there is something in the user agreement that states accessing the download functionality also grants Amazon permission to go in and claw back things they’ve uploaded to the device, but i think that should be at least half the argument. Restrict whatever they want up front, I’ve downloaded it to my device and they consider that a fair exchange for my money, but to then say they screwed up on their end so they’re taking it back (assumedly without giving up the money they made as part of the agreement) is where things should be breaking.
Holy cow i just looked up a blue ray “jukebox” used the sony 400 disc one is like $900. That’s fucking crazy.
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.
I just tried Calibre hoping it would help me get the metadata in my library in order… But maybe I am stupid, but I don’t understand the purpose of this software. It apparently can’t choose the MTP device as your library, only a folder on your computer? And only push the books onto the reader? I don’t get how that’s massively different from just copypasting the files into the reader. Is the main point convenient metadata editing?..
It’s like iTunes, but for books.
That barely tells me anything because I could never afford Apple tech :/ But from what I read, Apple devices genuinely need an external piece of software to even upload anything there rather than you just copypasting the files, so idk how fair of a comparison it is.
Meta data manager, file organiser by metadata, upload a subset to your device, sync device metadata back to your library, built-in reader, file format conversion, file editing.
It’s a whole suite really.
It’s a library manager, like iTunes for music, or Plex for movies, Google Photos/Picasa for photos/images . You pick a spot for you library locally, and then your local lib is a jump off point to load in on to any reader device you want. It will understand what device you are pushing it to, and automagically convert it (like Amazon’s proprietary format to mobi or epub 😜 !) to supported file-types. If you are into that kind of stuff, you could run it as a service on your network, and have all that fancy BYO cloud ebook solution.
The big difference with just copy-pasting is that you have a full library somewhere locally, and you can pick and choose what you load up on your reader. For me and maybe you, those lists are pretty close to identical, but what if you have a very large collection? And what if i just had to RMA my Libra? One click and a couple minutes after i receive my replacement, all of my books and reading progress will be synced back. If you had put your lib on the device itself, you would have had to rebuild it from scratch.
TLDR: Collection Management/Self Host and auto-convert are the big plusses.
did that a couple of days ago thankfully. goodbye amazon, you were never loved.
