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Comment by 42772827 | Hacker News Reader

There have been several threads about this on HN over the past few days and months. Just to avoid the confusion that seems to follow these, a few notes:

(1) This is the "Download and Transfer" option where Amazon allowed users to select books they had purchased a license to and download them from the Amazon website.

(2) The ability to transfer books from your computer to your Kindle using a USB cable is not affected.

(3) The ability to send non-Amazon-licensed ePubs using the Send to Kindle email feature is not affected.

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> (2) The ability to transfer books from your computer to your Kindle using a USB cable is not affected.

Well, it kinda is. If you can no longer download the books you paid for, you can't upload them over USB. That's what that feature on their website was meant for, in fact.

Of course you can still upload non-Amazon content yes. Which is probably what I'll end up doing. I won't buy books on Amazon anymore if I can't remove the DRM.

You can still download books you paid a license to Amazon for, you just have to use a Wi-Fi or 4G LTE-enabled Kindle to do it.

Which may or may not be possible. For 2G Kindles like the Kindle 2 there is no more 2G service and there is no Wifi. Download and Transfer was the only remaining way to load books on from Amazon without ironically removing the DRM.

Accurate info, edited my comment to specify.

Not suggesting it as a good option but does the Kindle app on Windows and macOS not work with these devices?

Nope. Kindle for PC can't send books to devices.

Elsewhere here and Reddit it seems the trick is to use the Kindle app plus Calibre.

Good luck with it.

Yes, but this is a different method. Using the encrypted books downloaded by the app for PC viewing.

Right now they use an old version of the app though, that can easily be blocked by Amazon. I'm surprised it wasn't.

The good thing about the download option on the web was that some older Kindles don't support any newer DRM methods so it would always work.

It's partially blocked. The old version of Kindle for PC won't let you download books published after Jan. 2023.

Assuming that you have Wi-fi and that your Kindle is compatible with it. Someone with a hardwired-only connection, an older Kindle that doesn't support Wi-fi at all, or one that doesn't support WPA3 will be stymied.

(The models that don't support Wi-fi at all originally had cellular service for wirelessly downloading books, but that was sunset a few years ago. So there will be literally no way to copy new books to those devices anymore.)

Yeah and Amazon stopped supporting those kindles too. My Kindle 4th gen no longer connects to the hive even with WiFi. It's not a cellular model (and I think they had dropped that option by then anyway). It's still the old non-touch UI though.

Apparently it needs to be "up to date" but because Amazon no longer publishes firmware updates, it is not.

Speaking as someone who’s pretty happy with his still-working DX — and values hardware longevity — this is half the issue precisely.

(the other half of course being what happens when material is pulled when it’s only cloud-resident and vendor administered)

“Just” - my gen 2 kindle only has 2G connectivity so this removal effectively renders it unable to get Amazon-purchased books in any way. “Just” implies buying an entirely new kindle “just because”.

I mean, you’re not wrong, but Woot has them on sale for ~$30 fairly often. Your Gen 2 is about sixteen years old at this point.

That’s $30 that I shouldn’t have to spend. (And I mean, no worries, I won’t, I’ve had enough with Amazon rendering perfectly good kindles obsolete, and I can get plenty of books for free elsewhere - still, it’s not a choice I should have to make just so Amazon can save the cost of what’s essentially an app to check your permissions and set up a pre signed s3 download link for you).

Yes but not over USB of course. Another thing that bothers me about that, is that Amazon could block my account for whatever reason and I'd lose access to all my content. Of course this goes for many such services. Like Apple's app store, google play, steam, microsoft store (not like anyone ever uses that lol), content bought on itunes etc.

Or their app, on any platform where you can get access to its file store (e.g. Android, Windows, macOS...).

This is far worse for me than the other possible interpretation - that you could download books but not transfer them. I buy Amazon e-books to read them on other e-readers, but now it looks like I can't.

That’s the bottom line. Kindle books will now be fully locked into the Kindle ecosystem and if Amazon decides to take back something you’ve “purchased,” you’ll have no recourse. I’m done purchasing ebooks from Amazon because of this.

TIL that Kobo integrates with libraries, that means you can download and read library ebooks on your Kobo.

yep, that's exactly why I got a Kobo, so much better

Kobo is owned by Rakuten who used to own Overdrive/Libby.

Kindle does this too via Libby.

Only in the U.S.

Is Libby available elsewhere?

Yes. Overdrive and Libby are available elsewhere.

I'm using a library card outside of the U.S. with Libby and send all my loans to my Kindle via amazon.de, works fine

Is it a U.S library card? Or a library card from outside the U.S (e.g., a German one)? That's not clear from how you wrote it. I believe it's a U.S library only thing. Libby's own FAQ says it's U.S only but perhaps they just haven't updated it.

It's a German library card

Yes but in their US integration, it's actually a bit more glitchy than Kindle especially if you're juggling multiple library cards. You can still make it work, and I do bother with that because my Kobo is such a better device than my Kindle, but it's more of a headache than using Libby to send to Kindle.

Well yes, Amazon wants you to buy kindles.

It's rather pushing me away from kindle books because of they will be restricted. I am more likely to get ebooks from other sources and read them in my kindle.

They wish to increase sale of Kindles, but will end up decreasing sale of Kindle ebooks.

my solution is to buy a basic kindle with wifi and use that to download the books, then transfer them to calibre directly from the kindle

I was reading a Reddit thread on this, and not a single person there understood this. It isn’t good news, but it’s being severely misinterpreted.

>I was reading a Reddit thread on this, and not a single person there understood this

were you surprised by this revelation?

kek

Thanks. I feel like the commentary and “news blogs” around this have been very confusing.

I like my Kindle because it was cheap (nobody can beat that price) but I've never bought a book from Amazon nor do I plan to.

If they aren't interfering with (2) Amazon can do what it wants.

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