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Kindle hack lets you read DRMed Mobipocket—and meanwhile a ‘Kindle swindle’ tag campaign is starting up
December 12, 2007 | 7:22 pm
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By David Rothman
A new hack will let Kindle customers read their DRMed Mobipocket books even though the so-called Kindle format is the only “protected” one that customers are supposed to use. Kindle format is really just Mobi with a new file extension and different identification numbers. Amazon owns both formats. A hack by a techie, almost surely as amused as outraged, was inevitable.
This trick I’m pleased to pass on from Igor Skochinsky since Kindle shoppers with Mobi files are hardly pirates—just circumventers of an anti-consumer gouge that otherwise could make them buy books they’ve already purchased. What’s more, Engadget and MobileRead have written up the trick. If Amazon’s lawyers want to sue Igor or Engadget or MobileRead or me for technical violations of the DMCA, and if they want to be consistent, they may have to go after half the blogosophere.
Just remember. The Kindle has built-in spying and deletion capabilities. Will Amazon use them to zap your books if you’re evil? Consider the risks before you act.
The Kindle as DRM Absurdity Central
The Mobi farce is just one example of the DRM-related absurdities of Amazon’s super-proprietary e-book tablet.
Now the Kindle is the target of a campaign from an anti-DRM group called DefectiveByDesign.org. DBD wants consumers to tag Kindle-related pages at Amazon with such loving phrases as “kindle swindle.”
The image above is the activists’ clownish depiction of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who talks up DRM-free music but insists on selling “protected” books—encouraged not just by the DRM-loving ways of most big publishers but also by an eagerness to bind customers to his gizmo-centric Kindle format.
Format herding—but also some major positives, especially for the elderly
Incredibly, as noted above, the $400 Kindle tablet cannot read DRMed Mobipocket even though Amazon owns Mobi. A firmware update could almost surely address that issue in a hurry. But so far Jeff hasn’t budged even on this little detail in spite of all the outcries from the technically savvy.
Too bad. Despite the obnoxious DRM, the Kindle has its positives and could help change the lives of many readers for the better—for instance, elderly people who would enjoy a wide range books in big, readable text, which the Kindle can deliver. It also is probably the easiest e-book machine to use. See this note from a 75-year-old booklover, as well as librarian Isabelle Fetherson’s important essay on e-books for the elderly. In terms of benefits to society, the Kindle cuts both ways.
Free Software Foundation’s work
The Kindle-hating DBD is an outgrowth of the Free Software Foundation, founded by Richard Stallman, author of an anti-DRM short story called The Right to Read. In character, DBD is encouraging shoppers to tag Kindle-related pages with “kindle swindle, defectivebydesign, drm.” Will Amazon filter the tags out? This little tussle should be fascinating to watch. Meanwhile here is an excerpt from a DBD blog:
“The Amazon kindle provides convenience, but at the cost of freedom. When you purchase a kindle, you must agree to use the Digital Restriction Management (DRM) system. Since all of the Kindle ebooks you purchase from Amazon are in their proprietary DRM format, you are also promising to not share them with friends. And, because you promise to not circumvent the DRM, there is no way to move them to another device or a computer. You are locked into the Kindle and you are locked into Amazon. If you try to move them to a new ebook reader or a computer, Amazon can end your service and remove access to the books you have already purchased.”
Update, Dec. 14: I should have pointed out that you can share books with others on the same account, tied to an e-mail address. For practical purposes, however, that limits yourself to family members. Besides, what happens if they eventually want to tie their Kindles to other addresses?
Your take on this?
OK, gang, your thoughts? What do you think of the campaign’s tactics? And will this activism work? What will it take to educate traditional booklovers and nontechies in general about the downside of DRM? I’d also love to hear from pro-DRM people. In discussing these matters, let’s be civil with each other and stick to the issues. I’d especially encourage comments from Rob Preece, a small publisher and a loyal reader of this blog, who is worried about both the piracy problem and the opposite (overkill by the protection-minded).
