Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Outlawed by Amazon DRM

bekkelund.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 494 posts

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#111

Post by raverbashing »

nodata wrote: post #63
jwr wrote: post #5

I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.

> I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.

What's funny is this:

Fine let's say it's not a rental, and forget about the DRM issue for a second.

But what's your cost in keeping the data "alive"? I could copy it from machine to machine, maybe backup it on S3 (or similars), but all that has a cost (time, money, new reading devices, etc).

A physical book has a cost as well: space, weight, etc.

At some point, abandoning the book may be more cost effective, and even if digital books have a 'expire date' it looks like they may be cheaper in the long term

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#112

Post by josephlord »

hobbes wrote: post #50
shismijuh wrote: post #16

I own 2 kindles. Got one more for Mum also. I need to get my books out ASAP. Somehow, feel very cheated. Nobody can walk into your house and take away your paperbook. This is theft! And then the arrogance of no explanations.

You did read the Terms and Conditions before you "bought" the books, didn't you? If you bought the books, you agreed [in the eyes of the law] to this kind of eventuality.. I'm as guilty of this kind of thing as well. We tend to assume an imaginary T&C that conforms to we think is fair when we buy things online - and we have to learn the hard way that the real T&C's are very much more dubious. Here's the relevant bit…

If you read and actually considered the worst case in every contract/website terms and conditions/software licence that you come across it would probably take about a day a week and you would never actually agree to anything that wasn't a GPL/BSD/MIT... software licence. For one thing most give the party offering the agreement rights to change it which should be an absolute no-way.

For most things such as online purchases I tend to rely on law and reasonableness of people and take the chance without reading expecting the maximum downside to be tens of pounds related to that purchase. I am a little more careful when locked into eco-systems (Kindle/app-stores) but still go a fair bit on taking the risk with the reputation of the provider and the size of the risk and the cost of getting the content another way.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#113

Post by chris_wot »

jakubp wrote: post #55
jnazario wrote: post #29

an increased number of stories like this will make the book pirating underground a lot more attractive to a wider audience. it exists, it's not quite napster-like yet but it's getting there. no DRM, a potentially wider catalog, etc. this is a risk for publishers and loss-leaders (like amazon) alike.

There's something to what you sad. Isn't it ironic to see a situation that so closely mirrors piracy? - with DRMed books, Amazon says "yes, you >>have can take them away from you and you can do nothing about it. You paid [for ebook copies] and are left with nothing - in piracy, a person who gets pirated copies of a book says "yes, if I want to read your books, dear authors/publishers, I'll pay for them [wink]", but t…

The irony is, all that you have to do is get your entire book list, then hunt down the books you already paid for and then you can get them DRM free.

Then you never pay Amazon another cent. After all, they didn't want your money! If they have refused to let you buy content that you require, then I can see why some people feel a moral justification to pirate the books.

It's really quite simple. If this happened in the U.S. then they could take court action against Amazon. If you are from overseas, you really have no recourse. Therefore, merely because of where you live, you are restricted from material that may enrich your life. That's discrimination, and I can well understand that someone might feel justified in breaking the law to download pirated books.

Amazon... hurting themselves as only a greedy corporation can.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#114

Post by techsupporter »

jaachan wrote: post #68
techsupporter wrote: post #56

Tangentially related, I am getting very, very tired of "customer service" departments using phrases like: "While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts, please know that we have reviewed your account on the basis of the information provided and regret to inform you that it will not be reopened." This happens more frequently: Google says this all the time, based on posts here; Am…

"While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts" I don't think it means they don't know, I think it means they can't[1] "detail", i.e. tell you. [1] Won't, of course.

That's exactly my point: They don't want to tell you.

If a company has such rigid internal processes that it can't come up with a way to reveal at least some information to allow a paying[0] customer to successfully defend an allegation of fraud, then that process is broken.

0 - I leave as an exercise to the reader the question of what should be done for free services.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#115

Post by hobbes »

losvedir wrote: post #90
hobbes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, how, pray tell, will you convince the judge of that? You didn't purchase a book, as the T&C's make clear - the contents of which you agreed to by entering into the said agreement. You paid applicable fees to enter into an agreement to view digital content. Nothing more. There was no purchase of a book. Where's your evidence to the contrary?

> Where's your evidence to the contrary? Oh, I don't know. Maybe when he visited the website of one of the largest retailers in the world, broke out his saved credit card like usual, and clicked the gigantic "Buy now with 1-Click" button? I would love for this to get tested in court. Has it? My understanding (I'm not a lawyer, but heard this from a lawyer) is that the purpose of, say, signing a release form before pl…

Well, good luck with the "1-click" button defense. heh.

I agree that Amazon could be a LOT more open and clear about what it is that changes hands (ie some "rights") when we pay "applicable fees".

But, it took me the best part of 10 seconds to find the license agreement. And, once found, couldn't be clearer.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#116

Post by gioele »

nodata wrote: post #63
jwr wrote: post #5

I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.

> I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.

> > I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals.

>Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.

Lawyers and librarians also do. There are big discussions in those circles about the meaning of the verbs "to buy" and "to possess" as used by Amazon, Apple and other big DRM "retailers". It is not only about DRM. Libraries are realising that paying for access to a website of a publishing house is not exactly like paying to receive a copy of a published journal or magazine. Have a look at all the dark archives and to who is financing them.

First it was an hacker problem, now it has spread to humanities, in five years the DRM will finally become a layperson problem. The first signs surfaced some years ago, when kids started complaining about the fact that their iPod could not be used to pass or share music while a cheaper Creative MP3 player could without a problem.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#117

Post by tomp »

DanBC wrote: post #103
dendory wrote: post #91

I'm a comic book fan, and a while back I started buying comics digitally from Dark Horse's digital store. Being also a HN reader, I'm very aware of what these companies can do, how accounts are closed without notice, wiping all your previous purchases, etc. So obviously as my spending went up in that one digital store, I became concerned of what could happen, especially reading their FAQ that clearly state all my mon…

Bypassing a technical copyright protection mechanism is a criminal offence, isn't it? I agree that it's the sane thing to do. "Back up your documents" is important advice.

Not in europe. Here, it's fair use.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#118

Post by aw3c2 »

ljf wrote: post #88
js951534 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try coinread.com then or any of the sites linked to on legalreads.com frontpage

Odd - I just get redirected to coinreads - no chance to view the legalreads page, which I then mistook for a domain squatters site. I see that it does infact work - though from the content it doesn't seem exactly 'legal'.

It absolutely is not legal.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#119

Post by hobbes »

rmc wrote: post #105
hobbes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, how, pray tell, will you convince the judge of that? You didn't purchase a book, as the T&C's make clear - the contents of which you agreed to by entering into the said agreement. You paid applicable fees to enter into an agreement to view digital content. Nothing more. There was no purchase of a book. Where's your evidence to the contrary?

You did purchase the book. It says "Buy" on the website. Amazon: "Would you like to Buy this book for your Kindle?" Customer: "Yes" click Looks like a sale to me. They don't use the word "Rent" or "Borrow". You "buy" it.

Trouble is, you are bound by the license agreement, not by the text on the buttons, as the Conditions of Use and Sale makes clear, which is linked to on every page of Amazon's site.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#120

Post by twz »

WTF

that guy writing that email ... should be hanged on his balls

is there no moral anymore??

you wouldn't act that way face 2 face now would u?

fucking companys acting like friggin internet thugs hiding behind their corporate not identities

ima just soo fed up w/ u suckers

rant on and on and on ....

Post reply on HN