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Comment by pmarreck | Hacker News Reader

I own Kindles and I have bought a lot of ebook content from the Amazon store over the years but they don't seem to realize that the more restrictions they put in place, the more they are incentivizing just someone going to the effort to decrypt/de-DRM everything to epub and shoving it into a Kobo (or apple's Books.app, or comic book reader, or anything else that reads the ebook or comic book formats)

...Which is exactly what I ended up doing. Decrypting 100% of my Kindle purchases so I can use them how I please, and using z-library when I was too lazy to even do so.

Apple understood this when the first iPod came out. Offer a better service, not shinier handcuffs.

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>Apple understood this when the first iPod came out. Offer a better service, not shinier handcuffs.

It's a shame they haven't tried to pressure the publishers into dropping DRM for books.

The DRM used by Apple's bookstore is entirely limited to Apple's own apps on its own devices. You can't even read the books in a web browser.

Which is why I try to decrypt everything I purchase, or obtain a decrypted version after purchase. (The only grey-area exception is if I own the physical copy of the book, I consider it ethical to download the ebook, but this is of course debatable to a degree)

I'm not trying to screw over authors and publishers, I just want to use my purchased content how I please.

They could easily do what Apple did and leave things un-DRM'd but digitally-signed as having been purchased by someone.

Buying hard copies of a book and the pirating the DRM-free digital version is completely acceptable imo - as long as you buy the hard copy in a bookshop and not online ilk like Amazon. Most local bookshops also will offer shipping if you’re too lazy to walk there a couple of times/year.

The vast majority of Kindle users do not possess the technical expertise or inclination to decrypt/de-DRM their purchases. But, also, I doubt that the kind of workflow that is affected by this change is something that would even register for most.

The first iPod and iTunes stores were very full of DRM.

Yup, and thankfully piracy outcompeted them so Apple gave it up.

And Jobs, to his credit, convinced them to let go of the idea.

What do you use to decrypt your Kindle purchases? I haven't yet found anything that works with modern purchases.

Most forums frown on sharing such information, but seek and ye shall find. Also, it's good to leave speed bumps in place due to the ethical concerns.

The last time I did it I had to basically procure an old Kindle app and get the content via that, because it used a weaker version of DRM. That loophole may have been closed in the meantime, though.

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