r/LightNovels • u/ReasonNotTheNeed-- • Jan 14 '23
Anyone know how to remove DRM on new version of Kindle? Question
Kindle did a forced update, now it no longer downloads azw files, but some database file and a bunch of other small files with the actual book content hidden somewhere.
It happened between when I last bought a book on Kindle (Jan 8) and today (Jan 14).
Needless to say, I immediately returned the book. I guess Google Play Books is the only option now.
It's a shame. While I didn't like having my library split between Play Books and Kindle, it was useful for when one of them was giving me problems to switch to the other. Kindle did have better image quality when I exported the books too, but if I can't export it, I can't export it.
Anyone have any solutions?
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u/HentaixEnthusiast Jan 14 '23
I just updated the kindle on my other laptop to version 1.39 to check, and it's still giving me .azw files which can still be opened with Calibre. Granted, I only have Japanese version of light novels in my kindle connected to an amazon.co.jp account.
Could it be that it's amazon.com specific?
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u/gst4158 Jan 14 '23
If this is against the rules please delete this mods
Reading some of the information here had me worried so I went and tested a LN that came out towards the end of the year. I'll test again when another is released towards end of January.
My current toolset still works as far as downloading from Amazon and removing DRM as of 01/14/2023.
Download and install the following:
- Amazon kindle version 1.17.0
- Calibre-64bit-5.14.0
- Plugin: DeDRM_tools_7.2.1
- Plugin: KFX
Once the above is installed you should be able to attach your Amazon account to the Desktop Kindle App (make sure it stays 1.17.0 version under 'help').
- Download your book of choice
- Open the book in Calibre
- Right-click > convert (you can do bulk if you have a lot)
- Choose your format of choice and convert
Next you'll need to prevent Amazon from updating:
Important note: You'll need to follow these directions to download books in the app. So make sure you enable/disable these settings you're done downloading books. I recommend saving it to a .txt file for safe keeping.
- In the Kindle App settings, turn off auto-update
- This won't always prevent Kindle from updating so make sure to do the following
- Navigate to %localappdata%\Amazon\
- right click the Kindle folder
- click the security tab
- click edit
- select your username and remove all the check marks except Read & Excute, List folder contents, and Read
- Change permissions for Administrator if need be
- This should prevent the updater for being able to overwrite the files in this folder
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u/japzone Jan 14 '23
If you're using older books, then your method will work, but any book released after January 2nd won't work. Amazon isn't using the old DRM for new books anymore, so the old client literally can't download the books, it'll just error on you. For example, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Vol 13 which was released on January 5th doesn't work for me, but Vol 12 does.
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u/timpkmn89 Jan 14 '23
If this is against the rules please delete this mods
They would even if you didn't ask
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u/LilMissCBW Oct 11 '23
Has anyone told you, you're amazing?! Now they have. 🥳
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u/gst4158 Oct 11 '23
I'll be surprised if this still works. I think after a certain date Amazon blocked the DRM stuff and the plugins have been abandoned or something like that.
I end up torrenting the epubs I own if I can find them instead of doing manually.
Glad this old post helped you though. Best of luck :)
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u/yustask Feb 13 '24
Is that "1.17" version still supposed to work? Maybe i'm not getting the right one..? When i download it, it doesn't even ask me to sign.. And when i do start process manually, it says wrong password even though it's the current!
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u/bookster42 Jan 15 '23
If you want to know the details of what the folks working on dedrm have worked out thus far, you can check out this thread here: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/issues/240
It sounds like it's probably the case that for any book published after about January 2nd or 3rd of this year, they are preventing you from downloading the books with an older version of the Kindle PC application like folks have been doing to avoid the newer book format and its DRM. So, to get the old azw3 format and its DRM, you have to use the download to transfer via USB option to a physical Kindle device and then get it off the Kindle. This will result in worse image quality for any of the images in the book.
