Amazon's Kindle has copyright protection hacked. An Israeli hacker claims to have broken the copyright protection on Amazon's Kindle software for PCs, reports say.
The hack will allow the ebooks to be transferred as pdf files to any other device. The hacker, known as Labba, responded to a challenge posted on Israeli hacking forum, hacking.org. It is the latest in a series of Digital Rights Management hacks, the most famous being the reverse engineering of iTunes. Amazon did not immediately respond to the news but it is likely it will attempt to patch its DRM software. DRM has long divided opinion. "DRM is not an effective way of preventing copying nor is it a good way of making sales. As soon as a new DRM system is active, hackers begin to try and break it. Most famously Jon Lech Johansen, known as DVD Jon, cracked the copy protection on DVDs in 1999. How to Add a Kindle DRM-Removal Plugin to calibre.
Update: These instructions were updated on 22 August 2013.
They worked for me on that day. DRM is the bugaboo of ebooks. It’s the cause of more pain and agony than a Snooki photo, and today I plan to help fix that. I have long been on the side of removing DRM (it’s the best way to protect your purchases), but up until today I had never gone beyond pointing my readers at tools. A few hours ago I was reading a post on Cult Of Mac. I figured I’d get as far as removing the DRM before being forced to stop. The process is minimally difficult and I’d like to share it with you. Note that these instructions are Windows only, and some details will be different between the various versions of Windows.Note that these instructions were written without the permission or participation of Kovid Goyal, the creator of calibre.These instructions are written in order to assist the average user in protecting their purchases.
First Things First. Ebook Formats, DRM and You — A Guide for the Perplexed « Apprentice Alf's Blog. Last updated on 22nd March, 2013 DRM: What it is and why you should care about it.
DRM is used by publishers to restrict what you can do with your ebooks. DRM controls which devices you can use to read your ebook, and stops you converting your ebooks from one format to another. DRM makes buying and using ebooks harder. When you first start using ebooks, you might not notice the restrictions very much. There are several different DRM schemes. When you want to use a different ebook reader, or if the supplier stops supporting the ebooks you’ve bought, you may lose access to your DRMed ebooks. So to be able to read your ebooks on all the devices you have now, and to be sure that you will still be able to read your ebooks in the future, you will want to remove the DRM. Anti-Piracy Notice Please only use this application for gaining full access to your own ebooks for archiving/converson/convenience.
Current Ebook Formats and DRM schemes There are three main current eBook formats. How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others. You love your Kindle, but you hate the DRM.
What do you do? Well, if you like, we’ll tell you how to strip the copy-protection from your e-books, leaving a plain, vanilla e-book file in the format of your choice. This doesn’t just work for Kindle book, either. The method, detailed by Apprentice Alf, will also remove DRM from Mobipocket, Barnes and Noble, Adobe Digital Editions and Fictionwise books, making these stores much more attractive to buyers. For the meat of the how-to, you should visit Apprentice Alf’s blog post, which is both straightforward and detailed.
First, get a copy of the free e-book manager, Calibre. Next, you need those plugins, also linked from Alf’s post. Then download Kindle for Mac or Window, and from there download the books you have already bought and want cracked. That’s it. Oddly, since I tried this over the weekend, Kindle books have become a lot more attractive to me. Ebook Formats, DRM and You — A Guide for the Perplexed [Apprentice Alf] See Also: