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

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

#241

Post by matheusmoreira » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #190

matheusmoreira wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think that? I used to tell people and most of them ignored what I said. > It seems highly unlikely to me that the average customer of an ebook reader or a streaming TV/movie service or one of the gaming networks has any idea about how the DRM works They don't have to understand technical details. They just have to understand one fact: they don't actually own what they're spending their money on. I to…

Have you considered that the people you told don't really believe you are as expert as you claim, or believe that you were overdramatizing the situation? > They just have to understand one fact: they don't actually own what they're spending their money on. The consequences of losing access don't necessarily follow from that though. Lots of people for example understand the principle of leasing an apartment or car, an…

> Have you considered that the people you told don't really believe you are as expert as you claim, or believe that you were overdramatizing the situation?

I don't claim to be an expert. I'm just a guy who cares a lot about this stuff. I suppose I can be dramatic but I don't think that makes me wrong.

> The consequences of losing access don't necessarily follow from that though.

Currently, they do. That could change in the future but right now when people spend money on media they're merely buying some company's permission to enjoy some content. That permission can be revoked at any time and for any reason or no reason.

> Lots of people for example understand the principle of leasing an apartment or car, and in those cases it's much harder for the true owner to arbitrarily take the property away from you.

People aren't leasing content though. They're buying it. They buy books, they buy video games...

> it can't be very practical advice

Ignoring copyright is actually the most practical advice there is.

Everybody understands how to do it. I've yet to meet a single person who has never infringed copyright. People do it without even realizing it. It's how people naturally operate, especially on the internet. When people want something, they right click on it and save it. Nobody really thinks about the creator's rights to monopolize imaginary property.

The only problem with this advice is it's technically illegal. We can fix this by abolishing copyright.

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

#242

Post by beagle3 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

setr wrote: post #236

beagle3 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make the customers of digital goods first-in-line creditors. It's basically goods stolen from people, at the moment of shutting down - they should be first in line. Most companies don't shut down when they run out of their last dollar; Rather, they shut down when they have more liabilities than assets. The result would be that traditional creditors will demand an escrow for that digital data before giving any money (…

>It's basically goods stolen from people, at the moment of shutting down - they should be first in line No its not. You've only agreed to RENT a book for an unspecified amount of time. You never owned a thing, and thus nothing was stolen from you. Ownership doesn't exist in the digital marketplace; if you really wanted to do something so stupid as to OWN a good, you'd pirate it. Note that for goods like DVDs you're s…

When I watch movies on Amazon Video, I. An choose “Buy” or “Rent”, not “rent for a day” vs. “rent until amazon decides I don’t deserve it”

Copyright is the specific rule under which I get the copy when I buy a DVD, not some random license written by the company producing the DVD. Fair use and all.

This word play would not be found funny in court (or at least shouldn’t be)

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

#243

Post by setr » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 7:08 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #242

setr wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's basically goods stolen from people, at the moment of shutting down - they should be first in line No its not. You've only agreed to RENT a book for an unspecified amount of time. You never owned a thing, and thus nothing was stolen from you. Ownership doesn't exist in the digital marketplace; if you really wanted to do something so stupid as to OWN a good, you'd pirate it. Note that for goods like DVDs you're s…

When I watch movies on Amazon Video, I. An choose “Buy” or “Rent”, not “rent for a day” vs. “rent until amazon decides I don’t deserve it” Copyright is the specific rule under which I get the copy when I buy a DVD, not some random license written by the company producing the DVD. Fair use and all. This word play would not be found funny in court (or at least shouldn’t be)

https://www.primevideo.com/help/ref=atv_hp_cnt?_encoding=UTF...

Viewing Period: Indefinite -- you may watch and re-watch your purchased videos as often as you want and as long as you want (subject to the limitations described in the Amazon Prime Video Terms of Use).

It's not copyright, as I understand it -- its terms of service.

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

#244

Post by MayeulC » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 8:39 AM UTC

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #169

MayeulC wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

I do self host Bitwarden. There are two possibilities: - the official docker solution which is extremely complicated - https://github.com/dani-garcia/bitwarden_rs which is extremely simple and just works. It includes everything for 0 EUR. I still sent money to both projects because I think they did a nice work. I find Bitwarden better than LP in handling Android (seems to be better at recognizing places it can fill i…

Thank you for mentioning that alternative, that looks very interesting indeed. May I ask how you sent money to bitwarden? By subscribing?

Your comment on OTP makes a lot of sense. I personally use Aegis from F-droid from OTP (moved from AndOTP), which I quite like.

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

#245

Post by BrandoElFollito » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:29 AM UTC

MayeulC wrote: post #244

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do self host Bitwarden. There are two possibilities: - the official docker solution which is extremely complicated - https://github.com/dani-garcia/bitwarden_rs which is extremely simple and just works. It includes everything for 0 EUR. I still sent money to both projects because I think they did a nice work. I find Bitwarden better than LP in handling Android (seems to be better at recognizing places it can fill i…

Thank you for mentioning that alternative, that looks very interesting indeed. May I ask how you sent money to bitwarden? By subscribing? Your comment on OTP makes a lot of sense. I personally use Aegis from F-droid from OTP (moved from AndOTP), which I quite like.

bitwarden_rs: https://github.com/sponsors/dani-garcia (you can subscribe and then resign - there is no way to make a single payment AFAIK)

bitwarden: I subscribed and then cancelled as there is no single payment either.