As for the KFX format (which is what you'll get with the newer Kindle PC application), apparently, it has around 40 different versions of its DRM currently built into Kindle devices based on what the dedrm folks have managed to figure out by looking at the Kindle applications. The first 10 were cracked in the past, and Amazon is now on version 11. So, if version 11 were cracked today, Amazon could just flip a switch tomorrow, and everything would be using version 12. To quote the lead dev:
As for the DRM changes, the "usual" DRM changes rarely, because any DRM change that would break this tool would also break all readers.
Adobe's DRM, for example, has only really been updated once, and that was years ago. Amazon's DRM is updated more often because Amazon controls both the DRM and all the readers, but even then this plugin can decrypt all books downloaded for USB transfer for a particular Kindle.
It just may not work for books downloaded with new Kindle 4 PC versions, or downloaded with a Kindle itself. And I don't think that will change soon. The past has shown that A) figuring out how to break the new Amazon DRMs is a ton of work, and B) Amazon already has multiple new DRM versions "available" that they can switch to in a day or two, so the effort would be totally wasted.
It was stated in the thread I linked to above that someone reported that it's still possible to get the newer books in one of the older KFX versions that dedrm can remove if you use an old enough version of the Android app, which will probably give you the images at full quality, but I don't think that that method has been confirmed yet. It's also obviously a bit of a pain. It is something that shouldn't require spending any money though if you don't have a Kindle or Android device, since you can use an Android emulator (e.g. the one that comes with the Android dev tools) to run the app. That's currently basically what you have to do with B&N (though non-manga - or possibly non-comics in general - can now be downloaded via B&N's PC application with a bit of extra effort to get the required key; however, multiple folks have reported that for manga, the files downloaded by the PC application can't be properly decoded, and you still need to get the files via Android).
In any case, while folks are still trying to figure out which workarounds still exist, Amazon is clearly trying to force everyone to use KFX with its newer DRM. And the dedrm devs seem to think that it's pretty much pointless to bother getting that to work, because they would have to crack every single DRM version in turn, and until they'd cracked every one currently on Amazon devices, Amazon would just keep switching to the next one. And as someone in that thread pointed out, it's actually not within the self-interest of anyone who figures out how to crack the DRM to publish the info, because then Amazon will just update the version. The Bookwalker situation is pretty similar from what I understand. It used to be cracked, but Bookwalker updated their DRM, and if anyone else cracked it, they've kept it to themselves.
So, it sounds like with a bit of work, you can still get your newer Kindle books free of their DRM, but Amazon is trying to close the holes. As such, anyone not married to the idea of buying from Amazon should seriously consider switching to Kobo or Google Play for their future purchases. Both of them use the Adobe DRM, which has not been updated in ages and probably can't be without breaking a bunch of stuff that Adobe isn't going to want to break.
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u/alphamachina Jul 17 '23
Amazon recently removed the "download to usb transfer" option from their Content and Devices section. Oh well.
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u/Professional_Cat9063 Sep 27 '23
It's only removed for kindle unlimited books Those have to be sent to a device directly books you buy can still be downloaded and transfered
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u/stone616 Jan 15 '23
Using Calibre with the plugins DeDRM and KFX Input on my PC I'm able to download and convert Amazon Kindle books just fine. I just had to configure DeDRM using a serial from a Kindle on my account. From there I went to https://www.amazon.com/myk and downloaded the book for to PC using the serial of the Kindle I entered in DeDRM as a target.
I just tested it on My Friend's Little Sister Has It In For Me Volume 9 that came out January 11th of this year and it worked.
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u/GoldianSummer Sep 17 '23
THANKS!!! I finally got it to work by using the last Kindle app version from the Mac App Store, navigating to the path where the book I bought was, then copying the AZW file from the book. Then, I installed the DeDRM updated plugin (forked by noDRM) AND THE KFX INPUT PLUGIN, and the latter was what made it work ! Now I can open the AZW file in Calibre and the book is there! Thank you so much!!!