In fairness to Amazon: Couldn’t readers shift their books to a newer Kindle? Anyone know the details here? That said, why should a huge conglomerate get away with ordering us to read books on its products?
The bottom line: The Kindle isn’t just a machine—it’s an intellectual property heist. Ownership is no small part of the book culture. Jeff Bezos is stealing that right from us. Legally purchased books should be the property of readers, not just of writers and publishers who make their livelihoods off this culture. What happens when that 75-year-old man makes out his will, Jeff? Can he easily bequeath his Kindle books to a grandchild, a friend outside the family, or a library? If people know what they’re getting into—yes, they should buy and enjoy Kindle. But let me also urge them to complain to Amazon about the Draconian DRM.
Related: Digg item on the Kindle Swindle campaign—plus Canadian DMCA delayed, protestors cautiously optimistic.
Technorati Tags: Amazon,Jeff Bezos,DefectiveByDesign.org,Richard Stallman,Igor Skochinsky,Riob Preece
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Comments:
This thing has spun out far faster than I would have ever imagined.
My hat is off to the lovers of literature technically savvy enough to do so much so quickly.
From such things, direct action in the best sense, DRM as a whole will die.
Amazon’s attempt to quarantine its customers appears to have backfired big time. It was a fine line between DRM and monopolization – that was always inherent in ladening literature with such chains – that they would be pulled too tight – they were and they have snapped.
For those that are able, crack the lot. Finish off DRM with the technology it is based on. Force industry to adopt a better solution that does not cripple literature for the sake of their profits. Literature is just too damn important to allow this to persist and in the best tradition of our shared culture, the impediments have been struck-off.
Congratulations and thanks to all concerned.
Sorry to post again, but I took more notice of David’s last part of his post, and I have come on too strong and happily. There are genuine concerns about piracy and they need to be addressed. As much as I am against DRM crippled literature, I acknowledge readily that many who support DRM do so for good and honest reasons.
There are cures, and now they should be considered, DRM would inevitably break, its reliance on technical means was always its undoing. Authors, editors and publishers need protection – international protection, collective protection and enforceable protection.
They need a means of direct payment, a technical problem easily solved, they need international agreement, publishing ebooks s now thoroughly global, indifferent to place – this was inherent in the first publication, it will not go away.
It only takes one country in the world to become a pirate haven a Swiss bank account for pirated works, and those works are available everywhere, so the question is what does take to have fair international laws that protect the authors of the world – DRM was never going to work.
I won’t go into it further, but I strongly suggest the real problem has to be faced, that it is an international legal question, and not a technical solution.
Greg, my feelings exactly. I am strongly opposed to piracy of e-books and other content. That’s all the more reason to dislike Draconian DRM since it punishes legal owners of books and the rest. Especially the smarter buyers must resent the clippy tricks that Amazon is using against them. What we need, instead of silly technical restrictions, which, by the way, can also be used by dictators to control the reading habits of their citizens, is a vigorous fight against large-scale pirates. Remember, they can simply scan from P books. So why do publishers go in for Draconian DRM? My theory is that many just don’t know any better—read Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti on her teaching experiences at one school for aspiring editors and publishers. If publishers want “protection,” I suggest that instead they think about social DRM, which is hardly perfect but much better than Amazon’s current variety. I hope Bezos and friends will keep an open mind. Social DRM could be an interesting compromise even though my preference is no DRM.
Happy holidays,
David
http://www.chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/faq.cgi has a good faq on DMCA anti-circumvention. A highlight:
If the circumvention violations are determined to be willful and for commercial or private financial gain, first time offenders may be fined up to $500,000, imprisoned for five years, or both.
Bezos made the DRM the way it is on purpose. Should we expect him to defend legally it or quickly back off?
David I just read, for the first time your August article on social DRM. In the context of digital signatures, I very much favour this, even above no-DRM!
