The customer rep asked me to send every one of the books in my Amazon library to my iPhone. Most of them gave the message that they were sent but a number of them returned the message "Cannot be sent to selected device".
"Oh that's the problem," he said "if some of the books will download and the others won't it means that you've reached the maximum number of times you can download the book."
I asked him what that meant since the books I needed to download weren't currently on any device because I had wiped those devices clean and simply wanted to reinstall. He proceeded to tell me that there is always a limit to the number of times you can download a given book. Sometimes, he said, it's five or six times but at other times it may only be once or twice. And, here's the kicker folks, once you reach the cap you need to repurchase the book if you want to download it again.
Quick aside -- all of the books that are in my Fictionwise bookshelf having been downloaded numerous times and although I have to go through the pain of unlocking them each and every time, I'm able to download them to any iPhone or iPod touch I'm using without a problem. It's the reason that I've been using Stanza, now owned by Amazon, a fair bit these days as I read through some of the books remaining in my account.
It gets worse.
I asked the customer representative where this information was available and he told me that it's in the fine print of the legalese agreement documentation. "It's not right that they are in bold print when you buy a book?" I asked. "No, I don't believe so. You can have to look for it."
We're not done- it gets even worse.
"How do I find out how many times I can download any given book?" I asked. He replied, "I don't think you can. That's entirely up to the publisher and I don't think we always know."
I pressed -- "You mean when you go to buy the book it doesn't say 'this book can be downloaded this number of times' even though that limitation is there?" To which he replied, "No, I'm very sorry it doesn't."
Here is the major problem with this scenario.
First, it's not clear that this is the policy.
Second, there's no way to find out in advance how many times a book is able to be downloaded. You can buy a book and it can only be downloaded numerous times or you can buy a book and only then discover that it can be downloaded only once. (The rep even put it this way!) There is no way to know.
In the meantime, Amazon wants us to upgrade our Kindles every year or two. Apple wants us to upgrade our iPhone or iPod touch every year or two. This means that although the books remain in your Kindle library online you may not be able to download them once you upgrade your hardware. And there is no way to know -- at least according to what the customer service rep told me.
We were thinking of becoming a two-Kindle family. Now I'm rethinking the one I've got. I'm a total supporter of hard DRM. But if I have to wipe my Kindle, or upgrade to a new one, I don't want to find out I have to buy all my books again.
Then I saw the update. Apparently, the limits are on simultaneous devices, not downloads. Except, apparently, Amazon customer service reps didn't know that.
This is why customer service matters. It's often the first thing to be cut by companies, because bad customer service doesn't show up anywhere on the bottom line. Not until much later, and not very clearly even then. But I'm willing to bet they'll lose substantial sales to people who see the first post, but not the second.
I think this serves as a perfect example of why DRM is bad for customers, and what's bad for customers is bad for the advancement of ebooks. When you purchase a book, you should be able to enjoy it on whatever device you own, not only today but in the future. You shouldn't have to study fine print, or read a manual, to know how to enjoy your book.
Books shouldn't come with expirations. Imagine buying a paper book that only supported X reads before the book went poof and disappeared.
One option for Kindle users is to purchase DRM-free books and then load them into whatever device you're using.
Mark Coker
Founder
Smashwords
(we publish and distribute DRM-free multi-format ebooks)
Does this really surprise you? I'm not a supporter of hard DRM because it leads to unreasonable results, and I won't buy products that require it. (And so despite being a voracious reader and frequent traveler, I have not bought a Kindle.) When I get a book, I expect to be able to use it on any of my devices, even if I have to wipe, upgrade, or replace one. I like electronic texts better thna physical books because I can keep them after the initial reading to search and refer to. Many others do too, but they buy the Kindle not realizing that these limits are in place. (That the original poster happened to have the allowed situation after all doesn't really make a difference here -- why shouldn't I be able to download a book I legally purchased to all of my personal devices?) Yes, silly consumer for not reading the fine print and realizing these limits existed, but why should the fine print deviate so sharply from what consumers expect to be reasonable or fair?
I just read the guy's post, and while it's always irritating to get the runaround, it's a bit much to expect a first-time, 100% accurate answer when you're calling about an extreme user question like his.
The policy says you can only have your downloaded books ON SIX OR SEVEN DEVICES AT ONCE - and dude's all wound up because he needs to know which? That's at the least pushing the reasonable range of any personal user. I can understand why Amazon's CSRs hadn't been thoroughly trained on that particular question.
