Amazon simply modified how e-books are downloaded on its older Kindles, and never in a great way

It is no secret that, in comparison with different e-readers like these from Kobo or Boox, Amazon’s Kindle units are way more locked down. That makes it troublesome to customise your Kindle or handle the books you have purchased the best way you want with out jailbreaking it.

Final 12 months, Amazon did not do itself any favors to alter that notion both. It made downloading e-books out of your Kindle even harder and launched a new DRM system that makes it harder to take away DRM (Digital Rights Administration) from books you have purchased, so you may again them up or handle them in third-party software program like Calibre. Now, that very same DRM system is quietly making its technique to older Kindles, too.

In response to The eBook Reader, Amazon has lately added its new DRM system to older Kindle units that the corporate hasn’t up to date in fairly awhile. Specifically, the brand new DRM system — first launched final 12 months with the 5.18.5 software program replace on eleventh and Twelfth-generation Kindles — is now being utilized to older Kindles operating software program model 5.16.2.1.1, with out requiring a brand new replace.

Which means when you have an older Kindle, like a Seventh-generation Kindle Paperwhite operating model 5.16.2.1.1, Amazon has retroactively added its new DRM system to it, making it more durable to take away the DRM from books you have purchased.

How Amazon’s new Kindle DRM system works

Liberating your Kindle e-books is now not possible

What Amazon has modified with its DRM system is the file format used to obtain Kindle e-books. Previous to the 5.18.5 replace final 12 months, Kindle e-books have been sometimes downloaded utilizing KFX recordsdata. These recordsdata may then be imported into third-party software program like the favored Calibre app, and customers may then use instruments to have the DRM eliminated. That made it doable to again up Kindle e-books you’d bought and skim them on any system — whether or not that was your Kindle, a PC, or one other pill. In some ways, it was a technique to liberate your Kindle library.

Nevertheless, with the brand new DRM system, that is all modified. Amazon has switched to downloading e-books within the KFX-ZIP format (through Good E Reader). This format is much safer and complicated and hasn’t been cracked, that means that if you have not already backed up and liberated your Kindle library into an app like Calibre, you will not give you the chance to take action anymore.

As I discussed earlier, Amazon initially launched its new DRM system solely on newer eleventh and Twelfth-generation Kindle e-readers with its newest software program updates. Nevertheless, now older Kindles are additionally being affected, since Amazon has utilized the brand new DRM to units operating software program model 5.16.2.1.1 with out requiring a brand new replace. Total, this implies Kindle fashions from the Seventh technology by way of the Twelfth technology now have this new DRM system.

For now, it appears even older Kindle units — like Sixth-generation fashions and earlier — have not had the brand new DRM system added retroactively. However since Amazon has now finished it for Seventh-generation Kindles and newer, I would not be shocked if the corporate ultimately expands it to them to maintain its DRM protections constant throughout all of its Kindle units.