Obviously it is not necessary to “social DRM” public domain literature, but in one way it could be a very good thing to do so.
A digital signature can record many things – that the edition has not been tampered with (through hash tables), intentionally or otherwise. Identity of the edition, the work, the author, ISBN like numbers, category information, and if it can be used (it is privately owned at the moment) its Universal Decimal Number and subject references could be included (consider the possibility of leasing the entire system, but allowing publishers and authors of all sorts to access the numbers and descriptors).
As collections grow, digital shelving is going to become a major problem.
A well constructed Digital Signature system could value add to the purchased ebook, in fact there are a lot of other files that would benefit by being properly signed.
We need not use credit card information to establish identity, after all we should not only enjoy security over that information, but also anonymity as well (whether because of tastes that are embarrassing or from the oppressive interests of dictatorships – receipts can be arranged and sealed into the ebook in such a way that identity can be proved without being identified as a person).
Just some stray thoughts.
I agree that piracy is bad, but all that Igor’s program does is allow you to read DRMed MOBI books on a Kindle with the explicit permission of the copyright holder (you first have to register the Kindle’s PID, and the MOBI provider has to accept the PID for this to work). This is not piracy, and it most likely isn’t even against DMCA. I think it is going to be very hard to argue that setting one bit is “circumvention”, and in any case it definitely does not allow you to read the e-book on an unauthorized device (again – you have explicit authorization to read the e-book on one particular Kindle from the publisher).
Totally agree with you, Alan, that this is NOT piracy. DEFINITELY not. But it might still be a technical violation of the DMCA in the opinion of some lawyers. If nothing else, Bezos’s people might argue he was protecting the sales of books in the Kindle format. Hard to say. I’d love some authoritative legal opinions here. Like you, I’m not a lawyer. Meanwhile we also need to consider not just what copyright law says but the terms of the Kindle TOS. Thanks and happy holidays. David
I am not a lawyer but I read of a case where some one was convicted of DMCA anti-circumvention for ‘clearing’ a cookie on his browser (I cannot recall if this was a civil or criminal case so convicted might not be quite the right word, but in any case). I think the guy figured out that he could download extra (infinite?) ‘coupons’ for something.
I think that circumvention and your rights to the ‘undelying’ work are independent. So for example if you rip a DVD that is circumvention even though you have a fair use right to copy a fragment of the movie.
The problem is when they went for the tight laws, they were over-tight, changing any part of the DRM you may as well remove the lot as far as your legal standing goes – there is no in-between.
In effect they never alienate what you bought, you remain forever a leaser, never the owner.
That is why cracking how to move stuff onto the Kindle is not legally different from cracking stuff downloaded from the Kindle to use elsewhere (whether they take action is up to them – and in political PR territory).
DRM means managing your goods anyway they see fit. It is a clear case when instead of useful balance the law just became a weapon for one side – another reason it will never work in the long term is that it is thoroughly unfair. If I destroy something I own accidentally, I suffer the consequences, but if they decide to go out of business, or they don’t like me any more, or my kindle breaks and I may want a better device – my library is stolen by them.
Getting stuff onto the Kindle now equates legally with getting stuff off the Kindle – it is major leak in DRM, the ship will sink eventually.
Surely the positive PR thing Amazon should do is patch the Kindle to allow Mobi books to be read without any hacks.
On the plus side, the Kindle does at least seem to be bringing the price of ebooks down. However if they’re going to keep up the DRM they should really lower the prices further to reflect the fact you’re only really renting the book.
Here’s hoping that NEXT Christmas there will be cheaper, less invasive, e-book readers to choose from.
Kinda weird that Amazon is being singled out for this given that its main competitor — the Sony Reader — has the exact same issue.
