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Outlawed by Amazon DRM

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Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#151

Post by dthunt »

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.

It's fair use in the States, too, when the result is exercise of fair use. The fact that provisions in the DMCA could allow someone to go after a linux user using mplayer to play his DVDs doesn't mean that someone will pursue that case - it would create a serious risk of getting provisions of the law stricken by the courts.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#152

Post by cs702 »

Could you ever imagine a local retailer in your area breaking and entering into your home, taking away all your books, and then not giving you a straightforward explanation as to why they did so? Me neither. Breaking and entering into someone else's physical property, and talking away their physical possessions without explanation is so obviously wrong and illegal!

Yet that's pretty much what Amazon did to this poor woman, except in the digital realm: Amazon 'broke and entered' into her Kindle, took away all her books, and then did not give her a straightforward explanation as to why they did so.

More alarmingly, Amazon did this with impunity, because this woman never really owned "her" books or, for that matter, anything else she "purchased" on "her" Kindle. In the digital realm, what Amazon did to this woman is perfectly legal.

Legal or not, this looks, smells, and feels so obviously wrong, it ought to be illegal.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#153

Post by netcan »

gizzlon wrote: post #70
netcan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." Most of the people I know do too... more or less. I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." The reality is that "ownership" of digital property is different from ownership of physical property emotionally, legally and practically.

Even DRM-less? That makes no sense. I agree on the DRM content though.. The problem is that most people will probably not.

I'm talking about the feeling more than anything else. Having a song or a book on my computer/device doesn't feel like ownership to me so I don't treat it like ownership. A book on my kobo feels no different to a podcast on my phone. I don't think about my relationship with it.

Part of that is probably because I already treat physical copies of music/books as temporary things. I abandoned all my CDs & books during my last move. I don't really care about owning this stuff. I just want to listen to music read books and watch shows.

Another part is probably because I think whatever the system is now for owning, distributing & acculating digital property will be moot anyway within the next 10-20 years.

Basically, I don't expect my grandchildren to inherit my "cloud." They'll have access to all that stuff one way or another anyway.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#154

Post by vilya »

asgeirn wrote: post #22

The worst part is the blatant arrogance of Mr. Michael Murphy, who does not at all consider the possibility of it all being a misunderstanding or some error on Amazon's behalf, and giving the customer no option to rectify the issue. These are two options for who Michael Murphy is: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-murphy/17/b72/231 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-murphy/0/b84/9b5

"Michael Murphy" may actually be a fictional identity though. Companies sometimes do that to give people the feeling of dealing with a real person while in reality it's just whoever is free in the department that deals with it. Certainly if my job was to tell people that we weren't giving them their account of any of their purchases back, I wouldn't want them to have any of my personal details.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#155

Post by [deleted] »

chris_wot wrote: post #121
donapieppo wrote: post #15

A sentence like "We wish you luck in locating a retailer better able to meet your needs and will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters" is the best explanation of the evil of monopoly.

Monopolies tend to die. Sure, there might not be any competition from other companies, but their biggest competition is in the mass distributed and downloaded pirated book market. As an example, I only buy non-DRM PDFs, but I never distribute them. Ever. And I never will, because those who use non-DRM PDFs get my hard earned money as I will then get to enjoy and profit from their works on any device that I so desire…

[deleted]

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#156

Post by dthunt »

hobbes wrote: post #119
rmc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least as far as the US is concerned, shrink wrap licenses restricting your fair use rights were not received favorably by courts up until the late 90s. This has changed somewhat in the past decade and change. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the supreme court on the 'first sale' case, which is a closely related topic.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#157

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

bruceboughton wrote: post #78
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #64

Its getting to the point where I am seriously considering closing my Amazon account. I just don't like the way it does business any more. Can anyone recommend a good online bookseller in the UK? Is Waterstones any good? The Guardian is running a story [1] today about how Amazon forces publishers to cover the cost of 20% VAT (sales tax) on ebook sales, even though it only pays 3% to the Luxembourg government (where it…

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, ...

Reminds me of the nice Starbucks joke from last week:

I like my women like I like my coffee - paying tax on their income in the UK.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#158

Post by pi18n »

cs702 wrote: post #152

Could you ever imagine a local retailer in your area breaking and entering into your home, taking away all your books, and then not giving you a straightforward explanation as to why they did so? Me neither. Breaking and entering into someone else's physical property, and talking away their physical possessions without explanation is so obviously wrong and illegal! Yet that's pretty much what Amazon did to this poor…

It absolutely should be illegal to delete files from a device that is currently rented or owned by another party unless they give explicit permission.

It should be wire fraud, just like hacking a server and forcing it to act in a way the owner does not desire.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#159

Post by DanBC »

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.

Here's the text of the law.

(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/VII/crosshe...)

Anti-circumvention is mention in the 'long title'. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_Designs_and_Patents_...)

England doesn't have fair use, it has fair dealing. Fair dealing is much more restrictive that the US fair use.

Europe implemented a copyright directive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention#European_Uni...)

Here's some advice (from a biased source) about fair dealing (http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p27_work_of_othe...) - notice that the only mention of back-up is for computer software. (That's the only mention in the actual act, too.)

Maybe parts of Europe allow circumvention of technical measures for backup, but England isn't one of those parts.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#160

Post by hobbes »

rmc wrote: post #134
hobbes wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless a judge decides that due to the manner in which it's sold, that it constitutes a sale under the law, and hence all your normal "I've bought a thing" rights come into play. Anything in the T&Cs that takes away the rights the law gives is hence null and invalid.

Agreed. But, we've yet to establish if indeed they do take away rights that the law provides. I would have thought HN would have uncovered such a law by now.

A cursory glance at the Wikipedia article on DRM suggests the law is favourable torwards DRM and all that that entails.

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