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Outlawed by Amazon DRM

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Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#191

Post by endianswap »

Deestan wrote: post #170
tomp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So while it's still legal , it tends to conflict with service most services TOS agreements. Were I to make "unauthorized backups" of my games, Steam would shut down my account completely, by means of the "we can do what we want for no given reason" clause of the ToS. I'm not even speculating, I've seem them do this - a guy owned L4D2 and complained to them that he had stability issues with singleplayer and had to pla…

Do you have a link regarding this?

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#192

Post by chris_wot »

pi18n wrote: post #185
beedogs wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me how the concept of "non-scarce" goods being a one-for-one substitute for physical items only seems to work in one direction in this brave new world in which we are unfortunately inhabiting, too. If she'd been caught torrenting those same books in the US or a growing list of other countries, she'd face fines and court fees. Her Internet browser could be diverted to "anti-piracy education" sites; perhaps o…

I'm one of the ones to leap out of the woodwork and shout that copying is not theft, so it's only fair that I point out this; torrenting is a massive copyright violation, as you are basically republishing the content. What Amazon did in this case is not against copyright, and the user had no claim to copyright of that work anyway. Make no mistake; I disagree with the humongous damages leveled against torrenters and I…

I feel that I need to point out that at no point did anyone accuse the lady in question of torrenting pirated content. In fact, that's part of the problem. Amazon refuse to say anything about why they took their action.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#193

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

chris_wot wrote: post #172
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure privacy obligations are really at play here. I can think of two reasons they're taking the approach they're taking: 1) They don't want to get into a discussion which is likely to be time consuming. It's not just innocent people who appeal these things, often the most guilty are those who will most actively and vocally profess their innocence (in some cases up to and including going to court over it - c.f…

The minute Amazon became willing to talk about this stuff they'd need a who bunch more people to start looking into each one in detail, review every claim and counter claim and so on, and they clearly don't think that that's a good use of their money. I for one would like them to start talking about this sort of thing, and review these cases more thoroughly. After all, people paid good money to them to read books. Bo…

I'm sure you would, but that's not much of a reason for Amazon to do so.

It's far easier and cheaper for them to ignore most cases and instead wait for the few that blow up like this one and then look into them at that point. In those cases if they think that they're even remotely in the wrong I suspect that they'll reinstate the account, send their apologies, send the person in question a gift voucher and get on with doing exactly what they were doing before.

It's very easy to think that the sort of outcry that happens on HN, or even on Twitter, reflects public opinion, but the reality is that this audience is both far more aware of these events, and far more considered in their reaction. The sad reality is that Amazon can get away with this sort of thing because most Kindle users won't ever learn about it and even if they do won't really understand what it means or change their behaviour.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#194

Post by rdl »

I have hundreds of Kindle books, preferentially buy Kindle books, and also have 150+ Audible audiobooks (also owned by Amazon).

I've always been afraid of what might happen to vendor-controlled content (either cloud servers or DRM), so I maintain a local de-DRM'd version of every file. For Audible, I actually had to go through a download, aac playback in iTunes to mp3 compression, mp3 file split workflow to make Audible books work with the RNS-E audio in my audi (it has built-in SD slots to play MP3, but the iPod in interface won't work with Audible due to DRM restrictions in their app).

It's a shame that you have to go through all this trouble just to use things you've legally purchased. It's sort of ok when the system just works (like Steam does now, although it didn't always), but horrible when you don't trust the vendor much and where the software doesn't work very well (EA Origin...).

I don't think I'd buy anything where there wasn't at least a technical workaround to rip to servers and formats under my control.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#195

Post by beedogs »

pi18n wrote: post #185
beedogs wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me how the concept of "non-scarce" goods being a one-for-one substitute for physical items only seems to work in one direction in this brave new world in which we are unfortunately inhabiting, too. If she'd been caught torrenting those same books in the US or a growing list of other countries, she'd face fines and court fees. Her Internet browser could be diverted to "anti-piracy education" sites; perhaps o…

I'm one of the ones to leap out of the woodwork and shout that copying is not theft, so it's only fair that I point out this; torrenting is a massive copyright violation, as you are basically republishing the content. What Amazon did in this case is not against copyright, and the user had no claim to copyright of that work anyway. Make no mistake; I disagree with the humongous damages leveled against torrenters and I…

I'm not really arguing whether one action is any better or worse than the other; seeding a pile of ebooks isn't really something for which any valid defense can usually be given.

My point is that there's clearly a very large amount of effort being expended protecting the ever-expanding rights of content owners, and -- near as I can tell -- zero effort being spent protecting content purchased by honest consumers from being taken from them without justification or recourse.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#196

Post by DanBC »

jonno wrote: post #186
DanBC wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a twist in asking customers to pay 20%, and taking that from the authors, and then (according to GP) not paying the 20% in England but paying just 3% in some other country.

This sounds fraudulent.

Vodaphone's shenanigans so they only paid £1.2bn of the estimated £6bn total tax bill also sounds well dodgy.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#197

Post by jonno »

I've been on the fence about Kindles for me and the kids. Think this has tipped the balance. I had heard rumors about how draconian Amazon was being, seems it was true.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#198

Post by jbellis »

wtrk wrote: post #20
pwg wrote: post #6

This post really brings into focus just how right Richard Stallman was when he penned "The Right to Read": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

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.

The main reason Stallman isn't mainstream is not his physical appearance, but his refusal to compromise with potential allies on even minor details. Not to mention a truckload of NIH on the part of the FSF, although you could argue this is another side of the same coin.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#199

Post by zizee »

pi18n wrote: post #162
chris_wot wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe HN should reveal who the hell banners are?

I think it's the computers. Most of the ghosts I see weren't trolls, just young accounts going far enough against the grain to get downvotes. If it's humans doing it, they are absurdly harsh.

That certainly fits the bill for PhantomLobe. Her/his second comment wasn't flamebait or spam, more just an slang laden "me too" style comment. With no karma the account submerged and now PhantomLobe is commenting into the ether with no one listening. I just can't stand to see people was their time like that (unless they are trolls/spammers).

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#200

Post by buro9 »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #7

This is why you should use a DRM removal tool and use a third party e-book reader on an Android tablet.

Is there a DRM removal tool that works on Kindle books?

I have a lot of unread Kindle books (I buy a lot at once), and would now like enough of a backup in a form that I could use such that I can be sure I could at least read the books.

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