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Outlawed by Amazon DRM

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Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#141

Post by chris_wot »

rmc wrote: post #137
oliwarner wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defamy wouldn't apply as it's a private relationship. They're not broadcasting to the world that they think you're a con, they're just telling you... Which is fine.

Depends. In the EU, companies are legally required to store personal data accurately. It doesn't matter if they don't tell anyone (in fact often they cannot tell people, privacy and all that). If you tell them that personal data they have one you is incorrect, they are legally required to correct it. So yes, if the data is wrong, they might be breaking the law.

Not just in Europe - Australia has similar privacy legislation also. If a company is storing incorrect information about you, you can request to see your record and then have them correct that record. If they won't, the Privacy Commissioner can investigate and order them to do so.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#142

Post by andybak »

zizee wrote: post #130
praptak wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please Amazon - please move to one global store where any credit card from any country can purchase any edition of any book. Not gonna happen without a huge change in international copyright law, probably only possible if the Pirate Party gets constitution-changing majority in all of the key countries at the same time :) Currently, for the most books there is no such thing as the right to publish a book globally, t…

PhantomLobe replied to this comment: Wat? I've bought in .com, .ca, .co.uk, .fr and .es with (both) France and Spain based credit cards with no problems whatsoever. PhantomLobe, you were hellbanned* for making a comment that didn't fit the the community guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Looking at your comment history, you don't seem to be a spammer or a troll, I think it is more that your second…

Hear, hear. I've been watching for hell-banned users for a few weeks now and from a random sample, some of the bannings are a little harsh.

Maybe there should be a stage before hell-banning?

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#143

Post by rmc »

tomp wrote: post #117
DanBC wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IANAL Fair use usually applies to copying the work or publishing it, or making a dervied work from it (y'know all the thing that the copyright holder usually only has legal rights to do).

Merely transforming the work yourself and keeping it yourself, wouldn't really count as anything that copyright law has any say over. Since it's not explicitly illegal, it's legal. You don't need 'fair use rights' when you tear up a book in frustration, or your kid scribbles on it. Likewise you can copy your file locally and mangle it if you want.

Copyright law only gives the copyright holder some rights to some things. It's not like they own every single copy of the book/film/file completely.

This is why there was a new law in the USA (the DMCA) which explicitly criminalized breaking DRM. They needed a new law for it.

(However you may enter the territory of hacking a computer system (which is broadly "doing something to a computer that the owner doesn't want").

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#144

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

wyclif wrote: post #96
bruceboughton wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every week there is a story in the UK press about how company A is not paying tax in the UK. This is not unique to Amazon. Vodafone, Amazon, Starbucks, Google, Apple, ...

Not that taxes are out of control in the UK or anything...

Elaborate please?

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#145

Post by chris_wot »

mysterywhiteboy wrote: post #77
rmc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I was also thinking of the Data Protection Acts here aswell. Whether she would get the information she is interested in, i.e. which account she is linked to, is another question. Well if they don't provide it, they are breaking the law, so you can complain about them again that way.

Unfortunately there are a number of circumstances where they are within their rights to withhold information. One of these situations is where the information relates to another individual. If information is withheld she my be able to infer that the offending account to which she is linked is held by someone else - though the identity of the account holder would understandably not be given.

There's irony: Amazon would try to stop information that would prove that her account is linked to another account by arguing that it would infringe a completely different person's privacy if it disclosed any information about the linked account that caused the original notification.

That's quite an interesting legal tactic they've got going there!

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#147

Post by rmc »

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.

Piracy for books is quite interesting. There is already a lot of infastructure for sharing files (torrent sites et al.), but the new thing is how small books are. 1,000 books could be about the size of one standard def film (~ 1 GB). A lot of people are going to have a lot of books.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#148

Post by kabdib »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #108
wtrk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. But don't expect the sort of person whose battle cry w/re to RS is "But he's so unkempt!" to acknowledge that he tends to be correct.

Do you think that if stallman cut his hair and put on a suit his message would be better received?

Yes, no question about it.

(I used to think this didn't matter, either. Turns out that I'm far more pleasant to be around if I don't have a beard. So I haven't had one in 20 years).

Welcome to the world of effective interpersonal interaction. We're primates, get used to it :-)

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#149

Post by stuaxo »

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…

Wow, wish my bank could tell me the reasoning for credit decisions !

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#150

Post by chris_wot »

andybak wrote: post #142
zizee wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PhantomLobe replied to this comment: Wat? I've bought in .com, .ca, .co.uk, .fr and .es with (both) France and Spain based credit cards with no problems whatsoever. PhantomLobe, you were hellbanned* for making a comment that didn't fit the the community guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Looking at your comment history, you don't seem to be a spammer or a troll, I think it is more that your second…

Hear, hear. I've been watching for hell-banned users for a few weeks now and from a random sample, some of the bannings are a little harsh. Maybe there should be a stage before hell-banning?

Maybe HN should reveal who the hell banners are?
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