Transferring Accounts Question ::UPDATE:: Major Flaws with Fire and DX :(

[pomlover2586]

 OK So I have a situation that I am hoping you guys can help with. My little sister has a K3 that is registered to our mom's amazon account. She is moving in with her father and will be transferring her Kindle to his Amazon account.........Here lies the problem. Is there any way to transfer ownership of her books as well as her Kindle? Or is the only solution to download all of her books onto her Kindle and then never delete them?

Also, she just got a Kindle Fire for her birthday and has yet to register it. Should she register it to her old account and then re-register it to her fathers account once the books are transferred? Thanks for any advice you guys have!

[KimberlyinMN]

I'm pretty sure the only way to do this is below... But let's hope I am wrong!!

Or is the only solution to download all of her books onto her Kindle and then never delete them?

[pomlover2586]

Well this is just lovely...I registered her Kindle Fire to her old account and downloaded all of her books, and the deregistered it and reregistered it to her new account and now all of her old content is gone.......I know with the older K's 1-3 you were able to upload books and as long as they weren't deleted from the Kindle you could access them- even if they were bought on another account. has anyone else had this issue with the Kindle Fire? If this a new security feature they have implemented?

[pomlover2586]

Spoke to amazon support....was told this is a new security feature enabled on the Fire and the DX.....they can no longer hold books form previous accounts even if they are not deleted. So basically you lose ALL of your purchases if you need to change your account- i.e. divorce, move in with different parent etc..........word of caution for you all...

[CegAbq]

Very useful, but sad, info

[KingAl]

Spoke to amazon support....was told this is a new security feature enabled on the Fire and the DX.....they can no longer hold books form previous accounts even if they are not deleted. So basically you lose ALL of your purchases if you need to change your account- i.e. divorce, move in with different parent etc..........word of caution for you all...

The DX??? Why???

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

[Betsy the Quilter]

It's actually not a flaw, it's a feature, no matter how disappointing.  Amazon has always been quite clear in their ToS that books belong to the account they're purchased on and that when deregistered from an account, the books should be removed.

We've known about the inability to retain books or other customer purchases  on the Fire since almost the first day...sorry, I wasn't on much last night, I missed your post.

Have you tried this with the DX?  I'm surprised...I wonder if it has always been this way, I haven't heard of a software update?  Thoughg, not owning a DX, I don't keep up very well...

Betsy

[Ann in Arlington]

As Betsy says this is a designed feature of the Fire and is in accordance with the ToS.  One can be annoyed.  But you're not supposed to do it even if you can.  They just took away the 'even if you can' part.  And, yeah, this has been much discussed over in Fire Talk.  I did see your initial post last evening but you didn't mention a Fire at that time . . . .and Kimberly's answer was correct as far as it went. . . . and I was busy watching football.

FWIW, the 'non-transportability' is one of the reasons I recommend you put kids kindles on their very own accounts. . . .that way they can have all their books for the rest of their lives.  

I do NOT believe that this happens with a DX.  In fact if I click "deregister" on the DX I recently got (the graphite colored one with pearl screen) it says "If you deregister, your content will remain on your Kindle and can still be read.)  I canceled the process at that point.  But I'm not really worried I'd lose anything.  And I don't have a separate account to register it to, anyway, to see if it's the re-registration that might trigger the wipe.  I've also not tried it with my Basic Kindle which would be more likely to have such a wipe enabled.

But, honestly, I think it's probably limited to the Fire and there primarily because of the ability to download content other than books. . . . .

[KimberlyinMN]

I do NOT believe that this happens with a DX.  In fact if I click "deregister" on the DX I recently got (the graphite colored one with pearl screen) it says "If you deregister, your content will remain on your Kindle and can still be read.)  I canceled the process at that point.  But I'm not really worried I'd lose anything.  And I don't have a separate account to register it to, anyway, to see if it's the re-registration that might trigger the wipe.  I've also not tried it with my Basic Kindle which would be more likely to have such a wipe enabled.

Oh... Yes... It is the re-registering that wipes it.  I recall reading threads about people selling Kindles with their books still on them. The caution was to not re-register the Kindle because then the content would be wiped.  Or people in book clubs who will register their Kindle to someone else's account to borrow a book. When they register back to their own account after reading the book, the book is removed.

[Ann in Arlington]

Oh... Yes... It is the re-registering that wipes it.  I recall reading threads about people selling Kindles with their books still on them. The caution was to not re-register the Kindle because then the content would be wiped.  Or people in book clubs who will register their Kindle to someone else's account to borrow a book. When they register back to their own account after reading the book, the book is removed.

FWIW, I hadn't heard that happening until very recently. . .we have a couple of members here who've been around since nearly the beginning who regularly de- and re-register kindles between an 'adult' content account and a 'family' account without any problems.  So I'd say it's a new development.

And, again, though annoying, I can't really blame Amazon for implementing such a thing.

[TraceyC/FL]

To the OP, I would suggest your sister set up her own account at this point rather than tying it to a parent. That way, each parent can give gift cards to fund it if they want - but then if she goes back to live with y our mom it won't happen this way again.

There are instructions on the Fire board about how to keep content on there once it is deregistered that might help, it's a multi-step process.

