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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)

#191

Post by jkestner »

Accacin wrote: post #174
srtjstjsj wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's needlessly elitist gatekeeping.

The phrasing used was not great, but I do not think it's gate keeping. I honestly find it insulting that we think 'normal' people can't drag some files to a device, most family members know how to use a USB drive, and managing files on a USB drive isn't too dissimilar to dragging and dropping files to a device like an e-reader.

'Normal' people like my parents don't have computers. The burden shouldn't be on them when the hardware they bought was unnecessarily restricted.

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

#192

Post by dredmorbius »

ampdepolymerase wrote: post #142
matheusmoreira wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good are rights when corporations can just have users sign them away by agreeing with some policy? They already make users waive a lot of rights, including the right to pursue legal action, the right to reverse engineer...

Regulate as utilities/infrastructure. Nobody likes the Ma Bell type of anti-trust because it feels like infringing on private property rights but regulating as utility or infrastructure is much widely accepted and palatable. However if you have poor management then you end up in the P&G situation with blame passing from one generation of management to another and no real improvements.

P&G or PG&E?

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

#193

Post by IX-103 »

imtringued wrote: post #131
Qwertious wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I think that would be the point of putting the keys in escrow. Think of escrow as a kind of property limbo where there is no owner, just a responsible party for following a contract regarding the transfer of ownership.

The company doesn't own the keys, so it can't sell them. The user doesn't get the keys until the contract is fulfilled.

I'd expect losing access to the game or not being able to make be installs of the game (in a reasonable time frame) would be in the contract as sufficient conditions to give ownership to affected users.

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

#196

Post by dredmorbius »

yourapostasy wrote: post #186
elorant wrote: post #44

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.

> Unfortunately, we live in an era where everything that can connect to the Internet will abuse its intended use at some point. This is not an era-problem, this is a culture-problem. Likely an economic-incentives-problem. The culture in both business and consumers . There always seem to be The Assholes who corrupt it all for everyone. It's easy to point at businesses, but few talk about incidents of malfeasance from…

Cultures define eras.

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

#197

Post by dredmorbius »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #141
slightwinder wrote: post #137

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 s…

What good are rights when corporations can just have users sign them away by agreeing with some policy? They already make users waive a lot of rights, including the right to pursue legal action, the right to reverse engineer...

There are limits to contracts, including nontermimable or notransactable rights.

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

#198

Post by everybodyknows »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #128
Qwertious wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is already the rule on HN, the submitter must have forgotten (it happens!). A mod will likely change the title.

Posting high-emotion old links seems a powerful vector for karma farming. Hope HN is taking (or already has?) steps to close the vulnerability. @dang?

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

#199

Post by Shish2k »

toyg wrote: post #56
rob74 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to throw in https://www.humblebundle.com/store , but then I realized that the myriad of various "bundles" that they keep launching nowadays (at least as far as games are concerned) and also their store only sells Steam keys. I think the games in the "Humble Indie Bundles" which come out once or twice a year are still mostly DRM free, but that's about it. You can't even search their store for "DRM free", s…

HumbleBundle is a classic case of moral decline once institutional priorities overcome the actual mission. It went from "nice idea to support indies and pay-as-you-wish" to just another bargain-price channel for any company, expanding for its own sake.

I still remember when the first set of games made a million dollars, and the devs were like “That’s enough money. Let’s open-source these games :D”

Can you imagine anybody in the industry saying “That’s enough money” today?

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

#200

Post by hdjdbtbgwjsn »

slightwinder wrote: post #137

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 s…

Those of us that support digital rights vote with our wallets. I would like to read ebooks. I don't have a source to BUY ebooks that I want. So I don't read them.
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