As for the OTP, one more point is that in the case where Bitwarden would be hacked, the fact that OTP is somewhere else is a real layer of security.

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

#246

Post by beagle3 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:44 AM UTC

setr wrote: post #243

beagle3 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I watch movies on Amazon Video, I. An choose “Buy” or “Rent”, not “rent for a day” vs. “rent until amazon decides I don’t deserve it” Copyright is the specific rule under which I get the copy when I buy a DVD, not some random license written by the company producing the DVD. Fair use and all. This word play would not be found funny in court (or at least shouldn’t be)

https://www.primevideo.com/help/ref=atv_hp_cnt?_encoding=UTF... Viewing Period: Indefinite -- you may watch and re-watch your purchased videos as often as you want and as long as you want (subject to the limitations described in the Amazon Prime Video Terms of Use). It's not copyright, as I understand it -- its terms of service.

"purchased" video. The "terms of use" limitation does not say "until we go bankrupt" or "until we decide to not let you for business reasons", and it does say "purchased videos". That has a well defined meaning, which contract weasel words can't change. Courts in Europe have ordered refunds for e.g. PS3 updates that removed Linux abilities - I'm sure the weasel legalese originally said Sony is allowed to do that.

There is a law of the land, and it is not overriden by an amazon webpage in general, even if it does in some US states.

If Amazon folds, how come my "purchased" video disappears with it?

Words have a meaning that cannot just be redefined at will with legalese. Try to pay someone salary, subject to the limitation that it is in negative dollars, and see how far that gets you in court.

So far, companies like Microsoft who shut down their DRM services have refunded those purchases ; Companies that folded did not. I suspect if Microsoft got to court without a refund, court would have ordered them to refund or give a DRM-free copy. Either way, it's clear that for Microsoft, the public relation + court costs outweighed the refund cost. My suggestion is to make that effectively law, so that not just microsoft (who stand to lose from this action) would actually consider it a-priori.

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

#247

Post by shawnz » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 12:36 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #241

shawnz wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that the people you told don't really believe you are as expert as you claim, or believe that you were overdramatizing the situation? > They just have to understand one fact: they don't actually own what they're spending their money on. The consequences of losing access don't necessarily follow from that though. Lots of people for example understand the principle of leasing an apartment or car, an…

> Have you considered that the people you told don't really believe you are as expert as you claim, or believe that you were overdramatizing the situation? I don't claim to be an expert. I'm just a guy who cares a lot about this stuff. I suppose I can be dramatic but I don't think that makes me wrong. > The consequences of losing access don't necessarily follow from that though. Currently, they do. That could change…

> Currently, they do. That could change in the future but right now when people spend money on media they're merely buying some company's permission to enjoy some content. That permission can be revoked at any time and for any reason or no reason.

I think you are misunderstanding my point.

What I am saying is that most people's expectation of leasing/renting arrangements is such that there are protections in place to prevent the thing from being arbitrarily taken away.

However those protections don't exist for software services, only physical things like cars and apartments. Thus it is a violation of peoples' expectations that software services don't have those protections.

So it is not enough to simply tell them, "You don't own it and that's the problem". That does not fully explain the problem. In order to fully explain the problem you would need to explain how not only do you not own it, but ALSO there are no legal protections to prevent it from arbitrarily being taken away like a layperson might expect there to be such a situation.

> People aren't leasing content though. They're buying it. They buy books, they buy video games...

Earlier you just said that users don't own the content... so which is it?

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

#248

Post by golergka » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

RHSeeger wrote: post #221

golergka wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like managing your own mp3 library, it's incredibly inconvenient compared to the cloud option. I've done it for years with music, and I'm very happy to just be able to stream whatever I want instead. Same with books.

As someone who doesn't have unlimited data, the number of services that make it very hard _not_ to use the cloud (including Apple, with their "I know you said put this on your computer, but we really didn't, and we'll just grab it from the cloud when you want to play it on your phone" junk) is extremely inconvenient.

> doesn't have unlimited data

Do people still have limited data plans in 2020?

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

#249

Post by dragonsngoblins » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #216

fakedang wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually sounds like a neat idea from a theoretical perspective, but isn't it how cracks work, and how crack-generators evade that?

They meant for identification of leaker. But IMHO it's useless. Anybody could claim they had their laptop stolen.

Also you could just have two different accounts, buy the file, compare the two files and identify any differences, overwrite the differences with blanks/gibberish

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

#250

Post by emteycz » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

dragonsngoblins wrote: post #249

emteycz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They meant for identification of leaker. But IMHO it's useless. Anybody could claim they had their laptop stolen.

Also you could just have two different accounts, buy the file, compare the two files and identify any differences, overwrite the differences with blanks/gibberish

Or just use OCR.