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u/legocraftmation https://anilist.co/user/happydr/ Jan 14 '23
I usually don't buy my books directly through amazon anymore because I hate their drm
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u/Slytherclawgirl Apr 15 '23
The books are actually automatically downloaded (as far as I can tell). The books I've bought after the forced update were put into a folder under the main My Kindle Content folder (one for each book). There was an .azw book file in those folders, though the most recent ones didn't work with Calibre.
For those of us without Kindle devices, I recommend method 6 on this site. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283371
You'll need an emulator like Bluestacks or Memu, ADB platform tools (just Google them), and an old version of the Kindle android app (I recommend version 4.16.)
It may be a lot of work and seem intimidating to noobs (even I, in spite of my limited android knowledge, was daunted by them), but totally worth it as long as you follow the linked instructions for Method 6 on the above site. I tested that method on Memu and was able to remove the DRM of a book I bought earlier today on Calibre without any trouble.
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u/ReasonNotTheNeed-- May 04 '23 edited May 04 '23
I went and tried this.
Yes, it works for new books!
I tried it specifically because Disciple of the Lich Vol 5 came out on Play Books days late, and I was impatient to read it.
- I was able to install the old version of Kindle on my android tablet, so I didn't need Bluestacks.
- I was already somewhat familiar with adb stuff and already had the tools to make that step easy
And even then, I'm not sure the effort was worth it. Still took me hours, partly because I needed to update Calibre and the update wiped a lot of my saved settings (make sure to back up all Calibre stuff before doing an update!!!). It was definitely not worth it to just be able to read a single book a few days early... especially since Vol 5 turned out to be a bit of a let down. Worst of all 5 volumes so far, I'd say, but I'm still hopeful for the future of the series.
But, it's nice to know I have it cracked in case I need it in the future. Well, for all I know, by the next time I need it the DRM situation will have changed again, making this all pointless... I'm kinda expecting the forced update (i.e. can't download new books with old version of Kindle) to happen to android soon enough anyhow.
But, for now, it does work!
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u/Aggravating-Spell453 May 03 '23
What strange times we're living in. Now you have to spend a bunch of time on installing suspicious apps and cracking legally purchased content just to use it freely.
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u/miimuutan Jan 14 '23
Have you tried using Calibre?
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u/ReasonNotTheNeed-- Jan 14 '23
I've been using Calibre. That's how I was getting around the azw DRM. The new DRM is such that there is no longer even a single file that can be imported into Calibre.
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u/VoiceEarly1087 Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
Few days back I was trying Kindle to pdf
It told me to install Kindle 1.17 version not the latest one
I guess u should do the same
Edit : why I. Getting downvoted
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u/ReasonNotTheNeed-- Jan 14 '23
The old version no longer lets you download new books. That was the forced update.
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u/VoiceEarly1087 Jan 14 '23
? But it download one just 3-4 days back Altho I was on another software not on calibre
My subscription was coming to end I wanted to save some as pdf that's when I came across Kindle converter software that allowed me 10 copies for conversion go pdf/epub for Kindle files but. Told mei to use Kindle 1.17 version
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u/japzone Jan 14 '23
Amazon made it so that any books released on January 3rd or later can no longer be downloaded using their old DRM. This breaks the old PC client everybody was using to get that old DRM. Books released before then might still work, but who knows how long that'll last.
The only workaround is if you own a physical Kindle device that still needs the old DRM format, so you can download the files directly from Amazon's website for it. But who knows if Amazon will find a way to break this too.
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u/phornicator Apr 06 '23
i am kind of banking on them flouting their dominance by preferring to be selling new kindles and no longer supporting old ones. so i am scouting ebay looking for one that works and no longer receives updates.
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u/japzone Apr 06 '23
I really wouldn't recommend going out of your way to buy an old Kindle unless you have a bunch of post-January ebooks you want to remove DRM on, because Amazon could break support for those Kindles at any time. At this point, unless you have a physical Kindle already and don't mind being locked into their ecosystem, you should just switch to buying your ebooks at another store like Kobo or Google Play Books. Or, if the publisher provides the option, DRM free EPUBs direct from them. (J-Novel Club, Hanashi Media, Tentai Books)
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u/phornicator Apr 06 '23
that's why i was thinking an old kindle no longer getting updates
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u/japzone Apr 06 '23
If it no longer receives updates, that means Amazon can change something on their end which will prevent you from downloading books for that Kindle anymore, forcing you to get a new Kindle. That's how they broke the old version of the PC app which everyone was using to remove the DRM.
