E Ink Kindle Serial Number Dedrm E-books
Patrizia Leones
If I buy a Tor book on Amazon (marketed as a Kindle book) or on Barnes and Noble (marketed it as a Nook book), can I be confident that it will have no DRM?
I know that I can use it on any device (in my case Sony Reader).
I am having real trouble finding sites that clearly state: We are selling a DRM free Epub. Most use terms like Nook book and Kindle book etc. I found one site that was clear, and they don't sell to my country.
Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor and Forge, is pleased to announce that all of their ebooks are now available DRM-free from Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo, Google, and most other major ebook retailers.
The new DRM-free editions are available from the same retailers that have sold Tor e-books in the past. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.
I have purchased several Tor books on Google Play that are DRM-free and they work perfectly. Before buying, look for the "This content is DRM free" label in the book details. Then, after purchase, visit your book library on a computer ( ), click the dots on the book to get a menu that includes "Download EPUB", which you can read directly using your reader of choice!
TOR says their books are DRM-free, but I just bought three TOR books via Amazon.com and downloaded them from Amazon's "Your Content" page. They came down as .azw files, which Calibre says are DRM-locked. I can't find anything about how to get my DRM-free TOR ebooks in a format I can read on a non-proprietary reader.
EDIT: I recently (early 2022) took another crack at this. I'm not sure what else (if anything) may have changed, but I managed to get my ebooks converted using Calibre and the DeDRM plugin. The two key issues were:
First, I now have an eink kindle and it's set up in my Amazon.com account. I don't actually use it, ever, but it's there and it has a serial number, which I entered into the DeDRM plugin config. I'm not certain this step is absolutely necessary, but it's part of the Calibre set up I used. But this alone wasn't sufficient, I also needed...
Second, I used amazon.com and selected "Download & transfer via USB", and for the device I selected the eink kindle, not my Kindle Fire, which I had selected previously. When I had selected the Kindle Fire, it didn't work. When I copied the eink kindle's serial number into DeDRM, it didn't work. But when I also downloaded on my desktop for transfer via USB and selected the eink kindle as the destination device, that worked.
There is a set of Python scripts for removing DRM from several different eBook formats, including Kindle's. One of them (called KindleBooks) allows you to remove the DRM without needing Kindle for PC. Instead it just uses the serial number from the Kindle they were purchased for to decode the books. It worked great for books downloaded on my Kindle 2.
It also has handy plugins for calibre, which is open source software for reading and converting various eBook formats as well as syncing to many different kinds of eBook readers. I highly recommend it.
The above tools work great on Linux, and should work fine on Mac OS X too as they are all Python-based. In order to run them, you will need to install Python for Windows or Mac (which comes with Python, but apparently has older versions), or make sure you have packages for Python and its Tk binding installed on your Linux system.
Recently, I de-drm'd our family's collection of purchased Kindle e-books using skindle. The link is to a blog post giving step-by-step instructions for using it. It's Windows only and relies on having an installed version of Kindle for PC.
As on installation it will immediately update itself to the latest version,it is recommended to install it while Internet is turned off, and disableauto-update in the Options before connecting to your account.
After turning on the Internet and connecting to your account, download yourbooks to the computer. They will by default be found in the folderC:\Users\USER\Documents\My Kindle Content and have strange names.
Adding the .azw book to Calibre will automatically invoke theDeDRM tools to undo the DRM, and the book will be added to your Calibre library,where you may read it with the supplied viewer, or convert it to another format.
Digital Rights Management (DRM): Digital rights management (DRM), also called digital restriction management and copyright protection, is the term used to describe any technology designed to control the use of digital content, such as digital media and software. E-Books with DRM have limits on who can access them, how much can be copied or downloaded, and how long downloads can be kept. DRM-free e-books have no such limits; see the definition of DRM-free below. For more information, read the digital rights management research starter.
Reflowable: An e-book which changes its formatting to match the device being used to read it. Reflowable e-books feature pages that are the exact same size as the screen, and the amount of content featured on each page changes with the size of the page. Most reflowable formats also allow users to change the font size, line spacing, and margin size. Since the number of pages in a reflowable e-book will change depending on the screen size and text settings, pagination is inconsistent.
Internet Protocol (IP) Authentication: An authentication method based upon comparing the IP address of a computer trying to access a resource with a range of IP addresses; if the IP address falls within the specified range, access is permitted. Many e-book platforms use IP authentication; for these platforms, FSU has provided an IP range that includes all computers connected through the internet through FSU.
Proxy Server: A computer that mediates between two networks by collecting the data sent from the first network and sending it to the second network, which is often the internet. Since all requests sent by a proxy have the same IP address, a proxy server is used to provide access to resources using IP authentication from computers with IPs not in the provided range. Off-campus access to FSU resources using IP authentication is available through a proxy server accessed using a proxy URL.
Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA): Titles loaned to FSU are automatically purchased after a certain number of uses. Since the title is on loan until usage triggers a purchase, it may be removed from the FSU collection without notice if the vendor loses licensing rights. Some providers call this model patron driven acquisition (PDA).
Open Access (OA): Open access resources are available to users for free. While some publishers have made commitments to keep certain e-books or journals as open access resources, most providers have a small and/or frequently changing number of open access resources. Most providers indicate their open access resources with an image of an open lock; the most common one is this stylized orange logo. The Academic Publishing LibGuide has more information on open access in general and at FSU.
Concurrent: In Gobi, Concurrent Access is used to indicate a title with the non-linear usage model. In EBSCO, Concurrent User is the field heading for the user access model. Look at the note after this field for specific title usage.
DRM-Free: These titles have no digital rights management (DRM) software. DRM-free titles have no user access, download size, download length, saving, printing, or copying limitations.
Limited User: A set number of users can access the title at a time. The most common limited user models are Single User (1U) and Three User (3U). Any users attempting to access the title after the limit has been reached will receive a message indicating that the user limit has been reached.
Non-Linear Usage (NL): The title has a set number of lending days per year. This model has no limits on the number of simultaneous users; the limit is on the total amount of time the title can be used by all FSU patrons. For example, a single user downloading the title for seven days and seven users reading it simultaneously will both count as seven lending days. These titles can have between 200 and 400 lending days a year, with 325 days being the most common. Some vendors, such as Gobi, call this model concurrent access.
Unlimited User (UU): Unlimited usage e-books have no limits on the number of uses or simultaneous users. While DRM-free titles are inherently unlimited user, not all unlimited user titles are DRM-free and may have copy and download restrictions. Some providers call this unlimited access (UA).
Our aim is to provide users access to academic and course materials in eBook format when possible. Due to licensing many of the E-Books at Simmons have a limited number of simultaneous user spaces available. Once this limit is reached, the E-Book becomes unavailable until the E-Book is returned and one of the simultaneous user spaces is released. This means that eBooks are handled much like on-site course reserves material and have a 3-hour checkout (download) limit.
Due to software constraints, DRM protected e-books may NOT be downloaded nor uploaded to an e-reader via a library computer. You must use a personal computer, or device, to download e-books to a personal Adobe Digital Editions account.
Please follow the instructions in Downloading E-Books to create a free Adobe Digital Editions account.
To access physics textbooks on Kindle or other e-books, you will first need to have a Kindle or e-book reader app on your device. Then, you can search for the specific textbook you need on the Kindle store or other e-book platforms and purchase or rent it. Once the book is downloaded, you can access it on your device.
In most cases, physics textbooks on Kindle or other e-books tend to be cheaper than physical textbooks. This is because e-books do not require printing and shipping costs, making them more cost-effective for publishers. However, the prices may vary depending on the specific textbook and publisher.
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