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Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

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Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#101

Note to google, amazon, paypal, anyone with a feature that can freeze, ban, hold, or otherwise disable accounts containing things that are valuable and especially paid for by customers: You need a department that can take responsibility for account lockouts and resolve them! STAT! It is not acceptable for no one in the company to know why an account was disabled or how to go about reinstating it! If piracy can be cal…

> You need a department that can take responsibility for account lockouts and resolve them! STAT!

Most companies have teams similar to this, but they are often used wrong, have the wrong type of staff, bad/poor procedures and processes or are under/over-utilized for escalated problems (so too much or too little goes to them).

Additionally, you might be surprised by how difficult it is to find quality staff (especially at the relatively poor salaries often on offer) that has the "right" mindset to be successful for a role like this. The level of customer service, problem resolution skills, knowledge of possible problems & their resolution (without checking a manual, notes, colleagues), quick response and thick skin/hardheadedness for the abuse you will get, when you are trying to help. Sometimes customers are irrational, make mistakes, blame the company for their errors and won't accept it was their error. More often the case (when I did this role), it was a joy to help customers to resolve the problem so they are happy (or happier) with the result.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#102
post #98
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a first-generation WiFi-only Nook. I have never registered it with B&N and have it permanently in airplane mode (i.e. WiFi disabled). For over a year I used it only for DRM-free EPUB (mainly O'Reilly e-books). Last week I finally broke down and bought a DRM book from B&N's website. It let me download an encrypted EPUB file, which I transferred to my Nook over USB. Without having to enable WiFi or register my N…

what happens when your credit card hits the expiry date?

Troll feeding

He'll get a new expiry date. Credit card companies don't issue you a new number unless they really have to (card was use fraudulently)

Instead they just issue you a new expiry and CVC - and often even update merchants who are charging you on a regular basis with the new info, or allow transactions to continue to go through even with expired date/cvc

Still a valid concern regarding the card # being replaced due to fraud. I keep an encrypted list of all my past CC #s for this very purpose: Far too many places use the CC# as a life-long immutable number (think SSN).

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have been extremely happy with my kindle. The closest I have to a complaint is the limit on the number of devices that can be authorized for certain books, and even that is normally reasonable. The cloud based reader accessible through a browser also makes that restriction less painful (though I wish they would enable highlighting...) But I still have concerns about the DRM. Amazon seems extremely stable, but…

You can hook your kindle up to your PC and pull the AZW files off if you wish to keep the content backed up.

But what are those files worth if your Amazon account gets mysteriously locked, or Amazon goes bankrupt 10 years from now?

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#104
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No ebook license (or any other "virtual" good) will ever have a license that confers 'ownership'. A license can be more flexible and allow free transfer, copying and backup; but I don't think the law allows for a concept of the ownership of trivially duplicable data.

>No ebook license (or any other "virtual" good) will ever have a license that confers 'ownership'. You've forgotten about the public domain.

Actually, I'd say that the underlying issue is that the very concept of "ownership" simply cannot be made to apply consistently to goods that cost basically nothing to replicate.

All the hubub about IP and DRM and piracy follows from this mismatch.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#105
post #94

I just received a Barnes & Noble "Nook SimpleTouch" (the basic, e-ink screen one), and while I like it, this sort of thing has me very worried about using most of its (limited set of) features. That is, while the Nook has something like 1 gb of internal storage for books, about 75% is reserved for content you have to purchase through Barnes & Noble. That leaves about 230 mb for your own files. (The Nook does feature…

The DRM on Kindle ebooks is actually surprisingly easy to crack, and I do so as a matter of principle. I believe in supporting the author and pay for my Kindle library; I also ensure my ebooks can't be taken from me if the company folds/the publisher decides they don't want my money (ie. the 1984 Amazon debacle).

This is actually the reason I own a kindle vs other devices. If I find that I cannot crack the DRM of a book I purchased, that will be the last ebook I buy from amazon.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#106
post #102
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what happens when your credit card hits the expiry date?

Troll feeding He'll get a new expiry date. Credit card companies don't issue you a new number unless they really have to (card was use fraudulently) Instead they just issue you a new expiry and CVC - and often even update merchants who are charging you on a regular basis with the new info, or allow transactions to continue to go through even with expired date/cvc Still a valid concern regarding the card # being repla…

I realized after re-reading the original comment that he only has to valid date his CC on first opening.

What I was wondering is if he had to re-validate at some point in the future, would the expired card trip him up or would his encrypted copy still work?

I'd guess it would still work if he is doing this all without a network connection. If that works though, I hope their using the credit card info as a hash instead of directly storing it in their encrypted files... because that would be scary.

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