This is exactly why I didn't buy an Amazon product as an eink reader.
I want control over the things I own, I don't want them to exist locked up in a walled system where corporations can yank my ownership of something I paid for whenever they feel so inclined.
The people who were warning us about DRM back in the 90s exactly expected this future.
I have a kindle for more than a decade and I never bought a book on amazon or anywhere else. I use it as a reader, it's never been connected to internet
Note that if you ever do, it'll delete stuff you've added to it. I connect mine to the net every week or so (I like the translate feature, and use some pocket-to-kindle thing), but if I ever leave it for over a month or so it deletes my books.
(Fortunately it's easy to get them back from calibre, but very annoying.)
Where do you source your books? I love my Kindle as an ereader and I get the books from my library, which sends them to my Kindle via Amazon. So I am connected to the internet.
Same. The blog says, "Download & Transfer via USB" option will no longer be available, but "You can continue to sideload e-books on your Kindle via USB cable".
What is the difference? How is sideloading different from normal USB Transfer?
My Kobo Clara 2 shows up as a USB mass storage device, and I can just drag and drop pretty much any kind of document.
There's also a sqlite database in there that contains, I think, all of the device's settings and other data, including some crypto stuff for the DRM books that I bought in Kobo's store.
It did insist on an account when I first used it, though. This can be worked around by fiddling with the sqlite database, but I just signed up instead.
Download over usb allows you to download the kindle ebook purchased on amazon to your computer. That gives you an offline copy of your ebook. You can then download it to your kindle over usb.
But since you have the file, you can ALSO send this file to another ebook reader. I believe some ebook readers like pocketbook can read .azw files directly. Readers like kobo might need conversion to epub or kepub.
just to be clear, this does not affect the people who actually pirate ebooks, you can still download mobi files all over the internet and transfer them onto your kindle. it's only an impediment for people who legally purchase kindle ebooks that have DRM intact and want to transfer them to the device via USB.
it's not targeting the ebook pirates who knows about libgen, it's just meant to annoy the people who borrow an ebook from their library and want to keep it an extra couple days by turning off their kindle's wifi. that's what they mean by "piracy".
Guilty as charged! I've used it to de-DRM and transfer my bought ebooks to read them on my pocketbook. But, good to know that me, refusing to buy another kindle as a successor to my Kindle Voyage was the right decision. Every aspect of amazon these days is garbage experience - be it retail, books or video. Also got rid of prime years ago.
"Nobody uses this except for those that do, and those people are filthy dirty rotten thieves who are garbage." Or, you know, people who want to backup their purchased media precisely because of this sort of move.
> What on earth is wrong with the people who write this kind of garbage?
They're employees of scummy companies that also happen to exist largely to sell Amazon products. This site (goodereader) sells a lot of Kindles in their store, and you don't have to do much googling to see how former customers feel about them. Of course they're Amazon lackeys.
Edit: It's been interesting to watch the votes on this comment swing up and down so much. Lots of activity but overall pretty split opinions it seems!
The part about it not being something many use is probably true in percentage terms. The part about it being used for piracy is hard to prove. Piracy in this context would likely be giving it to others - I personally think it's unlikely.
> Thank you for being a loyal Kindle customer. We wanted to let you know about changes to the Download & Transfer via USB feature in the Manage Your Content and Devices page. Starting February 26, 2025, while you can continue reading books previously downloaded on your Kindle device, you will not be able to download and transfer via USB any Kindle content. We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause.
>
> You can, of course, continue to read Kindle content using Kindle for Web, or the free Kindle apps for Android, iOS, Mac, and PC as well as supported Kindle devices with WiFi capability. You may be eligible for a discount on the purchase of a new device, please visit http://amazon.com/tradein for more information.
I'm surprised that this is being dropped, but the "Send to Kindle"[0] feature is still supported. I would imagine that the email servers (and whatever other behind-the-scenes cruft it requires) to relay files to individual Kindle devices is a much bigger maintenance burden and "piracy" enabler than transferring via USB.
I'm a huge user of the Send to Kindle feature via my Calibre library too, so this has me pretty bummed and pessimistic for the future. I guess if the worst comes to pass, I can just look into jailbreaking or getting any of the zillion other Android-based eReaders from AliExpress.
send to kindle requires that you connect your kindle to the cloud, which gives it a chance to sync up all the data the device has collected while it has been offline.
it seems pretty clear that's what's really important to them - they want all that sweet sweet telemetry, and could care less whether you're actually buying the books or not.
Sure, I read that in TFA too. My point is that if USB transfers of Kindle eBooks are being sunsetted, I would estimate that Send to Kindle's days are also numbered.
The "Send to Kindle" has a hard limit of 50MiB if done via Email, or 200MiB if done via amazon.com/sendtokindle.
My complaint on this feature is mostly that the only supported proper ebook format is now epub, and I frequently run into the E999 error. Sometimes I can workaround it by converting the epub to mobi and back, but sometimes it just keeps failing which is frustrating.
(I run Calibre on a Linux headless box in Docker so connecting it to USB then transfer is toily)
Removing DRM became essential after my Amazon account was compromised . After hours on the phone with Amazon customer support proving I was the account owner, I gave up and created a new account.
They didn’t give me any way to keep my digital assets.I lost over a decade of ebook and audiobook purchases!
Now I won’t buy anything unless I can remove the DRM
from it.