I do wish that amazon would give us a way to move content at least once to another account (and I mentioned it in my feedback last week) with the whole kid, divorce and other type of scenarios that come up.

[KimberlyinMN]

I totally agree. Although I can also see where there could even be huge legal issues with this regarding proof of who really "owns" what, etc. - considering issues that some people have deciding who gets the mixing bowl. 

(On a side note, we have the opposite occurring: My hubby and I have separate Amazon accounts - but now that he's getting interested in photography, I wish ours were together because I'd like to read the same books on my Kindle that he is reading on his smart phone and netbook. I think I have him convinced that I should buy the books and he registers his gadgets to my account.)

I do wish that amazon would give us a way to move content at least once to another account (and I mentioned it in my feedback last week) with the whole kid, divorce and other type of scenarios that come up.

[Ann in Arlington]

I totally agree. Although I can also see where there could even be huge legal issues with this regarding proof of who really "owns" what, etc. - considering issues that some people have deciding who gets the mixing bowl. 

You know, even in the early days of KindleBoards. . .there were purely academic discussions about how Judge Judy would decide such things:

My ex - boyfriend and I share a Kindle account and now I can't get my books because he de-registered my Kindle and changed the password so he owes me the money it cost me to buy them.

I'm not sure Judge Judy would at all get the idea of electronic books and the fact that she can't just order one person to turn them over to the other. . . . .

[KimberlyinMN]

I'm not sure Judge Judy would at all get the idea of electronic books and the fact that she can't just order one person to turn them over to the other. . . . .

OMG, this totally brought to mind a podcast hubby and I listened to a week or so ago, "The Week in Law". My hubby subscribes to it. I don't, I tend to fall asleep when it's playing in the car. Lawyers sit around and talk about cases that they've found in the last week. (And I apologize for totally going off the topic.) A couple was  divorcing and one of the spouses wanted the log in information of the other spouse for a social networking site, a dating site, and their email account. The judge GRANTED this. They had to give each other their user name and password for the specified sites.  WHAT?  Oh, the judge DID say that they were not to post anything while logged in as the other.  Makes me think this judge must have no clue about online sites. Why not just "force" them to friend each other for a specified period of time? To me, private emails and messages should be private, regardless - unless, of course, it involves bodily harm.

[TraceyC/FL]

Makes me think this judge must have no clue about online sites.

My ex's lawyer kept saying, "we have these emails that we downloaded from your computer."

Turns out they were (homeschooling) forum posts my ex, his mom and girlfriend had copy and pasted into a word file, and/or printed my posts (never the whole thread).

His lawyer insisted they were my emails from my computer.... Coming from a man that also kept telling my lawyer he didn't own a fax machine I wasn't surprised he never "got it".

Anyway.... He had no books to give him, he doesn't read, but i did make CD's of the songs he had me buy on iTunes for him. He was anti-computer so that was the best solution. I hope that by the time i have to sort it out with the kids there is a way to transfer them.

[NightGoat]

What would happen if one were to transfer their books via USB to the device?

I do this at work sometimes because I don't have a 3G Kindle and no option for WiFi.

When you select this option it still wants you to select a device.
I'm going to bet it won't work if I did the USB transfer, selected K-3/KB as the device but sent the book to my DX.

Maybe I'll try this later.

[sherylb]

Why not just leave her Kindle on the original account, and have the dad go the gift card route to the mom's account for purchases? That would solve everything while not being a burden on the mom. A parent would still be able to monitor purchases, if that is a concern and no books would be lost.

[KindleChickie]

Deregistering my DX I get the following message, "If you deregister, your content will remain on your kindle and can still be read."

I deregistered, reregistered in ex hubbies account and I can still open books.

[HappyGuy]

I would suggest downloading the Kindle (not Fire) books to a library app like Calibre (which is free). That way you will have the books on a computer which can be uploaded no matter what Amazon account the Kindle ends up being registered to.

[pomlover2586]

We ended up renaming mom's account into my sister's name and then recreating a new account for mom........books remain and now my sister can keep them and any future books on her own account.

[Betsy the Quilter]

Deregistering my DX I get the following message, "If you deregister, your content will remain on your kindle and can still be read."

I deregistered, reregistered in ex hubbies account and I can still open books.

Thanks for testing this, KindleChickie!

Betsy

[Geoffrey]

As a purely academic aside, at some point Content companies such as Amazon, Google or Apple will need to come up with standards to allow for inheritance, sale of content, etc. as they actively move more and more content into their clouds.  If they don't come up with some sort of industry standard, eventually the courts and Congress will take it up .... Its just a matter of time.  We're at the beginning of a completely new type of commerce and we have to let the law catch up with technology.

[PaulGuy]

As a purely academic aside, at some point Content companies such as Amazon, Google or Apple will need to come up with standards to allow for inheritance, sale of content, etc. as they actively move more and more content into their clouds.  If they don't come up with some sort of industry standard, eventually the courts and Congress will take it up .... Its just a matter of time.  We're at the beginning of a completely new type of commerce and we have to let the law catch up with technology.

You're absolutely right on the money Geoffrey. Sadly my wife and I are divorcing. We have hundreds of eBooks we previously shared on her Amazon account. Even though there are books which are undisputedly mine and which my wife would have no objection to letting me take to my own account, Amazon has no way to make that happen. Very disturbing.