# Deregistering Fire Erases content?



## jngreer (May 8, 2012)

Hi everyone!

I'm new to this forum but have learned so much already. I hope you can help me.

I purchased a Kindle fire for my daughter. It came registered to my account already, which was fine. I took a few minutes to load the few books that I knew she would like on her fire. I thought it would save to her fire, but when I deregistered from my account, the books disappeared from her Kindle. Is there a way to save books to the Kindle fire itself and have them remain when you deregister? 

Thanks in advance!
Nancy


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## fuschiahedgehog (Feb 23, 2010)

Nope, legally they're associated with the account, not the device.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

hedgehog has it right. (Well, it's not exactly a 'legal' issue, but the Terms of Service make it clear that the books belong with the account and a kindle can't be 'transfered' with content intact.)

With eInk kindles, it used to be possible to download books to a device, then deregister it, and then let the device be registered to a new account without losing the resident books. _Very_ early on it wasn't even addressed in the ToS and there was rumor that Kindle CS indicated it was o.k.

But that was when the only Kindle was the original first generation device. Now it's definitely not allowed per ToS; The Fire is designed to prevent it and I'm not even sure it works any more on eInk devices. There's been at least one member here who reported that content was removed when they did a similar thing to what you describe but with a Basic Kindle/K4.

Now, what you may be able to do, though it's a lot more extra trouble and involves figuring out where on the Fire the files are stored, is copy the book files from the Fire to your computer and then copy them back to the same Fire after it's re-registered. The DRM would recognize it as the same device so, theoretically, the books would still work; but it's also possible that when the Fire connects again to Amazon it'll recognize those books as not belonging to the account to which the Fire is currently registered and remove them again.

Note this should only be an issue with Amazon purchased content. . . wouldn't affect books purchased else where and loaded or sent to the Fire as they're stored in the "docs" area.


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## jngreer (May 8, 2012)

Thanks! That's what I suspected.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

You might look into a library program like Calibre. I know they let you download to your computer and retain the link to a specific device then upload to that device.


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## Cyanide5000 (Aug 30, 2010)

First thing that came into my head was Calibre! But yeah, like the others have some, your purchases are tied to your Amazon acount, not your device


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## jngreer (May 8, 2012)

Thanks! I haven't heard of calibre, I'll check it out.


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## JimC1946 (Aug 6, 2009)

Calibre is great software for a lot of things, and it's free. Here's the link:

http://calibre-ebook.com/


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## Guest (May 12, 2012)

Isn't all this new technology great!

Why didn't the makers of record players think of this long ago. You buy an RCA record player, but it won't play records by Columbia or Decca. And if you sell it then it won't even play the RCA records you've already purchased.


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## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

Cyanide5000 said:


> First thing that came into my head was Calibre! But yeah, like the others have some, your purchases are tied to your Amazon acount, not your device


Actually they're tied to both. That's why you can't pull an Amazon book off a K3 and put it on a K4, even though they're both registered to the same account.



Okey Dokey said:


> Isn't all this new technology great!
> 
> Why didn't the makers of record players think of this long ago. You buy an RCA record player, but it won't play records by Columbia or Decca. And if you sell it then it won't even play the RCA records you've already purchased.


They did think of it with music downloads, but they got smart and abandoned it. Hopefully publishers will as well, one of these days...


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## raduzhok (May 13, 2012)

Thanks for this question (and answer) since my hubby and I are currently registered separately, but were thinking of deregistering his and re-registering it to my acct, (which is how it was when it arrived - I bought it for him for our anniversary).

While I wouldn't have a problem with doing the transfer of his content to computer until it is re-registered, we wouldn't want to take a chance that anything would get lost, and then not remember what was there, and lose out on all the specials he'd gotten...

So you've saved us a lot of trouble 

Rad


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## JetJammer (Jan 18, 2009)

It's awkward, but it IS possible to read books from one account on a Fire registered under a different account.  As mentioned above, it's technically outside Amazon's TOS, but once on the new Fire I haven't had any problems with Amazon removing them when you wirelessly connect the new Fire.

1. Register the Fire under the account where the books you want to move are located.
2. Download the books you want to move onto the Fire.
3. Copy the books via USB to your computer (be sure to get both the books and the covers folders).
4. Deregister the Fire.
5. Register the Fire under the other account.
6. Copy the books back to the Fire from the computer via USB.

The books will show up under "device" just like you had downloaded them normally, but won't show under "cloud" since they're not tied to that account.  The Fire treats them just like "non-Amazon" books on the second Fire.

Like I said, it's a nuisance, but it does seem to work and it's not particularly difficult, especially since you really only need to do it once.


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## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

So, I tried this, went step by step through the 6-step process below. Indeed, the books do show up on the Fire in the new account, but they can't be opened. A DRM error message shows up when I try.

Is this new behavior (since the May message) where it simply can't be done, or do the accounts need to have something in common to satisfy the DRM checking?

Thanks for any help here.


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## JetJammer (Jan 18, 2009)

GBear said:


> So, I tried this, went step by step through the 6-step process below. Indeed, the books do show up on the Fire in the new account, but they can't be opened. A DRM error message shows up when I try.
> 
> Is this new behavior (since the May message) where it simply can't be done, or do the accounts need to have something in common to satisfy the DRM checking?
> 
> Thanks for any help here.


Hmm, I haven't tried it in several months, it's possible they changed something with a software update. I don't have access to a Fire at the moment to test it, but will try as soon as I can.


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