Outlawed by Amazon DRM • Hacker News Board

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#381

Post by kbutler » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:01 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #369

cletus wrote: post #335

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…

You make it sound like releasing an ebook is somehow cheaper than releasing a paperback. I think in many cases this does not hold true. As long as ebooks represent a minority of all book sales producing paperbacks will be cheaper to produce than ebooks, just by law of mass production.

giggle

Mass production has no beneficial effect when the incremental cost of each unit is indistinguishable from zero.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#382

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:04 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #216

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

Well there's a cynical view of how to deal with the general public.

The market is optimised for efficiency not morality.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#383

Post by akavlie » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:07 PM UTC

Something very similar happened to my seller account late last year. The emails were very similar -- including the cause for the closure (alleged linkage to a previously closed account). Story here:

http://aaron.kavlie.net/2011/12/web/amazon-com-just-closed-m...

My story got to the top spot on Hacker News and, thanks to the exposure there, Amazon reversed its decision. At no point did I get anything that looked like a personalized response -- just terse form emails that didn't divulge any details.

What surprises me the most about this story is that they use the same approach with the consumer end of the business. I figured that the ham-handed treatment I got was due to Amazon's lack of care for that particular piece of their business, and that any issue with buyers would be taken up with more personal attention, and provide ample opportunity for appeal. Guess I was wrong.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#384

Post by tomp » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:07 PM UTC

piyush_soni wrote: post #363

msh wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If amazon is not selling me a electronic copy of the book it should be illegal for them to call the button doing this transaction "buy".

Might not be. They might just mean buy 'temporary license' or something like that.

I'm not a native English speaker, but isn't the proper term for that "rent"?

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#385

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:07 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #380

maratd wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> be skeptical of such stories Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point. Microsoft, Google, eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Facebook, etc. handle millions of accounts. They have automated filters that trigger based on specified criteria that kill your account. Their default response when this happens? Talk to legal. Well, more like write to legal…

"Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point." Most ? That is a pretty serious statement, and I really doubt you can back it up. I don't have statistics on this and don't know where to look for them, but I would guess that the numbers of HN'ers that have had an account closed by a BigCo is actually much less than 1%, never mind more than 5…

[deleted]

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#386

Post by stickfigure » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:12 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #355

dtparr wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have thought the same. Perhaps the 'Amazon' that is bound under this settlement is a different corporate entity as the 'Amazon' in this case. E.g. Amazon.com vs. Amazon.co.uk

As a tangent, I hate how trademark law protects the "Amazon" brand for book sellers, but there are 2 different companies. I think that if the company wants to keep a trademark, then any company that uses/is licenced that trademark is legally counted as the same company. This way Joe Soap, upon seeing the "Amazon" trademark, is not able to screwed around by corporate structure shenanigans. Or Amazon Ltd. have the choi…

I doubt that would matter in this case. Different laws apply to different jurisdictions. The fact that Amazon US and Amazon UK are two different companies is a red herring; a purchase in one jurisdiction may entail different rights than a purchase in other jurisdictions, even from the same company.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#387

Post by ihsw » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:14 PM UTC

Evbn wrote: post #255

ihsw wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've waived your rights to a class action file suit by purchasing an Amazon product or using an Amazon service.

Which is a legal impossibility that sadly has not been fully tested yet.

Amazon et al. will be happy to spend quite a bit of money combating you, until you give up due to lack of funds.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#388

Post by frobozz » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:15 PM UTC

IANAL, but I believe that the Personopplysningsloven is compliant with Directive 95/46/EC; of which Article 12 has provisions against the behaviour exhibited by Amazon in this exchange.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#389

Post by varikin » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #369

cletus wrote: post #335

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…

You make it sound like releasing an ebook is somehow cheaper than releasing a paperback. I think in many cases this does not hold true. As long as ebooks represent a minority of all book sales producing paperbacks will be cheaper to produce than ebooks, just by law of mass production.

I don't understand how ebooks can cost more than a mass production paper book. If you are familiar with the industry of producing paper and ebooks for books that are best sellers then I would really love hear about the cost difference in producing both.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#390

Post by sbochins » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 9:26 PM UTC

I don't think I'll ever buy into a closed system like Amazon ebooks. Seems like you can have so much eggs in one basket and they can just smash your eggs w/o giving any reason. I don't read a lot of books for my free time. I have a safari books account at work that I use a lot. It is nice since it is kind of like Netflix. It's just a subscription, so they can't pull anything crazy like Amazon is doing here. I also like the feel of actual books, and they are nice decorations in your house.