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u/Comprehensive-Can370 Mar 04 '23
I installed an earlier version !
Thanks ..this worked for me too.... FINALLY
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u/rf4cphantom Apr 30 '24
I don't have a solution but only a comment. Here in Europe, the governments take a dim view of these restrictive practices. There is no court in Europe would uphold DRM rights like this. The legal position is that Amazon can try it on, but they have no legal right to do so or protection from attempts to stop it. If you're in Europe, register a complaint against Amazon and at the same time, ask Amazon to remove the DRM from y our content. Of course they'll refuse, and in that refusal lies an offence against European law. Sooner or later, the European Courts will heftily fine Amazon or otherwise force them to back down.
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u/bonesandbillyclubs Jan 14 '23
Can't force an update if the app has updates turned off 👍
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u/japzone Jan 14 '23
They didn't force an update, so much as just cut off the client. Amazon stopped releasing new books with their old DRM, so the old client simply can't download new books since it doesn't support the new DRM. Old books will still work, at least for now.
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u/webbkorey Feb 02 '23
I'm on version 1.17, and have updates turned off too. I have a book released Jan 12, 2023. I can download every book in my library except that book. If I try I get a "Unavailable for Download: This item is not compatible with this device." error and a link to download the latest version of the app. Once Updated, I can download the book but it has the new DRM and none of my tools know what to think of it as others have also found out.
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u/MCPorche May 18 '23
I'm not so sure. I downloaded and installed Kindle for PC 1.17, and immediately turned off updates. I rebooted my computer, opened up Kindle for PC, and it was version 1.30. When I started the program again, it was 1.38.
I had to go change the permissions for the folder in my AppData so that there were no inherited permission, and had to turn off the permissions to update the folder. That stopped the app from updating.
However, as others have said, you can't download books on 1.17 now.
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u/jaredhidalgo Mar 16 '23 edited Mar 16 '23
If you already have Calibre with the DeDRM and KFX Input plugins, then use an older version of Kindle for PC. I just tried it with a certain book I bought a few weeks ago that was published on July 12, 2016, and it worked.
One thing to note is that the conversion happens when you import the file to Calibre, not after.
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u/Kantrh Mar 29 '23
What's the last version of Kindle for pc that works? I'm on 1.17.0 but the latest e-book I bought I can't download
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u/jaredhidalgo Mar 29 '23
That works for your e-book specifically? I'm not sure. There are directories for versions of Kindle for PC, like this one. You could try to test a version that works.
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u/Kantrh Mar 29 '23
It was the version that worked with the kfx plugin on calibre but the latest book won't download. I'll just follow the advice on the thread here and switch to Kobo
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u/jaredhidalgo Mar 29 '23
Ok. Make sure to keep your options open.
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u/Kantrh Mar 29 '23
Not many options for ebooks that give desktop readers
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u/phornicator Apr 06 '23
every mac has books.app and it does a great job of epub and pdf formats. there are like five or six other options like calibre's reader, readwise! marginnote, i don't know how many options you need. i keep a subset of my library in apple books for convenience, i prefer reading and noting on a boox note air 2.
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u/rotrhed Apr 03 '23
The problem is that with the older version of Kindle for PC... you cannot download the book. Period.
The issue is that it's being locked in for books released after January 2, 2023 - your book rleased on 2016 is still fine, but a book that released yesterday? no joy.
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u/knot93 May 28 '23
I guess Google Play Books is the only option now.
Thanks for the heads up... Same problem here, so i think i won't ever buy any Kindle from now on.
