You don't own your Kindle books, Amazon reminds customer
www.nbcnews.com

This is not an anti-Kindle rant. I have purchased (rented?) several Kindle titles myself.

However, YSK that you are only licensing access to the book from Amazon, you don’t own it like a physical book.

There have been cases where Amazon deletes a title from all devices. (Ironically, one version of “1984” was one such title).

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

There have also been cases where a customer violated Amazon’s terms of service and lost access to all of their Kindle e-books. Amazon has all the power in this relationship. They can and do change the rules on us lowly peasants from time to time.

Here are the terms of use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950

Note, there are indeed ways to download your books and import them into something like Calibre (and remove the DRM from the books). If you do some web searches (and/or search YouTube) you can probably figure it out.

  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
    101·
    3 months ago

    I haven’t used Kindles personally ever, but I helped my neighbor export their kindle collection a few years ago.

    It dumped it into mobi files to use with calibre. Then from there, you can convert them into epubs.

    I recall it being straightforward. Probably something a kindle owner should do periodically to back up their collection.

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      48·
      3 months ago

      Another problem with DRM’d platforms is that you don’t really know how long this will be easy or even viable. I recall these tools breaking in the past as Amazon changed their encryption, and it took time for them to be updated.

      For anyone with a large library on Kindle, Audible, or any other DRM-infested platform, I recommend stripping that DRM sooner rather than later. You might think “I can always do it later” but there’s no guarantee that will be true.

      Also, shoutout to ebooks.com for having a dedicated DRM-free section and a simple checkbox to filter search results to only show DRM-free items. Not sure where to go for DRM-free audiobooks though. Anyone got suggestions? Personally I will simply not buy books with DRM, regardless of how easy it might be to crack it. If I’m going to have to break the law anyway (thanks, DMCA!), I might as well pirate it and find some other way to toss the author a few bucks.

      • localme@lemm.ee
        9·
        3 months ago

        I use downpour.com for drm-free audiobooks. They let you straight up download the mb4 files haha it’s awesome.

        It’s such a win-win b/c I get to buy audiobooks drm-free and I get to avoid supporting audible which has terrible business practices such as locking authors in exclusive deals.

        Also thanks for the ebooks.com recommendation! I was reading this thread specifically to see if anyone knew of a good place online to buy drm-free ebooks :)

      • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
        8·
        3 months ago

        You can get Audiobooks from Spotify using the app Soundbound. You need to insert a list of plugins, then it works.

        Apart from that, youtube? Or sailing the high seas?

    • Cenotaph@mander.xyzEnglish
      13·
      3 months ago

      My understanding is they arent mobi files anymore but a proprietary DRM format. That being said, there are many wonderful calibre plugins that break the drm.

      • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
        4·
        3 months ago

        FWIW, Amazon deprecated mobi files recently and epub is the new “sideload” standard. You still have to email the file to the kindle address to be able to read them, or convert to azw3.

        If you’re already using Calibre, check out Calibre-Web, which essentially uses a Calibre database as the back end. The interface is so much nicer than Calibre.

        • tibi@lemmy.world
          1·
          3 months ago

          You can use an USB cable to upload files to the Kindle, the @kindle email address is just a convenience thing. Calibre is great for converting to a compatible format.

        • Cenotaph@mander.xyzEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          Yeah, AZW3 was the format I was thinking of. For things purchased from the amazon store for the kindle they will be in that format. If you want to move your amazon books library elsewhere you have to use some funky plugins for calibre to convert them to a standard format like mobi or epub

      • tomkatt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        MOBI has been deprecated for a long time. Standard formats now are AZW3 (KF8) and KFX. They’re a bit more advanced than MOBI, and thank goodness, since it was a terrible format. AZW3 is essentially a MOBI/EPUB container, and I believe KFX is equivalent to EPUB2, possibly with some EPUB3 features.

    • Anivia@feddit.org
      1·
      3 months ago

      It’s better to keep them as mobi files than converting to epub. Mobi works on almost every device, and converting to epub can always result in messed up formatting or chapters.

      If you absolutely have to convert the files to epub for some reason, at least keep the original mobi files as well