Some time ago, I tried the kindle for PC software and became very angry with it because I couldn’t copy-paste the content to LingQ.
It seems that this “small” problem is over. This amazing open source piece of software (http://calibre-ebook.com/) enables you to convert virtually from any ebook format to any other, and read them in your PC or in your preferred reading device. It includes even a converter to pdf, which is very rough yet, but I’m sure they’re going to be pressed to enhance it very soon. 
When will these publishers understand that these stupid DRM tricks are always going be broken?
I’ve never bought a kindle ebook simply because of so many restrictions, which led me to the sensation that the book wouldn’t be really mine (the one that used to test calibre was a free classic). Now I feel more compelled to buy these books, since I can transform them to any other format that I choose and amazon will never, ever be able to take my books away from me…
Another very interesting tool converts a number of newspapers to an ebook format that you can choose. And there are newspapers in a fair amount of different languages available there. 
Have fun!
Ana,
Thank you for the information and the link. I have checked it out and it looks very exciting! Thanks again!
Ana,
thanks!!!
I’ve bought a lot of kindle books but this tool will be extremely usefull when (I hope soon) other languages than English will be available through amazon ebooks. Studying Japanese without copy and past is really unnerving:-)
Ana, try to use it with a non free ebook…it seems I can’t read a mobybook with it…_ maybe I’m doing something wrong, I don’t know
I find Calibre really slows my PC down.
chiaguglie, I don’t have any non-free mobybooks here, but I could open a free mobybook the same way I opened other ones. To open a book, you use the large button “view” (the one with the magnifying glass picture)
@ Chiara "maybe I’m doing something wrong, I don’t know "
Oh not at all, just violating the copyright laws
See my comment on your wall
Helen,
I felt nothing different here, although I should say I have quite a robust machine.
Ilya,
I never meant to instigate people to violate copyright laws, but have you ever heard of that case in which amazon erased paid books from some kindle devices, without permission or even previous warning? think of a literature student which had all his or her notes for a next-week essay on this book, all locked inside a kindle. Now this person is preparing herself to the tedious and stupid task of hand-copying everything she needs for her essay (because at least in kindle for pc, you can’t save even you own notes, or copy-paste quotations to them). Suddenly, all the annotations are lost without warning, and all that amazon candidly offers in compensation is a credit to buy “any other book”.
The thing is, if I buy a physical book, I own it, and nobody has the right to enter my house to take it back. If I’m studying a book, I have the right to copy some parts of it to help me in my learning. My highlights, comments and notes are mine. Why should these things be different with e-books? I’m not giving away my copyrighted books, I’m just protecting them and making them effectively usable for my 21st century needs. Anyway, Amazon should be happy, because from now on, thanks to this software, I’ll buy more books from them.
I think Ilya is right. I use the view button but the program says the book is under DRM and I’m not allowed to open it that way.
I bought the book and it’s not in kindle format, it’s a mobibook and I can read it on mobibook (even if I have plenty of kindle books).
I’m not sure the program works with non free ebook…
Anyway, I would agree with Ana about the personal use of ebook…I don’t understand why I can’t copy and past words or phrases untill I don’t distribute them but I keep them for personal use…
oh, boy, it seems I that precipitated myself, not “all” ebooks have been made available (yet… lol)
After some research, I found out that there are some books in the kindle store (mostly classics) that have the following comment, in the end of the page:
“Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited”
For the other ones, we’ll have to wait a little more…
Sorry for the false hopes I spread… but we are going to get there… sooner or later.
Well, I don’t think amazon is going to see my money until then…
By the way, kindle and B&N DRMs have already been broken, indeed. But I don’t feel like paying for something and still need to behave like a criminal just to use that very same thing that I honestly bought… 
I hope ebooks will not kindle (no pun intended) another format war. We already have more audio/video codecs than there are actual video and audio files.
Astamoore, if you take a look in the calibre format options menu, I guess you will conclude that we are already on our way to an ‘ebook format hell’, quite similar to the ‘codec hell’…
Break all the copyright laws you want… the current system of copyright is unsustainable… the more we ‘break’ these laws the sooner they’ll have to change… Only selling downloaded intellectual property like ebooks/music ect would be immoral.
I do not know the ins and outs of copyright law. It seems to me that the cost of distributing literature, textbooks, and written information of all kind, is being dramatically reduced. The result should be the opportunity for more writers and producers of written information to find readers and support themselves, while the cost to the consumer of reading and accessing this literature should be a lot less expensive than our existing paper-book based distribution system.
“.The cost of distributing… being dramatically reduced… (1)The result should be the opportunity for more writers and producers of written information to find readers and (2) support themselves”.
Steve, the statement (1) and (2) had seemed to me true also. ( I became especially clever after having read “The Long Tail” by P. Anderson, who also said so )
However, (1) works while (2) - may be not. The reasons are the high cost to effectively protect a digital media, and the culture of the " Free Internet", and the widespread digital piracy.