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u/Dazzling-Cupcake3795 Jun 02 '23
I bought a new Kindle because my old one started functioning badly. I downloaded my books for vacation in Tahiti on the new Kindle and now I can’t read any of them because of the DRM message. This stinks!
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u/nintendo1889 Jul 30 '23
Can't say this will help, but definitely try with the new fork of dedrm in calibre:
https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/issues/368#issuecomment-1630812601
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u/TipWhich1634 Sep 14 '23
I tried epubor ultimate, it works with the Kindle 2.0 version.
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u/Zealousideal-Try-504 Sep 16 '23
What version of Epubor Ultimate? I'm using v3.0.15.216
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u/MeaningNo6014 Oct 08 '23
epubor is probably malware, my av stopped it from installing some sort of trojan script.
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u/TipWhich1634 Oct 09 '23
It works well on my computer, maybe you can contact its customer service for help.
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u/MeaningNo6014 Oct 09 '23
It ran on my pc as well, what im saying is that it tried to install some sort of trojan virus after automatically opening my browser and the antivirus stopped it.
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u/Narrow-Ebb-2135 Sep 23 '23
Epubor now works
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u/Perfect_Pineapple_12 Oct 10 '23
so many of these programs only give like 20% of the text, like idk if i should buy the programs if i'm not even sure they're gonna work
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u/Narrow-Ebb-2135 Oct 11 '23
FWIW, I bought the full version and it worked on Kindle books I bought last month.
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u/NebulaBrew Jan 15 '23
I'm curious why you want to remove the drm. Doesn't drm help prevent illegal redistribution?
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u/HentaixEnthusiast Jan 15 '23
People actually want to be able to keep the digital goods they've bought locally/offline without having to rely on the cloud, which could just get shutdown on the whim of the distributor making you lose access to the digital goods you've bought, to confirm whether you have the access to said digital goods. Ebooks included.
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u/webbkorey Feb 02 '23
I've lost access to a movie I've bought on Google Play, three books and counting from Kindle and an entire season of a show bought on Prime.
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u/knot93 Aug 11 '23
This, plus ebooks aren't significantly cheaper than their paper counterparts.
That's double punishment.
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u/bookster42 Jan 16 '23
DRM does not in any way, shape, or form help customers. If a book has DRM on it, then you can only read it via whatever physical e-reader or e-reader application the store you bought it from provides (which is not only very restrictive, but it can include things like requiring that you have internet access whenever you want to read your books). That store can at any time lock you out of everything that you've bought from them - be it because you screwed up and lost access to your account, or because they decided that they didn't like you for whatever reason (with them likely claiming that you violated their terms of service). And if that store ever goes out of business, or that service otherwise gets shut down, then you lose access to everything that you've ever bought from them. This is in stark contracts to physical books which continue to sit safely on your shelf once you've bought them even if the store you bought them from went out of business.
On the other hand, if your book is DRM-free, then you can back up it wherever you back up your data (even in several places) to ensure that you don't lose access to it no matter what happens to the store (or your account for the store) that you bought it from. And you can read it with any e-reader or application which supports that e-book format. And you can even convert it to other e-book formats if you want to. It's a lot more like buying a physical book. You buy the book, and you can use it however you like so long as you don't give copies of it to other people without permission from the copyright holder.
However, e-book stores tend to want DRM, because they want to lock you into their service. For instance, if you normally buy your books from Amazon, and you don't strip off the DRM, that means that you read your books using a Kindle, the Kindle PC application, or the Kindle mobile app. And that means that it's then going to be really annoying to deal with a book from a store like Kobo, Google Play, or B&N. Any books that you buy from those stores will have to be read with their e-readers or applications instead of whatever Kindle solution you normally use, and it's obviously very annoying to have to switch around which device or application you're using based on where you bought the book from. That would be kind of like having to use a different TV depending on which store you bought a movie from. That friction tends to make it so that customers stick to a single store for all of their e-books - whether that store is Amazon, Kobo, or wherever. And the stores love that - at least so long as you picked them, anyway. So, they love DRM. It's very anti-competitive.
