Outlawed by Amazon DRM • Hacker News Board

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#491

Post by jnazario » Wed, Oct 24, 2012, 3:35 PM UTC

jnazario wrote: post #29

an increased number of stories like this will make the book pirating underground a lot more attractive to a wider audience. it exists, it's not quite napster-like yet but it's getting there. no DRM, a potentially wider catalog, etc. this is a risk for publishers and loss-leaders (like amazon) alike.

as a follow up:

http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/confessions-of-a-book-pir...

"For some, however, the study may inspire more questions than answers. Who are the people downloading these books? How are they doing it and where is it happening? And, perhaps most critical for the publishing industry, why are people deciding to download books and why now? I decided to find out, and after a few hours of searching – stalled by a number dead links and password protected sites – I found, on an online forum focused on sharing books via BitTorrent, someone willing to talk."

pretty neat insight into the book piracy underground.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#492

Post by atas » Wed, Oct 24, 2012, 4:24 PM UTC

That's why we still need local storage.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#493

Post by Antiks72 » Wed, Oct 24, 2012, 5:39 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #282

Antiks72 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic that it was 1984.

Fahrenheit 451 would have been better.

Haven't read that one yet. Damn you for putting it on my list.

Re: Outlawed by Amazon DRM

#494

Post by tripzilch » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 12:01 PM UTC

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…

> I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase.

Hmmm, just because a $6 paperback may seem like a throwaway price to you doesn't mean they are single-use products. That's consumerism gone crazy.

I have to admit, I too have a real hard time keeping a cheap paperback presentable after its 2nd or 3rd read (or in subsequent reads, readable, for that matter). I don't know how people do it, so I just make a point to warn my friends about this habit whenever they let me lend one of theirs (and they invariably say "oh I like it when a book looks like it's been read."--sure thing, that'll be no problem!).

Still, that doesn't mean I see them as throwaways, rather I see them as fragile, and IMO the ebook form should lessen this attribute when possible, instead of mimicking (in some sense) it with DRM.