They're removing the button to download the book to your computer from their website.
If you buy a Kindle book, or borrow a digital book from your library, you could then use the "Download and Transfer with USB" button to get the file on your device. You'd then use Calibre and the DeDRM plugin to remove the DRM.
The biggest implication of this is that you can no longer buy e-books in amazing and read them on a NON kindle device.
On the other hand, I’m not sure if it was possible due to DRM.
Anyway, things like this just piss me off. I kind of succumbed to the idea that I don’t own movies and music, but I just can’t contemplate the fact that they took books away from us (yea, I know that technically you didn’t own kindle books anyway).
And in the same vein, the oldest Kindles that were cellular-only (1, 2, and DX) are now fully shunned from buying Amazon books, as they could only download new purchases via the USB feature as Sprint's CDMA network had sunset.
I held onto my early-model cellular Kindles as long as I could because Whispernet was just such a novel thing at the time, and having the 'experimental' web browsing on 3G was a nice little treat.
Readit News
I want control over the things I own, I don't want them to exist locked up in a walled system where corporations can yank my ownership of something I paid for whenever they feel so inclined.
The people who were warning us about DRM back in the 90s exactly expected this future.
What is the difference? How is sideloading different from normal USB Transfer?
There's also a sqlite database in there that contains, I think, all of the device's settings and other data, including some crypto stuff for the DRM books that I bought in Kobo's store.
It did insist on an account when I first used it, though. This can be worked around by fiddling with the sqlite database, but I just signed up instead.
Download over usb allows you to download the kindle ebook purchased on amazon to your computer. That gives you an offline copy of your ebook. You can then download it to your kindle over usb.
But since you have the file, you can ALSO send this file to another ebook reader. I believe some ebook readers like pocketbook can read .azw files directly. Readers like kobo might need conversion to epub or kepub.
https://old.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/mt2f30/how_to_bypass_...
What one earth is wrong with the people who write this kind of garbage?
it's not targeting the ebook pirates who knows about libgen, it's just meant to annoy the people who borrow an ebook from their library and want to keep it an extra couple days by turning off their kindle's wifi. that's what they mean by "piracy".
I think that might be the point people miss.
They're employees of scummy companies that also happen to exist largely to sell Amazon products. This site (goodereader) sells a lot of Kindles in their store, and you don't have to do much googling to see how former customers feel about them. Of course they're Amazon lackeys.
Edit: It's been interesting to watch the votes on this comment swing up and down so much. Lots of activity but overall pretty split opinions it seems!
The part about it not being something many use is probably true in percentage terms. The part about it being used for piracy is hard to prove. Piracy in this context would likely be giving it to others - I personally think it's unlikely.
DRM is unacceptable. If I can't remove it I won't buy at all.
>
> Thank you for being a loyal Kindle customer. We wanted to let you know about changes to the Download & Transfer via USB feature in the Manage Your Content and Devices page. Starting February 26, 2025, while you can continue reading books previously downloaded on your Kindle device, you will not be able to download and transfer via USB any Kindle content. We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause.
>
> You can, of course, continue to read Kindle content using Kindle for Web, or the free Kindle apps for Android, iOS, Mac, and PC as well as supported Kindle devices with WiFi capability. You may be eligible for a discount on the purchase of a new device, please visit http://amazon.com/tradein for more information.
>
> If you have any questions or require assistance, please visit http://www.amazon.com/kindlesupport.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> The Kindle Team
I'm a huge user of the Send to Kindle feature via my Calibre library too, so this has me pretty bummed and pessimistic for the future. I guess if the worst comes to pass, I can just look into jailbreaking or getting any of the zillion other Android-based eReaders from AliExpress.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle/email
it seems pretty clear that's what's really important to them - they want all that sweet sweet telemetry, and could care less whether you're actually buying the books or not.
*You can continue to use Calibre to send Kindle books to your Kindle
*Send to Kindle will continue to work
My complaint on this feature is mostly that the only supported proper ebook format is now epub, and I frequently run into the E999 error. Sometimes I can workaround it by converting the epub to mobi and back, but sometimes it just keeps failing which is frustrating.
(I run Calibre on a Linux headless box in Docker so connecting it to USB then transfer is toily)
Dead Comment
They didn’t give me any way to keep my digital assets.I lost over a decade of ebook and audiobook purchases!
Now I won’t buy anything unless I can remove the DRM from it.
edit: commented before rtfa
> Here are some essential facts to know.
> You can continue to use Calibre to send Kindle books to your Kindle
> Send to Kindle will continue to work
> You can continue to sideload e-books on your Kindle via USB cable
If you buy a Kindle book, or borrow a digital book from your library, you could then use the "Download and Transfer with USB" button to get the file on your device. You'd then use Calibre and the DeDRM plugin to remove the DRM.
If you get ebooks from places other than them, you can still manually transfer them to a Kindle, regardless of whether the Kindle is online or not.
Deleted Comment
On the other hand, I’m not sure if it was possible due to DRM.
Anyway, things like this just piss me off. I kind of succumbed to the idea that I don’t own movies and music, but I just can’t contemplate the fact that they took books away from us (yea, I know that technically you didn’t own kindle books anyway).
I held onto my early-model cellular Kindles as long as I could because Whispernet was just such a novel thing at the time, and having the 'experimental' web browsing on 3G was a nice little treat.