Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Outlawed by Amazon DRM

bekkelund.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 494 posts

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#441

Post by tjoff »

talaketu wrote: post #414
varikin wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have no idea about this.. but I can speculate that maintaining the DRM system indefinitely after the initial sale represents an ongoing cost whose net present value needs to be considered in contrast with a DRM-free book.

The DRM system is completely decentralized and doesn't cost anything to uphold.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#442

Post by jessaustin »

jcmoscon wrote: post #313
guard-of-terra wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Seriously 20g? I bet you didn't read all of them!

Not yet. Other than reference materials and favorites "worth rereading", shouldn't most of the books in one's possession be those one hasn't yet read? When you're done with it pass it on to the next reader!

Well that's how it works for physical books; I'm not sure about electronic ones.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#443

Post by krichman »

monkeypizza wrote: post #438
edanm wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

My father had a 6 year old paid flickr account with 30k photos, 2m+ views, shut down without warning or explanation. It contained tons of original genealogical research, macro shots of plants, photographs of family-related newspaper stories... And possibly some videos with copyrighted music clips. It's a shame how far we've fallen from traditional justice, which involves: 1. right to confront your accuser, 2. right t…

Not only that, but I think it would be reasonable to require by law that a service must give its users prompt notice of termination and a reasonable timeframe during which they can download the content they created. What happened to your father AFAIC was a crime.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#444

Post by frobozz »

anigbrowl wrote: post #399
frobozz wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals have the right to see any personal data that an organisation holds about them. If automated processing of such data leads to a legal or significant effect (e.g. you've violated our contract, so we're deleting everything you've bought from us, and you can't use our services ever again.), they also have the right to know what the logic was behind that processing. Amazon may have the right to terminate accou…

Individuals have the right to see any personal data that an organisation holds about them. Depends where the individual is. In the EU this is basically true. Norway, however, is not part of the EU. as for the US, consumers here do not have such rights. It seems you are talking about how you think things should be, rather than how they actually are.

I wouldn't have posted a comment like that if the story was about someone in Somalia complaining about a US company.

Norway is part of the EEA, and has laws equivalent to the European Data Protection Directive.

Amazon.co.uk is a company operating in the UK, and is therefore subject to the UK Data Protection Act.

IANAL, but at least one of those two facts means that Linn has the rights I outlined above.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#445

Post by fauigerzigerk »

monkeypizza wrote: post #438
edanm wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

My father had a 6 year old paid flickr account with 30k photos, 2m+ views, shut down without warning or explanation. It contained tons of original genealogical research, macro shots of plants, photographs of family-related newspaper stories... And possibly some videos with copyrighted music clips. It's a shame how far we've fallen from traditional justice, which involves: 1. right to confront your accuser, 2. right t…

I agree that they are making a big mistake causing those feelings of rage and helplessnes.

But the rights you list are rights we have in court. We never had any right to representation in an internal procedure of some private company.

If our access to essential digital facilities ends up being dominated by a handful of global companies, these companies will be regulated like traditional facilities if they don't start regulating themselves in a sensible way very quickly.

Resolving conflicts, finding out what the truth is in a particular case, all of that costs money. We will either pay it in taxes or as part of a purchase we make.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#446

Post by frownie »

Damn you all, you're so naive...

1/ Amazon is a private company. 2/ You don't buy books from them, you buy a license to read them.

So by buying a book, you agree with their power. If you don't like to be in such control, then please, apply one of the start up credo : find a better competitor.

But don't complain, please.

(and the same goes with Apple who surely has some super control on your phone, and don't complain about FaceBook when they'll kill your account when you don't behave.)

Welcome to the privacy nightmare you all voted for by buying their shiny stuff.

Another option is : court ! Hey but you don't have enough money ? Hey, but that's what happens when you deal alone with a megacorp : you're just a small insect.

Funny people often forget that...

stF

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#447

Post by monkeypizza »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #445
monkeypizza wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father had a 6 year old paid flickr account with 30k photos, 2m+ views, shut down without warning or explanation. It contained tons of original genealogical research, macro shots of plants, photographs of family-related newspaper stories... And possibly some videos with copyrighted music clips. It's a shame how far we've fallen from traditional justice, which involves: 1. right to confront your accuser, 2. right t…

I agree that they are making a big mistake causing those feelings of rage and helplessnes. But the rights you list are rights we have in court. We never had any right to representation in an internal procedure of some private company. If our access to essential digital facilities ends up being dominated by a handful of global companies, these companies will be regulated like traditional facilities if they don't start…

Flickr is yahoo's toy, if they get pissed off they can take it home and deprive everyone of the game; it's still legal to be a jerk.

The whole world used to be that way, though - kings owned everything and if you didn't like it, die - but it pissed people off so bad, they took back the rights to what really was the king's property.

The real problem seems to be how easy it is to enter into extremely unjust agreements online.

In the real world, it's not easy to sign a contract giving up all your future rights - imagine if a car company tried to slip clauses into a car purchase agreement giving them the right to take back the car without explanation at any time. People would rebel. But online, people regularly click through things just as bad as this.

People act like reputation pressure is enough to stop this - but in the real world, not everyone is informed enough to keep up to date on every entity's reputation, and in many places, communities have just taken the shortcut of making certain types of deals illegal, at the expense of the freedom of the seller to make that type of contract.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#448

Post by Ntrails »

tomp wrote: post #384
piyush_soni wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

I buy an MSDN license. I buy a fishing license. The license is simply a fixed term item that you purchase.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#449

Post by xiaoma »

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…

I have been (by Reddit), and had no history of spam or disallowed use. I wasted time writing and responding to comments and nobody except me could see anything I wrote. I was unknowingly talking into the void for weeks. That was 5 years ago and to this day, I've never forgiven them.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#450

Post by guard-of-terra »

beedogs wrote: post #404
guard-of-terra wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Well, so sue me.

I was just arguing with books seeding "not being really something for which any valid defense can usually be given" If I should have read it as "any valid defense IN COURT can be given", then again, so sue me. But it's pretty easy to defend the morality of this case.

Post reply on HN