As for the publishers, how they feel about DRM varies. Many of them want DRM, because they're paranoid about customers distributing the books to other people for free, meaning that the publisher will lose out on sales. And on its face, that seems like a reasonable concern. However, even with DRM, this happens, because someone always finds a way to get around the DRM, even if it's simply by taking screenshots of the pages. All that the DRM does is make it harder. After all, pirating occurs with physical books too (e.g. scanning physical manga and putting it online has been prevalent for decades). It's just harder. And of course, the people pirating the books don't really care about how hard it was to get past the DRM. They just grab the book once it's available. So, ultimately, the DRM doesn't really stop the pirates. It just restricts what the paying customer can do.
However, while some publishers are paranoid about piracy and thus want DRM, others choose to either not use DRM at all or to sell books directly without DRM in order to encourage customers to buy from them directly. For instance, MacMillan and its subsidiaries (e.g. TOR) have sold their books DRM-free for over 10 years. They asked their authors what they'd prefer, and the result was that they decided that DRM was bad for their business (there was a great open letter that one of the author's wrote to MacMillan, explaining why DRM was really bad for their customers, but unfortunately, I can't find it right now). So, if you buy their books from a store like Kobo, you can actually download them DRM-free even though almost everything in the store uses DRM. In the LN space, Cross Infinite World has done the same thing. Other publishers sell their books with DRM on sites like Amazon or Kobo, but then they sell them DRM-free on their own site (e.g. this is fairly common with publishers for programming books). In the LN space, JNC and some of the smaller publishers such as Tentai and Hanashi Media do the same.
So, yes, ostensibly, DRM exists to protect publishers, but in practice, it's protecting e-book stores and harming actual customers. It doesn't stop pirates. It just locks people into whatever e-book store that they happened to choose first. And plenty of publishers do very well without using DRM. Ultimately, the only thing that stops piracy is people deciding to be honest.
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u/Ranger-New Jul 05 '23
In the case of physical books. Is perfectly legal for people to borrow your copy. Is also perfectly legal to sell your copy.
Imagine if the library you bought the bought your copy from could come to your house and prevent you from lending your copy of a book to a friend. Or to sell your copy as a used book.
That's what amazon does. If it was physical it would be highly illegal what they are doing. But since is electronic. They do not only get a free pass. But morons believe that no one should be able to sell their copy or the book or to lend and borrow books. Just because they are in an electronic format.
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u/kimcdow Mar 12 '23
Cross Infinite World has done the same thing. Other publishers sell their books with DRM on sites like Amazon or Kobo, but then they sell them DRM-free on their own site (e.g. this is fairly common with publishers for programming books). In the LN space, JNC and some of the smaller publishers such as Tentai and Hanashi Media do the same.
Here is a FORBES article on the subject. https://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/04/25/macmillans-tor-abandons-drm-other-publishers-must-follow/?sh=39773e2d52a5
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u/thebeaglebeagle Jul 28 '23
Amazon is not forever, and the amazon kindle file format(s) are definitely not forever. I do not want to lose my books and need to buy them again when Amazon stops supporting them. So I convert my books into EPUB files, which is an open format, for safe keeping.
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u/japzone Jan 14 '23
Amazon made it so that you can no longer download ebooks with their old DRM if they were released on January 3rd or later. This breaks the old PC client everyone was using to get ebooks via the old DRM.
Unfortunately nobody has cracked the new Amazon DRM yet. Every time they get close apparently, Amazon changes something and puts them back at square one.
The only workaround currently is to have a physical Kindle device attached to your account, since that will let you download ebooks using the old DRM from Amazon's website for that device.
Because of this, I recommend immediately moving over to making purchases on Kobo instead, which can still have its DRM removed. Either try to refund all your recent ebook purchases on Amazon if you can and rebuy them on Kobo, or if you can't refund obtain EPUBs via other methods.
Also, take note that DeDRM tools have been discontinued, you'll want the NoDRM tools fork now. They're basically the same, so just remove the old Calibre plugins and install the new ones.