Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Amazon’s latest Kindle update makes it almost impossible to remove DRM from newly downloaded e-books.
- A jailbreak specialist says the e-books are now tied to a hidden “account secret” only accessible with a previously jailbroken device.
- It follows earlier restrictions like removing USB transfers and blocking downloads on older versions of the Kindle Android app.
Amazon just rolled out a change to its Kindle e-readers that could frustrate anyone who likes to keep permanent copies of their e-books. The newest firmware update, version 5.18.5, strengthens Amazon’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) — the copy-protection system that prevents people from freely backing up or transferring Kindle books.
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Goodereader reported the change, citing a post on the Mobileread forum that the publication identified as from one of the lead developers of a jailbreak method. In the poster’s explanation, they said the new system applies fresh encryption to any newly downloaded e-books, regardless of when they were originally purchased or published. Books where the publisher has opted out of copy-protection are not affected.
The tougher DRM ties each book to an “account secret” stored on the device, which can’t be accessed without a prior jailbreak. That makes it as hard to create a personal backup as it is to transfer books outside Amazon’s ecosystem.
For Kindle owners, this continues a pattern of losing personal control over purchased books. Earlier this year, Amazon removed the ability to download titles for local transfer via USB. Old versions of the Kindle Android app also no longer support downloads, which cut off another method people used for saving e-books. With this latest move, the company has tightened its grip on Kindle e-books even further.
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