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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)

#131

Post by imtringued »

Qwertious wrote: post #115
kelnos wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also like to see requirements that companies aren't allowed to use terms like "own" or "buy" when referring to their content. They should have to use a term like "license" or even "borrow" to drive home that you're not paying for unfettered ownership. I get what you're saying about preventing copying being impossible without DRM, but I think you overestimate the prevalence of unauthorized copying, at least when t…

"I think the only way that I'd be even remotely comfortable with DRM is if companies using it were required to place their DRM keys in escrow;" Even then, who verifies that the correct keys are uploaded? And for that matter, what counts as "going out of business"? Maybe they'll stop providing service and say "a patch is just around the corner" and then simply never release (or work on) the patch?

It's also possible that a company sells their DRM keys during liquidation to someone who is not interesting in actually providing access to the work e.g. a competitor who wants everyone to move to their platform.

It wouldn't surprise me if something absurd happens like Epic buys GOG and then forces you to buy the same games on Epic store again.

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

#132

Post by Dylan16807 »

Drakim wrote: post #61
nindalf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve bought 100 books on Kindle. You’re saying I could do something that would cause Amazon to decide to break the contract, and I’d get a refund of all 100 books with interest? Seems like a sweet deal to me, since I’m not reading the old books very often.

Amazon could take you to court instead for breaking the contract. What he suggested was that it would be up to Amazon.

The comment says "do something that would cause Amazon to break the contract", not "break the contract myself".

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

#133

Post by imtringued »

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?

I agree. Revisiting old content is the rule, not the exception. If there is stuff you really want to watch again you are very likely to pay for it again. There is a game that I played on PS2 that has been ported to NDS and then PC and I bought all versions even though it was the same game every time.

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

#134

Post by swiley »

underdeserver wrote: post #20

Honestly? I'm okay with this business model. I know it's not a popular opinion here - but as there's no reasonable way to prevent people from unrestrictedly distributing copies, the business model of licensing books sounds reasonable to me. What's not reasonable is the lack of transparency when you're suspected of abuse. I understand that there are many bad actors, but these companies are judge, jury and executioner…

> there's no reasonable way to prevent people from unrestrictedly distributing copies

Why is that a hard requirement though? Also, DRM really doesn't prevent that. I got through my last couple years of college on books from libgen.

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

#135

Post by imtringued »

anuila wrote: post #26
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.

> if open-source tools are effectively blocked on the major platforms. Come on, how can you have such a grim outlook? Nobody will “effectively block” open source tools. Consoles can afford to. Phones are being challenged. Everyone else won’t.

Windows on ARM only allows you to install Microsoft Store apps. Everyone claims ARM is the future but all I see is a proprietary prison.

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

#136

Post by raxxorrax »

Lammy wrote: post #57
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 don't think victim-blaming is a great way to educate people on the existence and dangers of DRM. Convenience might even be worth it to some people, but I think it's more often a problem of ignorance. Any TV ad for a Kindle is going to focus on the broad selection and ease of use. Telling those people about the DRM isn't participating in the same conversation that sold them the device.

The fool me once discussion is always relevant. What is new is the fact that consumer stupidity takes everyone down as well. Without that we wouldn't suffer through this cloud hell.

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

#137

Post by slightwinder »

It's really time for laws which forbid companies to terminate accounts and access to them if they met certain conditions like licencing digital properties. Sure, they can restrict them all they want, as long as a fair stance prevails und people are not ripped of their goods.

This strong difference in powers between companies and customers in the digital realm becomes more and more a serious problem. When people are stop buying digital goods or anything of certain types, just because they have no legal security, then it harms also companies themself. so it should be in their own interesst to support such things.

There was a time in Europe when a strong movement for digital rights existed, but to bad it somehow died down.

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

#138

Post by MayeulC »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #108
yreg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2013 1Password license ($19.99) proved to be a valuable investment. Unfortunately I'll have to migrate to their subscription sooner or later, I already don't have access to their Safari extension.

You may want to give a try to Bitwarden ( https://bitwarden.com/ ) I was a long (15years?) paying user of Lastpass, saw the company grow and discussed with the founders when they were just starting. Then the software grew old (and some M&A were dubious) Switching to Bitwarden was a great choice (since about a year) (I have no affiliation with Bitwarden, I just work in Information Security and look closely at this kin…

Thanks for mentioning it, it looks pretty nice. However, as that's something I would self-host, the pricing options do not make sense to me. I'd be willing to pay a one-time fee of $10, maybe $40 for the family variant (though 6 users feels really arbitrary when you self-host). Not $40 per year for little added value (the thing I'd be interested in is 2FA via OTP/U2F, and maybe that shared item thing).

Anyway, I think I'll look at something else for now, I can't really afford that :)

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

#139

Post by accountLost »

imgabe wrote: post #101
accountLost wrote: post #96

Does anyone here have some experience using a kindle without account as describe here : https://www.techjunkie.com/kindle-without-amazon-account/ Or here : https://ebookfriendly.com/unregistered-kindle-pros-cons/ I think after some research that the oasis may be the best value for money reader for my use case (pdf CS books) but I'm not sure about the amazon account and if it is worth the hassle to avoid it.

I haven't used my Kindle without an account, but I have put non-Kindle, non-Amazon books on it, including some PDFs. In my experience, the Kindle is terrible for reading PDFs. The screen is small, and PDFs don't dynamically resize the way e-books do. You'd probably be better off with an iPad or other tablet with better PDF software and better ability to zoom and pan than the Kindle has.

Thanks. I don't expect a great experience but I'd like to see if a eInk reader would be easier on my eyes since I am already 10 hours a day on LCD. The following video gave me the impression that pdf on Kindle Oasis was acceptable...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f-CIESDs78g

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

#140

Post by lucideer »

Qwertious wrote: post #122
josh_fyi wrote: post #18

Please tag this as 2012. It would be interesting to see a summary of this issue since then -- has Amazon made this into a regular problem for their customers?

I've seen this problem on /r/bestof on reddit - submitting 2011 comments and such, when everyone implicitly assumes comments submitted are present comments. IMO any sort of news/event post that's not recent (say, in the last month or so, or at least within a year of the posting date) should be required to add a "[2012]" (or whatever year it was posted) to the end of the title.

The Guardian has an interesting article on their approach to this[0] but I'm not sure what the best solution to this globally is. You can't rely on publishers entirely, and yet posters & commenting platforms often have difficulty identifying the dates on posts from certain publications (especially small blogs).

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2019/apr/02/...

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