Amazon removed books from my Kindle

[haertig]

What would concern me most, if I allowed my Kindle to go online, is this scenario:

1. I buy a book from Amazon
2. I load it into Calibre (I do this with 100% of my purchases)
3. DRM is automatically removed during the process of importing the book into Calibre via the DeDRM plugin
4. I side load the book from Calibre onto my Kindle
5. Amazon removes the book if my Kindle goes online

I do not know if the item that worries me - item 5 above - actually happens or not. Because I never allow my Kindle to go online for Amazon to get the chance. I do not know what parts of an eBook that DeDRM touches and if Amazon is going to get into a tizzy if they discover such modification and therefore decide to delete my book (now, or in the future after they update Kindle firmware or their cloud servers). I'm not about to test this myself either, because Amazon will also try to update the firmware on my Kindle, and I don't want that either. That firmware update could be the one that automatically deletes DeDRM'ed books!

I doubt I am the only one on these forums that would be annoyed if DeDRM'ed eBooks were removed by Amazon. Again, I don't know that this will happen, because I'm not going to test it. I wouldn't mind reloading books that went missing during a test because I only keep maybe a dozen on the Kindle at a time. But I don't want any firmware update. Amazon could change the functionality of my Kindle in ways that I do not like. Newer is not always better.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Personally I make use of Amazon’s send to Kindle feature for books obtained elsewhere. It delivers books in the latest KFX format with cover thumbnails and synchronized reading position and annotations across devices. To me that is far superior to sideloading via USB.

I specifically didn't want the KFX format when I used Kindles. KFX doesn't work with the FONT_RAMP hack which was essential to me, it has a fixed line height that's larger than I prefer, and it uses hyphenation which I hate. So I would certainly not use Send to Kindle if I had a Kindle.

Anyway, it seems pretty unlikely I'll ever buy a Kindle again, as Amazon got rid of the Oasis, their only buttoned device, and doesn't seem to be planning to replace it. They might decide to release a color Kindle at some point, but unless they dramatically improve the current color tech, I won't be interested in that, especially if it has no buttons.

[JSWolf]

I cannot stand KFX. It prevents using the font metrics to control the line height. So what KFX is doing is forcing a line height that I find too large.

[Quoth]

The azw3 on Kindle looks closer to Adobe rendered (and most decent apps that respect CSS) epub than KFX does. KFX two mainn features seems to be DRM even when publisher wants DRM free (though any Kindle will work) and ability to start reading while the ebook is downloading (negligable value unless you are on 28 kbps dialup or 2002 era GSM), apart from alleged "advanced typesetting". Both are often from the same uploaded to KDP epub except for large publishers.

[Quoth]

The PW3 was quite good when I got it.
It's on 5.16.2 now and the GUI is terrible compared to the past and the "deletion" of content seems random, as is availability of "Publisher" fonts etc.

I just tried a Sync again after some months. So far the sideloaded content is still there (inc covers), but the Amazon content has no covers?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The azw3 on Kindle looks closer to Adobe rendered (and most decent apps that respect CSS) epub than KFX does. KFX two mainn features seems to be DRM even when publisher wants DRM free (though any Kindle will work) and ability to start reading while the ebook is downloading (negligable value unless you are on 28 kbps dialup or 2002 era GSM), apart from alleged "advanced typesetting". Both are often from the same uploaded to KDP epub except for large publishers.

You don't get kerning with KF8. But you do with KFX. Same with ligatures. But I think most can live without ligatures more so then kerning. As for hyphens, KF8 supports soft-hyphens very well. So that's not an issue. as we have the Hyphenate This! plugin or calibre polish.

[zzjing]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I created some additional e-books for testing and sideloaded them via USB. This included at least three books each in AZW3 (KF8) and KFX formats. Some were marked as a Kindle purchase (CDETYPE=EBOK), personal document (CDETYPE=PDOC), and not specified (no CDETYPE metadata).

How do you mark AZW3 files with CDETYPE tags?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by zzjing

How do you mark AZW3 files with CDETYPE tags?

I believe that there are tools for editing MOBI and AZW3 file metadata, but I am not familiar with them. I just patched the files with a binary file editor.

[shamanNS]

Mobi Metadata Editor

Works for MOBI files and also azw3/KF8.

[zzjing]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I believe that there are tools for editing MOBI and AZW3 file metadata, but I am not familiar with them. I just patched the files with a binary file editor.

Thanks. So I assume the problem is still not fixed? It just happened to me a second time, and that's how I found my way to this thread. I can confirm that only books that are marked as EBOK are deleted.

[zzjing]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

Mobi Metadata Editor

Works for MOBI files and also aw3/KF8.

Thanks for the link. I did find it myself, but it was painful to use and slow to change files one by one. I did find a way to hack the Quality Check plugin and can now do it easily.

[shamanNS]

You edited QualityCheck plugin to set PDOC instead of EBOK?

[zzjing]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

You edited QualityCheck plugin to set PDOC instead of EBOK?

Yep.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

You edited QualityCheck plugin to set PDOC instead of EBOK?

I think that should also be changed in source so eBooks converted to KF8 get changed as part of the conversion.

[tmf2]

Interesting just downloaded a book from Amazon and now my side loaded books are gone. Connected the Kindle to the PC and yes they were deleted for some reason.