The authors and the producers began to change the tactics, give away their work for free, advertise and socialize, in a hope create enough Internet traffics and, may be, sell the future products. Big companies use the tactics of giving away media products for free, to choke smaller competitors. That all makes it very hard for small producers and the independent authors to support themselves.
Now Anderson have published a new book, called Freeconomics. It is much about (failed) business models in the era of widespread violation of the copyright. It seems not that consistent with “The Long Tail”.
I had paid for the audiobook of “The Long Tail”, but the audiobook of Freeconomics" --guess what - is already given away for free. (If someone is interested to download it, Google "Freeconomics, Anderson. Anrerson narrates himself in the two. His American English is rather fast)
I must admit I’ve never actually paid for an e-book yet. So many copyright-free books are available on the internet. These people are well worth checking out for their legal, free ebooks, as well as a very interesting forum on all things ebooky: http://www.mobileread.com/.
Then of course there is Project Gutenberg and its affililates. And Steve’s book, and other things written by people who are happy to make their thoughts available in the public domain.
As Ana said, all kind of digital protections can be broken and they will be. Instead of spending millions of dollars in protection software or formats, enterprises should save that money and decrease the price of the product. I have bought some ebooks that I already had in paper because right now, with my iPad, is more convenient for me. Anyway I won’t pay the same price as the paper book. For example, I was reading the The Symbol by Dan Brown (Yeah, I know it’s not Sheakespeare, but it’s ok for my English). I had the paper edition and I bought the kindle one for 7 euros. I could be cheaper, but it’s ok. What I think it’s insane is to sell the paper edition for 20 dollars and the ebook also for the same price or almost the same, let’s say 16 dollars (which I’ve seen many times). There’s no paper expense, no printing, no packaging, no storage, no distribution and no paying for the book store, so the price should be really lower!! You want people buy your product instead of downloading it, then put it in a reasonable price. I have paid to upgrade my Mac OS software. Why? It was just 15 dollars (it doesn’t worth the time to download it, make sure it’s a good copy and so on). However, I would never pay 150 dollars to upgrade my Windows XP to 7!
Regarding to DRM, I remember one day buying a CD and trying to copy it in my computer because I wanted to listen to it in my Ipod. Guess what? I couldn’t because of copyright protection! Whaaaat!!??? I have just bought the CD and I can’t listen to it in my computer or mp3 player??? That’s crazy!! First of all, there should be a warning in the music store saying that this CD can be just played in a conventional CD player, but anyway, what I think it’s really insane is that this kind of digital protection are completely useless and many times just harm the people who “legally” bought the product.
The ugly truth is that prices are not decreasing as they should be, mostly due to publishers. They are becoming useless at a fast pace, because nobody needs them anymore to create nicely formated content and make it available to the entire world. This DRM tricks are still being created in part out of despair, and in part because most people are not yet computer literate enough to find the workarounds. But this reality is changing, and things tend to get worse to them. Maybe blindside is right, the most we do break these DRM aberrations, the faster these guys will realize that they will have to find smarter ways to make honest money (in my opinion, forcing artificially high prices on consumers just to keep some useless behemoths alive is not honest money).
Ilya, I guess you’re right, it’s difficult to unknown artists (musician, writer) to make a living out of their art. But this is not that different from the time when the big enterprises dictated the few ones who would ‘deserve’ to be in the market. Now, the consumers themselves are allowed to choose what they are going to listen to or read. Yes, a lot of artists will need to find other jobs, but this always happened. Not everyone who dreams about being a star become one and this is not likely to change very much. But thanks to technology, we don’t need a few tycoons telling us what we should be consuming.
@ Alsuvi “You want people buy your product instead of downloading it [for free], then put it in a reasonable price.”
The users’ perception of what makes “reasonable price” is very subjective.
Anderson in the above mentioned “Freeconomics” cites an experiment which numerical details I forgot, but hope to remember the idea.
Two groups of users from the same background needed to perform a task. Each group was offered to chose from two software tools suitable for the task, the Good tool and the Worse one.
The first group of the users were asked to pay $15 for the Good tool and $13 for the Worse. Say, 80% percent have eventually chosen the Good and paid for it ( their own and real) $15, because they indeed found the Good tool better than the Worse.
The second group of the users were asked to pay $3 and $1 for the same Good and respectively Worse tools. It is much cheaper, but makes the same price difference. But you already feel the answer. In this second group, only 30% have paid for the Good tool and the rest 70% had tinkered with the Worst
This result stimulated a “control” experiment, where a new group of similar users was given the same task, and the choice from the same two tools. However now Good for ONLY $1, and the Worst for FREE.
It occurred that now 95% were have chosen to suffer with the Worse tool!
Using the KISS principle, Anderson suggests that nowadays the users often consider the price “Zero” as the reasonable price.