341–350 of 494 posts
Of course, for the ones willing to search, the truth is out there ... but the truth is copyrighted. That's what they forgot to mention in the X-Files.
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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…
"seeding a pile of ebooks isn't really something for which any valid defense can usually be given" How come? If you seed a pile of ebooks (let's assume it's a very big pile that contains a good chunk of books humanity considers important) than you're helping our culture spread. It is in fact very important for books to be massively copied in order to survive future catastrophes: whatever they come in form of nuclear…
Rights? You have no right to your eBooks. http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-y...
Edited to add: So this seems to be a case of a used Kindle's UDID being tied to a previously-suspended account and she got caught in the dragnet by buying that device used without knowing of its history. At some point -- if someone can get through to a live human being at Amazon -- this should all be straightened out. This is yet another reason why everyone should be careful buying used electronics with UDIDs (see eBay and Craigslist for all the "clean ESN" mentions for used phones!).
The fact that Amazon can do this is obviously scary, particularly for those with extensive Kindle libraries. Personally I love the idea of ebooks but the publishers are doing their best to kill this market (eg Surface Detail in paperback is $6, as an ebook its $10 WTF?). Now I can't speak to the truth of these claims. I have no inside knowledge but I will say this: be skeptical of such stories. I have seen other stor…
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-d...
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First, you don't buy e-books, you rent them. The book doesn't really belong to you at all, as this article points out. Second, you not only pay more to support your behaviour, you break the law for it as well. (Note: I'm not a supporter of this law, but it is nonetheless true.) I'm sorry but I cannot see how the average person sees this as a net positive. You are by definition acting in an idiotic manner. Idiot: - a…
There are several stores that sell content legally in DRM-free ePub, such as ebooks.com, not to mention all of the public domain content from Project Gutenberg. Moreover, I think consumers who have purchased a legal copy of a physical or DRM'd book have the moral authority to torrent a matching non-DRM copy, legal technicalities be damned. Please don't try to paint everyone with the same brush, or resort to name-call…
I think the moment anyone says this, I'm well within the realm of normality to question that person's judgement making abilities.
I happen to agree with you, but to simply ignore the fact that you need to break the law to make the value equation work in your favour is pretty much, well, idiotic.
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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.
I am quite surprised the pirating of eBooks has not taken off. The infrastructure certainly exists, but I'm not aware of any exclusive, prolific communities in a similar vein to music and tv shows/movies.
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…
"Better World Books is a self-sustaining, for-profit social venture whose mission is to capitalize on the value of the book to fund literacy initiatives locally, nationally and around the world. We partner with nearly 1400 libraries and over 1800 college campuses across the U.S. and Canada, collecting unwanted textbooks and library discards in support of non-profit literacy programs. We have raised millions of dollars for literacy, saved millions of books from landfills, created jobs for hundreds of people, and provided wonderful books to millions of readers worldwide."
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I completely agree with you, but the consumer here isn't without fault. By purchasing a Kindle and DRM'd books for it, you're agreeing to Amazon's policies. It's true that kindle books don't work like regular books, but being ignorant of that fact isn't an excuse. This is why I categorically refuse to pay a single penny for any digital media that has DRM attached to it and might prevent me from playing it at any time…
> It's true that kindle books don't work like regular books, but being ignorant of that fact isn't an excuse. I very much doubt there's a plain english clause that goes a little something like: "If we think you have violated (our?) DRM policies, we will delete every book you've ever purchased, and close your current and future accounts. If you think this is done in error, you may not ask us why we closed the account.…
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId...)
> Termination. Your rights under this Agreement will automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term of this Agreement. In case of such termination, you must cease all use of the Software, and Amazon may immediately revoke your access to the Service or to Digital Content without refund of any fees. Amazons failure to insist upon or enforce your strict compliance with this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of any of its rights.
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Your reasons are very subjective and calling someone an idiot is always offensive whether you apologize in advance or not. Anyways, I like e-books because, for me, the mobility advantage is huge and I'm less concerned about lending them to friends. The only reason I buy them from Amazon, as opposed to torrenting, is to support the author. I wish I could do that without Amazon but they do provide a useful service allo…
First, you don't buy e-books, you rent them. The book doesn't really belong to you at all, as this article points out. Second, you not only pay more to support your behaviour, you break the law for it as well. (Note: I'm not a supporter of this law, but it is nonetheless true.) I'm sorry but I cannot see how the average person sees this as a net positive. You are by definition acting in an idiotic manner. Idiot: - a…
As hard as it might be for you to believe, your subjective worldview is not absolute reality, and not everyone shares your world-view and definition of utility, so you can't actually judge whether their actions are self-defeating for them.