I ran into something interesting this evening. I am trying to finish an Amazon Kindle book on my Samsung Note 3 that I started on an iPad Kindle app. I couldn’t download the book due to “license limit exceeded”and that the book could be on a maximum of 6 devices. So I deleted the book from the iPad and a couple of Android devices, thus freeing up three licenses. Trying to download the book still failed. I looked in the “Manage Your Kindle” interface on Amazon. It is possible to find the books that I’ve bought but there is no way to see which devices Amazon thinks the books are on. So I called Amazon customer service. They helpfully explained that the number of available licenses was 0, which is why the downloading was failing. “Well… I deleted the book from three Kindles so shouldn’t I have at least three licenses available?” They just kept repeating that the number of licenses was 0, as though from a script. I asked if they had any way to tell what devices the book might be on. They said “no” and that their preferred method of debugging was simply to deregister entire Kindle apps at random and see if the problem went away.
The whole Kindle system seemed well thought-out at first when an owner could have just one Kindle but I wonder if the left out something critical…
I agree. I share a library of over 600 books with my family, including my father-in-law and sister-in-law. In order for them to use the library they are also authorized to buy books. At 10pm I will get a helpful email from Amazon: “Your purchase of ‘Fifty Shades of Goose’ for Kindle has gone through.” Uh, okay, but from WHICH Kindle was it purchased?
I understand not having an inventory of each Kindle’s content. Deleting things would need to trigger an event and they don’t want to hit the cell network more than they have to. But what about a transaction log for each title in the library?
I believe there is a hard limit to the number of Kindle devices you can tie to your amazon account.
So, you were speaking about 2 different ideas, basically.
You were saying you had only downloaded on N out of 6 devices.
The customer service rep was trying to tell you that you can only have so many devices syncing, period.
Net net, if you go in to your Amazon Kindle management system, outright remove one of your 6 Kindle’s currently tied to your account (either an old phone or device you no longer use, or sacrifice the one you use the least) and everything should work.
I think.
Matt: If there is a limit to how many Kindle devices or apps can be tied to one Amazon account, the limit is not 6 (I have about 13 including Windows Kindle apps).
Phillip,
Did you sync those three devices after you removed the title from them? I’ve found that a sync is often required in order to properly update the Amazon servers.
Bob: Yes.
It has always seemed quite underdeveloped to me.
For a simple example, a sample is totally unrelated to the full object, aside from the link at the end to buy the full version. I expected that when I buy the full version, the sample would disappear, and I’d find myself at the same place in the book I was at in the sample, rather than finding I now have a book and a sample, and the book is completely unread. Also, there seems to be no record of which samples I’ve looked at, so, if I reset the device I’ve sent the sample to, it’s gone, and I have no idea what was in my might have wanted to read list.
WIth collections, there is finally some sort of organization, but prior to that, it seemed that no one had thought about the user with hundreds, let alone thousands of book.
Lending ought to be better, and universal.
Being able to see what you have read should be much better, say, a graphical bar for the book, with the width an element being how long you were on the page, and the darkness being how long ago you looked at it. So when you accidentally flip 20 pages because you had your thumb on it without looking, or you check out a footnote and get lost, you can easily find your way back.
Turn off hyperlinks, I find I can accidentally hit them instead of turning the page, and find myself in the browser. Some way to mail myself sections, though I guess I can highlight them, and then look in the desktop app, but that’s a pain.
It was my understanding that the number of devices and kindle apps is unlimited. Any book can be on six devices/apps at the same time. That being said SOME books can only be downloaded on one device or app; most of the time that’s a smartphone or tablet. Look on the kindle forum for that discussion.
I have many Kindles and Kindle apps, and so I go through this a lot — but the key is, after deleting a book from one Kindle or from an app, to sync BOTH the device on which the deletion is made and on the one receiving it.
You can have an unlimited number of (compatible) devices but a book from a big publisher normally, these days, can be placed on about 5 devices or ‘up to 6’ but some books have no limits while other books have limits of ‘1’ … it all depends on the publisher.
The nature of copy protection is that it trips up legitimate users but does nothing to deter pirates. This has been true of every copy protection scheme ever invented but still the content owners keep trying – they are aided by the snake oil salesmen who sell copy protection software. What the publishers don’t understand is (a) that any encryption scheme (and copy protection is a subspecies of encryption) where both the coded text and the decryption key are present on a single machine can be broken and (b) the publishers have to give you both of those or you couldn’t see the content at all. The only way these schemes work at all is using cryptologically unsound (and easily cracked) methods such as trying to obscure the filename or location of the key in your computer’s memory .
There are tools available for removing copy protection from kindle books. Some of them are add-ons to the excellent calibre e-reader software. Books are automatically decrypted when you import them into your calibre library (from which they can then be exported to any kindle or other device). Once you unprotect the books you can install them on as many devices as you own. In my book it isn’t piracy to read a book that you have bought and paid for and you shouldn’t have to waste time with Amazon tech support in order to do so.