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Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

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Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#41

Post by gambiting »

romwell wrote: post #13
Moru wrote: post #7

This is true not just for Kindle books. It's also your games library on Steam and all other similar stores. GOG.com is probably the only online game store where you realy own the stuff you "buy".

Yes, but with Kindle at least you can strip the DRM of your eBooks. There's a Calibre plugin[1] that does it. If you really care about ebooks that you purchase, I highly recommend installing this plugin. It automatically strips DRM off books you download and open with Calibre. And keep a back-up of the (DRM-free) books somewhere that's not Amazon / a cloud. Because a cloud is simply a computer that you do not own . […

Well, but that's like saying that you can download cracks for video games, so it's all fine. There are ways to make steam games work without steam, yet I wouldn't consider that to be a solution.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#42

Post by gambiting »

hyperman1 wrote: post #24
romwell wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but with Kindle at least you can strip the DRM of your eBooks. There's a Calibre plugin[1] that does it. If you really care about ebooks that you purchase, I highly recommend installing this plugin. It automatically strips DRM off books you download and open with Calibre. And keep a back-up of the (DRM-free) books somewhere that's not Amazon / a cloud. Because a cloud is simply a computer that you do not own . […

Note how this is in most jurisdictions illegal. You are now pirating, except you paid for it.

If by "most jurisdictions" you mean pretty much just US, then sure.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#43

Post by jbay808 »

touristtam wrote: post #35
javajosh wrote: post #2

Indeed, and this is why I still buy paper books, DVDs and CDs (and vinyl, when the mood strikes). Heck, I suspect that in the not-too-distant future, old software licenses and media will be valuable, perhaps extremely so if open-source tools are effectively blocked on the major platforms.

I don't see the interest in buying DVDs. Books and Music are two medium one is likely to revisit. Movies/Drama on the other hand? Once it is viewed, are they really that many people that will try to view it again? Do they get the same thrill as for a very good story/music piece?

When I find a movie I really like, I tend to want to either rewatch it with different people who haven't seen it, or lend it to those people.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#44

Post by elorant »

That's why I never registered my Kindle. It's always in Airplane mode and used as a dumb device connected to my PC through USB anytime I want to download books. Thanks, but no thanks Amazon.

Unfortunately, we live in an era where everything that can connect to the Internet will abuse its intended use at some point.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#45

Post by auggierose »

f1refly wrote: post #38

It's always a bit alienating to me when people suddenly wake up with their stuff taken away and are all like "how could this happen to me? why did noone warn me about this? how could amazon _do this to me_?" and then go off on their ways and "buy" the next movie from them (in addition to the amazon prime membership they already pay for that for some reason only includes the 480p version of the movie). It's not like t…

Yes, I also try to get it directly from the publisher. This has the advantage, that often you get the much better quality PDF version than the Amazon version with garbled math in it. I have bought maybe 5 books for Kindle that I couldn't get any other way. It sucks, because I cannot make these 5 books part of my Calibre library.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#46

Post by greenyoda »

Animats wrote: post #33

Amazon.co.uk and its affiliates reserve the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders at their sole discretion. - Amazon “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." - Orwell

Ironically, the first highly publicized instance of Amazon deleting books from Kindle devices was its deletion of Orwell's "1984" in 2009: https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-th...

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#47

Post by toyg »

f1refly wrote: post #38

It's always a bit alienating to me when people suddenly wake up with their stuff taken away and are all like "how could this happen to me? why did noone warn me about this? how could amazon _do this to me_?" and then go off on their ways and "buy" the next movie from them (in addition to the amazon prime membership they already pay for that for some reason only includes the 480p version of the movie). It's not like t…

> I buy all my books directly from the publisher, drm-free

Most publishers don't do that. Why do you think Amazon has DRM? It's not because they enjoy running DRM schemes, they were among the first to sell straight MP3s even. It's because most publishers love DRM. See also the lawsuit against Internet Archive at the first whiff of creaks in the DRM dam.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#48

Post by smt88 »

f1refly wrote: post #38

It's always a bit alienating to me when people suddenly wake up with their stuff taken away and are all like "how could this happen to me? why did noone warn me about this? how could amazon _do this to me_?" and then go off on their ways and "buy" the next movie from them (in addition to the amazon prime membership they already pay for that for some reason only includes the 480p version of the movie). It's not like t…

> It's not like they haven't been warned that this would happen.

Not only have they not been warned, services like Audible and Kindle are actively marketed to hide that possibility.

If they really wanted people to understand that these purchases can be revoked at any time, they'd stop using words like "own", "buy", and "my library".

It's fine to hold consumers responsible, but only if companies are transparent. "Buy" is a word with a specific definition in the physical world, and Amazon is abusing that understanding.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#49

Post by [deleted] »

gambiting wrote: post #41
romwell wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but with Kindle at least you can strip the DRM of your eBooks. There's a Calibre plugin[1] that does it. If you really care about ebooks that you purchase, I highly recommend installing this plugin. It automatically strips DRM off books you download and open with Calibre. And keep a back-up of the (DRM-free) books somewhere that's not Amazon / a cloud. Because a cloud is simply a computer that you do not own . […

Well, but that's like saying that you can download cracks for video games, so it's all fine. There are ways to make steam games work without steam, yet I wouldn't consider that to be a solution.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#50

Post by f1refly »

timwis wrote: post #40
f1refly wrote: post #38

It's always a bit alienating to me when people suddenly wake up with their stuff taken away and are all like "how could this happen to me? why did noone warn me about this? how could amazon _do this to me_?" and then go off on their ways and "buy" the next movie from them (in addition to the amazon prime membership they already pay for that for some reason only includes the 480p version of the movie). It's not like t…

Interesting.. how often can you find the publisher offering a drm free copy? I buy _a lot_ of books (usually one or two per week), and I have a feeling I’d only find 1 in 5 from a publisher but haven’t checked. Also, I always do the “try a sample” first which has saved me a lot of money from buying books that weren’t what I expected. Wish there was an equivalent to that!

I think all book I read in the last three years I bought without drm applied to the files. Most of them have some kind of invisible watermark I couldn't care less about that presumable helps the publisher track down who distributed a book if the user didn't remove it, but it being invisible and probably bit-sized, that's an okay thing in my book (heh).

Now that I think of it, it might have to do with the fact that I read sci-fi almost exclusively, where the authors have some kind of political interest in freedom themselfes and might pick publishers accordingly, but I have no way to back that idea up. The majority of the books I bought are published by Bastei Lübbe (https://www.luebbe.de/), but smaller publishers usually allowed me to do the same.

I don't read book samples because I check the reviews for books I plan on reading on whereever I can find them, but I might start if the reviews start failing me. Might have to figure out where those are possible then :)

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