Was Kindle's DRM Hacked?
from the reverse-hacking dept
Engadget is reporting that someone has "hacked" the Kindle. But that's a little misleading: it doesn't mean someone has figured out how to crack the copy-protection on Kindle-formatted e-books. Rather, someone has figured out how to convert protected books in MobiPocket format (which Amazon owns) to the closely-related Kindle format. That means that if you've purchased protected Mobipocket books, you now have the option to play them on your Kindle. That's good news, but it's not exactly a major crack in the Kindle's DRM scheme. It's more reminiscent of Real's Harmony software, which allowed Real's DRMed music to be played on iPods. Still, it's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to crack Kindle's DRM wide open. My guess is that so far no one has bothered because there aren't enough Kindles around for anyone to care.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Why aren't they ALREADY compatible?
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The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
For example, I have a respectable collection of books in PDF, CHM, and TXT format that I would LOVE to take with me in a Kindle. But there's no real easy way to convert books in other formats to Kindle, and even less so if I wanted to batch convert thousands of books (as I do).
If only the Kindle were able to handle other book formats, it's sales would skyrocket. I'm not the only person with a large digital book collection, and I'm not about to rebuy my library.
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Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
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Re: Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
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The future should be Mobipocket
That model is certainly more flexible than relying on EV-DO services.
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kindling
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Kindle conversion
The kindle is compatible with about half a dozen file formats (including .txt and .pdf), but they have to be sent to one of the above mentioned addresses and converted first. However, it is NOT compatible with any form of DRM file except the proprietary kindle format (which is just Mobipocket with an extra digit added to the encryption key).
Note: All the above information is secondhand knowledge gained from reading the Mobilread.com Forums, the best place to go to find anything related to eBooks.
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Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
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Re: Re: Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
It is free if you don't want to have it delivered wirelessly.
Just email it to yourname@free.kindle.com instead and the conversion will be EMAILED back to you. Then you load it on your Kindle via USB.
The 10 cents fee is only if you wanted the converted document delivered wirelessly. There is a charge from Sprint for that after all so they need to recoup it.
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Kindle DRM
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Kindle Crack
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Amazon.com going after webpage owners
I wonder what Harvard Business Graduate/Genius thought of that one?
BTW: I wonder how all the people named "Kindle" (and there are many) feel about their name being used like that?
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