But, Brian, doesn’t Amazon say it has the right to poke inside your Kindle? Not sure if Sony claims that right and if it’s as easy since the Reader is normally offline. The other thing is that Sony isn’t playing the same format games that Amazon is. Nothing existed before BBeB. A major issue with Amazon is whether it cooked up the DRMed Kindle format to, say, hurt the indies using Mobi. Thanks,and HH. David
I bought a SONY reader because even though their proprietary format is DRM protected it can read RTF and PDF. There’s nothing stopping publishers to sell ebooks without DRM for the SONY reader and they don’t even have to go through SONY’s Connect store… yet it didn’t happen in large scale.
My undertsanding is that the Kindle is somewhat different in that it does not natively support other formats and one has to pay for the conversion to cover the bandwidth cost. Even though it has USB connection it does not come with a good computer software that would take care of this.
I think “smart consumerism” is important. People should understand what they are paying for exactly… and when they will I’m pretty sure they won’t buy a heck of a lot of ebooks from Amazon, Connect or any other DRMed source. It just doesn’t make sense.
A gadget like the Kindle is outdated in a year or so.
If you cannot move the content you payed for to another device then buying that content was a pretty bad investment.
I supported DefectiveByDesign’s campaign to promote smart consumerism with my “real name”(TM – Amazon)
Tamas wrote:
“I bought a SONY reader because even though their proprietary format is DRM protected it can read RTF and PDF. There’s nothing stopping publishers to sell ebooks without DRM for the SONY reader and they don’t even have to go through SONY’s Connect store… yet it didn’t happen in large scale.
My undertsanding is that the Kindle is somewhat different in that it does not natively support other formats and one has to pay for the conversion to cover the bandwidth cost. Even though it has USB connection it does not come with a good computer software that would take care of this.”
No, that is not true. It will display non-DRMed Mobipocket fine and works great with the Mobipocket desktop software.
But I think this is *exactly* the sort of confusion that DBD is going to create by singling out the Kindle.
“But, Brian, doesn’t Amazon say it has the right to poke inside your Kindle? Not sure if Sony claims that right and if it’s as easy since the Reader is normally offline.”
Yes, that certainly is a major difference.
“Nothing existed before BBeB. A major issue with Amazon is whether it cooked up the DRMed Kindle format to, say, hurt the indies using Mobi.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “Nothing existed before BBeB.” I mean, couldn’t I just as easily argue that Sony *created* BBeB specifically to hurt independent sellers who tended to use DRMed PDF, Mobi or MS Lit? Clearly, companies who develop ebook readers tend to go all control freak on consumers, which runs exactly opposite to the openness of p-books.
If amazon doesn’t want this to work all they have to do is have mobi change the drm server that all the independent ebook stores use so it won’t allow kindle PIDS to be serviced from non-kindle bookstores.
This would take maybe a short day of work for the mobi engineers.
But really, why don’t they just open up kindle for mobi sales? Does multi-billion dollar Amazon really fear little Fictionwise and BooksOnBoard?
Thanks Brian,
I think the Kindle would be great with a proper software so that you could use it with a computer through USB.
The good thing is that it is recognized as a USB mass storage device, but since PDF, RTF and HTML are not natively supported you have two options
convert to MOBI and load it through USB; use Mazon conversion and pay for the download.
I think DBD’s campaign is important so people understand what exactly they’re paying for when buying content.
BTW, my big fear with the Kindle is not that they’re going to look at my books, etc., etc. I think the big fear with the wireless is that one day they’ll decide that they’re losing too much to the non-DRMed Mobipocket sellers like Fictionwise and push an update that would disable that as well. Sure a few nerds like me would be upset, but I bet 95% of the folks who buy the Kindle will only ever use it with AZW files.
Tamas,
I have used a Sony Reader in stores but haven’t ever had one to really test. Does the Sony Reader natively support HTML?
Personally, I think it is next to criminal not to ship an ebook device that doesn’t natively support HTML. Amazon should have done so for the Kindle. Hopefully someone will figure out a hack into fooling the Kindle into viewing HTML on an SD card the same way it reads HTML over the EVDO network.
