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Outlawed by Amazon DRM

bekkelund.net

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Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#401

Post by epaga »

Just had the following support chat with an Amazon rep:

Me:I have really enjoyed Kindle on multiple devices so far but I just read the following account of a different Kinde customer and am appalled at Amazon's treatment of this individual: http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/ Is it really true that at any moment, Amazon could delete all my books and not tell me the reason? If so, I strongly request that Amazon revisit its DRM rules & regulations. Thanks! Hi Elakkiya!

Elakkiya:Hello, I'm Elakkiya from Amazon Kindle support.I'll be happy to help you today

Me:awesome Basically it comes down to these terms cited by Amazon Exec Michael Murphy in his letter: "Per our Conditions of Use which state in part: Amazon.co.uk and its affiliates reserve the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders at their sole discretion." Is this true? Without needing to cite any reasons whatsoever, is Amazon able to delete all my books?

Elakkiya:I'm sorry for the inconvenience you had about this. May I place you on hold for 1 to 2 minutes while I check this for you?

Me:Sure No inconvenience so far for ME just for the person in that article so I'm asking if it is factually correct

Elakkiya:Thanks for waiting.

Me:sure

Elakkiya:It seems there was some problem with the account. This is the reason for the account closure.

Me:obviously. :) the appalling thing is that amazon doesn't want to tell her what problem so my question is: does Amazon not NEED to tell its customers which problem an account has before closing it? obviously amazon needs to have the right to close accounts but i'd say in those cases it also has the responsibility to state why more than a hand-wavy "there were problems"

Elakkiya:May I place you on hold for 1 to 2 minutes while I check this for you?

Me:sure

Elakkiya:Thanks for waiting.

Me:sure

Elakkiya:On further going through this issue, I see that I need to transfer your concern to the appropriate department who handle these kind of issues.

Me:ok please do that. will they respond via email then?

Elakkiya:Yes, you should hear back from them in the next 1-2 business days.

Me:great. i assume you have my email since i'm logged in, right?

Elakkiya:Yes,John.

Me:Thanks, Elakkiya. Have a great day!

Elakkiya:You're welcome. Thank you for visiting Amazon.com. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#402

Post by r00fus »

mdasen wrote: post #169
pi18n wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission). I'm sure there's a clause in the ToS that allows Amazon to delete content that you've purchased. I'm not the type to sound the drum saying that piracy isn't theft, but here it seems like it's trying to go both ways. It's property if you "steal" it and it isn't property if you've bought it. Part of the…

> The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission). I'm sure there's a clause in the ToS that allows Amazon to delete content that you've purchased.

Shouldn't this be considered a contract of adhesion? At what point does a piddly subscriber have in dictating their terms of engagement with a huge DRM'd content provider? This would get real interesting if, say, you were required to buy stuff for your school on a Kindle that your tuition money paid for.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#404

Post by beedogs »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #275
beedogs wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While I think your reasoning is noble, even commendable, I don't think it would hold up well in a civil case.

For the record, I'm in favor of this sort of "cultural hedging" as well, but I don't think it's something that most people would even think to do.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#405

Post by shmerl »

jwr wrote: post #5

I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.

May be you consider it a rental, but most consider it a purchase. That's why throwing out DRM and making a backup should be expected the moment you buy some ebook.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#406

Post by [deleted] »

jwr wrote: post #5

I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals. When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.

[deleted]

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#407

Post by Bakkot »

ihsw wrote: post #387
Evbn wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is why I donate to the EFF.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#408

Post by greenyoda »

phireal wrote: post #126
aapl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AbeBooks is actually owned by Amazon now.

Seriously? Wow. Amazon really are dominating that particular market.

From AbeBooks' web site:

AbeBooks Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. AbeBooks, an online bookselling pioneer, was acquired in December 2008 and remains a stand-alone operation with headquarters in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and a European office in Dusseldorf, Germany.

http://www.abebooks.com/books/CompanyInformation

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#409

Post by icebraining »

smithzvk wrote: post #270
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…

The one-way nature is exactly the crux of the matter. In a purely chaotic world where people do whatever was in their best interest in the short term, everybody would infringe on copyright whenever they wanted a book (or whatever "non-scarce" commodity) and the content producers would do whatever nasty tricks they felt would stop this from happening, including distributing your book in a form that can only be accesse…

Companies add DRM because people pay for DRM-ed content. Stop giving them incentives* and they'll stop.

Buyers, not pirates, are doing this to themselves.

* (this doesn't mean 'pirate'. Buying physical copies or just abstaining are valid alternatives)

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#410

Post by ghshephard »

jclos wrote: post #46
ghshephard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note that you don't actually buy e-books from Amazon, you license the right to read, and when that license is revoked/cancelled, those books are no longer available to you.

Makes me wonder. What happens if you just don't connect your kindle to the net? I have a wifi only kindle which I never connect to the internet because I don't have a wifi connection anymore so I usually keep a local repository of my ebooks which I just drop on my kindle when I want to read them. Is the DRM contained in the azw and mobi files eventually going to stop me from opening them unless I connect to a wireles…

I expect that some of the time constrained licenses (aka "Book Rentals") will expire even if you aren't connected to the network. The longer term books should be yours permanently, even if Amazon issues a "kill order" - unless you connect to the 'net.
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