Comment by 39896880 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 39896880 | Hacker News Reader

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The title and article is confusing. It says this:

"they are finding out that the new [Kindle] models are mysteriously missing the download and transfer via USB option for purchased ebooks from the content page at Amazon."

The option to download and transfer via USB option is on Amazon.com website, and doesn't appear to be related to the new Kindles at all. So it's not clear to me what the new Kindles themselves are missing. I have a new Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition that was just released, and I have books that I "acquired" (the word Amazon uses on their website) from Amazon on September 5 and September 16. I have the option to download and transfer them via USB on the website.

Can anyone clarify what option has actually been removed?

When you select download and transfer via USB, it asks you which kindle to prepare the file for. I would presume that the new kindles aren't allowed to do this and so they're just not in the list of available targets for the action.

It was only a matter of time as caliber has made this a very popular way of stripping the DRM.

The funny thing for me is that this would force me out of the Amazon ecosystem. I've purchased hundreds of Kindle books, but I read them as EPUBs on my Boox. If I can't back up my purchases as EPUBs then I'm not going to buy from that vendor.

I hope Amazon knows what they're doing, I suspect that as always fears of piracy grossly outweigh the actual financial impact of piracy. Moreover attempts to battle piracy rarely seem to inhibit the pirates.

It’s not about piracy, it’s about keeping you inside the “flywheels” created by the interlocking hardware and services.

Thank you! I don't use this option, because I buy books and then pirate them elsewhere as a backup. So long as Calibre keeps updating to support new Kindle devices, I guess I'm set, though I understand why people would be concerned with this feature disappearing.

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