Amazon is taking away a Kindle tool that pirates loved

Amazon Kindles are a lot like many other electronic devices, where users generally fall into two camps: those who operate the product within the manufacturer’s neatly manicured ecosystem, and those who go their own way. Just as some Android users might choose to forego the Play Store and acquire their apps from alternate sources, Kindle users have the option to sideload books over USB instead of buying them directly from Amazon. But this week we’re learning about one upcoming change to how Kindles work that threatens to be a bit annoying to users accustomed to operating outside the lines.

When the twelfth generation of Kindle hardware launched last fall, Amazon implemented a few changes that affect the way these e-readers are able to store and transfer content. That included not just forcing them to operate over USB as MTP devices, but also deprecating the Download & transfer via USB option that let users load officially purchased books from Amazon — going forward, those transfers are restricted to wireless data. So far, though, older Kindles have still been able to take advantage of this tool. That’s all about to change now, with Amazon shutting it off for everyone as of February 26.

Why is this a problem? Well, as Android Police points out, this option was a bit notorious for being something of a piracy-friendly loophole in Amazon’s Kindle DRM. While the files Amazon wirelessly delivers to your Kindle are securely locked to that device, the AZW3 files that you could download to your computer for transfer over USB are vulnerable to hacking tools that can remove the DRM. On one hand, that could provide you with a versatile backup copy of your purchases. On the other, you could pirate those files and share them with people who never compensated the author.

Considering the liability that represented, and the availability of alternate means to get books onto your Kindle, it probably shouldn’t be very surprising that we’re finally seeing Amazon get around to shutting it down. To be clear, this has no impact on your ability to load files onto your Kindle over USB; all that’s changing is that Amazon will no longer yet you download AZW3 files of your purchases to your computer.

If you do have any Kindle purchases that you’d like to download as AZW3 files — not that you’d ever do anything nefarious with them — make sure you grab them from your Amazon account before February 26.