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Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

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A_D_E_P_T

Time to back up your ebook libraries.

Step one: Download Calibre - https://calibre-ebook.com

Step two: Install Alf's DRM removal tools for Kindle bought ebooks https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com

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Alf no longer updates his repo[0], best to switch to noDRM's fork[1]

[0]: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools

[1]: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

I fully support this but at the same time there's something wrong with how technologists use more technology whenever technology goes bad.

Like if you're not a computer person how are you supposed to use any of this stuff without being bombarded with ads or getting fleeced by dark patterns.

What would you propose doing instead? I don't see any other effective method of handling it (and no, I don't count "whine to a nameless underpaid drone working for a named overpaid drone that was assigned by one of the mega-parties to oversee your territory" as an effective option).

I wouldn’t be surprised if eBay and Amazon refused to sell the old versions.

For those who aren’t aware what you’re referring to: in 2021, after the Dr. Seuss estate decided to stop publishing several books due to of‐their‐time stereotypes, eBay chose to also prohibit sales of those books on its platform.

Can we get a link or two? It's not that I doubt your words, but I'd like to forward this to a couple of friends whom I have been discussing the Dahl's story with.

TIA

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-seuss-books-deemed-offensive...

Thanks!

> if you're not a computer person how are you supposed to use any of this stuff

You're not.

It's perfectly fine if only we get access to this stuff. We warned them. We all warned them about DRM, computer freedom, corporate exploitation. They didn't understand, they didn't care. Leave them to it. Would be nice if we could save everyone but we're all better off trying to secure our own freedoms.

It's an arms race, that's just how competing interests work.

And in the future, don’t buy customer‐hostile, DRM‐encumbered media. Use your money to support those publishers who sell DRM‐free ebooks instead, so that you can preserve multiple revisions of the digital books you pay for without the need for arcane technical tools.

That will diminish the number of books one gets to read though, personally I'd rather rip a drm-ed ebook than not reading it at all out of ideological reasons.

Buy a physical book, or there's always Genesis library. If you bought the ebook, that even saves you having to bypass the DRM to back it up.

I read 27 books last year, mostly relatively short novels. At that speed, I’m not going to work through my backlog of public domain classics before I'm dead in a few decades. Particularly since copyrights have started expiring in the US again at a rate of one year’s worth per year.

It's great that works for you. Some people will want to read books though that are not public domain.

Yes, I mentioned DRM‐free publishers for that reason. Tor, for example, has a no‐DRM policy and remains a big player in [copyrighted] fantasy.

Some people will still want to read ebooks that aren’t available DRM‐free from anywhere. I don’t expect to convert everyone to my way of thinking. But by advocating DRM‐free media, especially in scenarios like this where publishers use their power in ways people don’t like, I hope to convince some people who wouldn’t have thought about it otherwise.

And, too, it’s like free software. People can benefit greatly from using some free software some of the time, even if they never desire to use all free software all of the time. People who purchase some of their books DRM‐free improve the state of the industry even if they don’t have 100% devotion to DRM‐free media.

For me, it will probably diminish the number of ebooks I buy, not the number of ebooks I read.

But since books are not fungible, it might still reduce the quality of the books you read. There is almost always a real cost boycotting something, otherwise you would not have considered it in the first place. It's fine to decide that that cost is worth paying.

Managing an mp3 file on a local disk is becoming arcane knowledge.

Or buy the physical version. Buy it now for anything you want to be able to read in its original form.

Beware print on demand books, those might be the new woke versions

You don't get any trouble from Amazon for using Alf?

Don't put the Alfred version back on your Kindle. That one stays local on your hard drive.

For years they didn’t seem to care that the DRM was broken. These days though, they’ve stepped up and the latest version hasn’t been broken yet. There are some less than idea workarounds (like getting books in older versions with crappier typography). I periodically check in on the DeDRM tools hoping that KFX has been totally broken, but that hasn’t happened yet.

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