Tamas writes “but since PDF, RTF and HTML are not natively supported you have two options convert to MOBI and load it through USB; use Mazon conversion and pay for the download.”
No, you have a third option–e-mail it to Amazon for conversion and have Amazon e-mail it back to your computer. This is free. You then use the included USB cord to move the file from your computer to your Kindle.
Furthermore, though the converted file Amazon e-mails you has an azw extension, it is actually unsecured Mobipocket, and can be displayed by any e-book reader or program that can handle Mobipocket if you just reset the extension to prc.
hi Brian
I agree about HTML.
SONY Reader does not support it.
There are utilities to convert HTML into SONY’s LRF format… these more or less work.
It’s usually a hassle though.
The Kindle has an “experimental” web browser, that would be a cool thing when it matures. I don’t have hands-on experience with it.
Cat, this email conversion sounds good.
Would provide a way to read more blogs.
Unless Amazon sets a limit
It’s kind of weird to have a webservice implemented via email…
>>>I mean, couldn’t I just as easily argue that Sony *created* BBeB specifically to hurt independent sellers who tended to use DRMed PDF, Mobi or MS Lit?
Sony’s argument to me was that the BBeB format was the only one — at that time — that permitted reflowable text at different typesizes.
I have not paid any attention to ebook file formats and their individual format limitations, so I can’t judge whether what Sony told me is true or not. Just passing on what I was told.
Until everyone rallies around a universal ebook file format and a consumer-friendly method of deterring theft, ebook growth will remain stunted.
could some one post a walk thru on the python script, this is not going easy for me.
thanks
I am really getting fed up with Amazon and Mobipocket. I have some ebooks that I purchased a year or two ago, through sites other than Amazon or Mobi, that now cannot be downloaded. They generate an error that the title is “no longer registered for that retailer.” I can keep a cheap paperback copy on my bookshelf for decades, but this ebook becomes useless after only a couple years. So, if I bought a Kindle, I’d be even more tied to these DRM curmudgeons. No thanks!
Baen Books has not gone under though they have a website selling DRM free multiformat ebooks, so I don’t think publishers need a universal file format or DRM for ebooks to succeed, and I am sure consumers do not.
For my purposes I prefer a DRMed ebook to paper books.
- I want authors and publishers to be re-assured they will get paid for their work and in return I get a lower price when buying their book.
- Unprotected ebooks will simply destroy the ability of authors (except the mega-stars) from earning a living, as many if not most people will not pay for what they can readily get for free.
- Anyone can publish through Amazon – try to publish through a paper book publisher.
- I get to read the first chapter before I decide to buy the book – which I can’t do with paper.
- ebooks have a lower cost to me, are easier to carry and store. I am also getting newspaper subscriptions. If I loose my Kindle, I can just get a new one and load all I have purchased. I have never recovered a book that was lost or stolen.
Paper books have “DRM” built in as using a copy machine is time consuming and costs about as much as the actual book.
- ebooks and enewspapers are GREEN. Books and Newspapers are carbon-energy intensive ways to publish.
DRM does nothing to assure a publisher that they will get paid nor do I see it lower the prices. Baen Books the only publisher that I am aware of that publishes all their books in non-DRMed electronic format, at the same time as the hardcover for a fraction of the price. Most other publishers using DRM charge the same price as a hardcover even though the overhead is much less. Amazon who is charging less than normal hardcover price (aprx $10) is still charging more than Baen. I am not a thief so why should publishers treat me like one? In fact, their attitudes make me want to rip them off. Where as, when I read a book in Baen’s free library that I enjoy I purchase the electronic copy and often a dead tree version as well. Sell electronic books in an open format for a reasonable price and people like me will buy them. The authors only seem to benefit from having their books available. Several of Baen’s authors have reported increased sales in their backlist when they add a book the free library. I believe that the majority of people will live up or down to expectations. If we as a society expect everyone to be a thief,even as we condemn it; we are making theft the standard of behavior. It is a subtle errosion of society.