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Comment by vaughands | Hacker News Reader

Just a small note: it is not possible to unDRM books published post 2023 at this time. Amazon has changed their DRM scheme.

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Don't they offer older DRM schemes for older devices? Surely you do not have to update your kindle (especially if it is older) to read newly published books?

Yes, and you can for now still get AZW3 files (that can be unDRMed) through Download for USB transfer if you have a registered Kindle even if it's new enough to handle their new KFX format.

What is broken is that you can't use Kindle for PC/Mac to get AZW3 copies of books published on or after Jan. 3rd 2023 as it only lets you download with the latest version. As someone without a Kindle (and I'm certainly not buying one now) any new Kindle books would be locked down.

Holy crap, this is news to me.

The only reason I chose Kindle over competitors was so that I could crack, and therefore own, the books I bought.

I guess I'll libgen it up now, and order deadtree from non-Amazon stores to support the authors.

You can still break the DRM on books with Adobe DRM (like that used by Google Play books) or Kobo (they have their own DRM but also offer Adobe versions).

You do, with updates issued back to the Paperwhite 1st gen. DX owners were issued a $100 trade-up credit last year.

How's that "not possible to unDRM" thing works? The reader able to decipher the content to show it on screen means that everything it needs to decipher content is inside the reader, and can be extracted.

It needs to be cracked first, which hasn't happened yet.

Screenshots + OCR will always be possible.

You could always use a quill and ink too.

Or even simpler, just memorize the book.

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