How To Remove The DRM From Your Kindle eBook Purchases

Written by John Thompson on April 7, 2011 · Filed under How To, Software 

E-books are the future. They’re handy, they’re small in comparison to audio or video files, and they’re often cheaper than their physical counterparts. There’s one issue with the whole Kindle eBook market right now, though. DRM.

The music industry tried it and fell flat on its back in the process before realising that consumers would simply turn to piracy. Hollywood still struggles to figure out just how consumers want to watch content they’ve legally bought, and in many cases you may buy several versions of the same film.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Amazon Kindle publishers are enforcing the same restrictions on their customers. When you buy a book for the Kindle, you can only use it on the Kindle or a Kindle app for one of your devices. Now that’s hardly fair, but there is a way around it!

By utilising a few handy scripts you can strip your purchased books of their DRM, and use them on any device you want. After all, you have paid full price for them! Let’s take a look and see how it’s done.

Disclaimer: Zath does not in any way condone the piracy of books, or any copyrighted content. However, if you have purchased an item then you should be able to use it on any device that you wish to without content restrictions being enforced upon you. Use this how-to responsibly.

What You’ll Need

1. A Windows PC
2. Kindle for PC (Beta version)
3. Python
4. Unswindle Python Script
5. Mobidedrm Python Script

How To Do The Deed

The first thing you’re going to want to do is grab all of the files that are hyperlinked above. They are all direct download links so they should start downloading straight away. If for some reason one of the downloads don’t work, let me know in the comments and I will re-host them elsewhere.

There is a good reason behind the fact that you’re downloading the beta version of Kindle for PC app, so make sure you turn off automatic updating and refuse any updates that are offered, otherwise this will not work. Ok, all set? Great!

To strip the DRM off your Kindle books, you will need to download the Python scripting language – the link above downloads version 2.7.1, which works fine for this tutorial – and install it to your computer. Install it with the default settings, and you will find the Python folder on the root of your C: drive.

The next things you’re going to need are the two python scripts, which do the actual ripping of the DRM content! Make sure that these two scripts go in the same folder, as they are reliant on each other. I’ve just placed them in to the Python folder for easy access, but it doesn’t matter where you put them.

Now everything is set up, it’s time to remove the DRM off one of your books! To do this is really easy; just drag the Unswindle.py script on to the pythonw.exe file which is located in the Python folder of your root directory, as I mentioned before. This will launch Kindle for PC. Simply open a book from within your library for a second, and then go ahead and close the application. You may think that nothing is happening at this stage, but in a few seconds a window will pop up and ask you to give the unencrypted file a name and a location. It’s that simple!

Summary

I’ve already unencrypted my entire Kindle collection, and converted them for iBooks on my iPad so I can easily carry them around with me on a device other than my Kindle, and still keep the cool looking page turn animations in iBooks. Of course, you can always put them on any other device you have knocking around as well. If you’re looking for ideas, then you should check out our 5 best e-book readers post.

If you have any thoughts, as always, let us know in the comments. Enjoy your DRM-less e-book collection!

Via – Lifehacker