Hmm, and how exactly does amazon know haw many devices it's on? Especially if he wiped them without going through whatever annoyingly complicated un-registration system they have in place? Oh that's right, they can't. The only time something like that works is with a system like Steam
This is precisely the reason why I will never buy a kindle.
I refuse to rent books encumbered by DRM. I will not rent books. I will not be encumbered by device limitations, nor worried about happens when a DRM server (like Microsoft's) goes down.
No way. Bad deal. The only reason more people don't care is because they haven't had to deal with it yet. The good news is, when the first one hits, when normal people (not just geeks and early adopters) have to deal with it, it will be game over for the pro-DRM camp.
You have to be careful here, because when you buy a new Kindle that's (almost certainly) going to show up as a new device.
I'm a full supporter of hard DRM. Very simply I will not deal with anyone who thinks I am a criminal, and the DRM schemes tell me whether the potential relationship is viable or not. Saves reading blogs.
DRM works until you have to buy something the second time. Then you will never buy it again.
Derek
DRM doesn't work. It never has. It never will. I say this wearing my economist hat on top of my software engineer hat. DRM rewards pirates and punishes buyers, and such an idea is incapable of success, even if mandated by law.
The sooner the big market players realize this, even the ones with enough mass to pretend that the above doesn't apply to them like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, the better off we'll be.
IMO it works better this way: DRM punishes buyers and does not hinder pirates.
I am unaware of any special reward for the pirates, who are generally able to go ahead and do what they were going to do anyway.
Depends on the type of pirates. The ones who just want to read the book unencumbered don't care either way. The type who sell non-DRM copies illegally for profit benefit greatly from DRM, the same way drug dealers benefit from prohibition.
The reward for pirates is that they have more full use of the book/music/whatever that they've illegally downloaded. I don't have a Kindle, so I'll use an iTunes example. Say I download a movie from iTunes. Because of the DRM, that file can only be authorized on five computers (which can be surprisingly limiting if you have a family with multiple computers). Also, it can only be played through iTunes on one of those computers or on an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV synced with one of those computers. So, you can watch the movie at home or on a pretty small screen away from home. But you can't, for instance, lend the movie to a friend or even (easily) take the movie over to a friend's to watch it with them. You can't burn a DVD copy of it to watch on a portable DVD playerm, etc. DRM thus punishes people who legitimately buy the movie.
On the other hand, someone who illegally downloaded a copy of the movie online can do all of those things with relative ease. Thus, the DRM regime "rewards" the pirate by giving him freedom to use media in ways that the legitimate purchaser is unable to use it. True, this is just the other side of the punishment coin, but both sides have to be looked at to fully see the issue - consumers are forced into choosing between either legally purchasing a hobbled product that is not terribly useful or illegally pirating a very useful product. Upright citizens will choose the former at the cost of utility. Thieves will choose the latter because it is free. But the squishy middle - people who are mostly honest, but really want to be able to watch the movie at a friend's house - will be tempted away from making legal purchases.
Mental note: if I ever buy a Kindle, be sure and buy the DX so that I can download and de-fang the DRM on any books I want and then just read them as PDFs.
I was thinking of trying to get my book published on the Kindle, but I'm not sure I want to, now... though I guess I could specify ONE download so people would buy more copies...
Why is anyone surprised by this.
With a Kindle you are renting, not buying.
Can I loan a copy to friend?
Can I donate my used copy to the library?
Can I resell my copy to half-priced ebooks?
Until I can, it's renting books at a high price.
Exactly. DRM goes directly to the question of who owns what you just bought. Whether it's the DVD that forces me to watch coming attractions and the FBI warning (again and again) or an ebook that won't let me move it where I want it, with DRM you do not own it.
There are already way too many stories of people who've "purchased" DRM-laden electronic content from a company that either goes out of business or decides to discontinue the service, thus causing all the things they "own" to cease to exist (or become unusable). I put "purchase" in quotes because, with DRM, you really are nothing more than a renter. You must play by their rules, and are continually subjected to their whims and fancies and might lose your purchase without notice at any given time.
I personally insist on actually owning my purchases, perpetually and freely. DRM is nothing more than a string that allows the seller to yank away something you've paid for at any given time. It reduces the sovereignty of the consumer, which I feel is a necessary and crucial aspect of a well-functioning market economy.
I do fully admit that the cheap (or even free) ability to copy and distribute digital items without a loss of quality does create quite a conundrum, but I am not willing to be forever tethered to a company completely that is free to abuse my good faith as a means to an answer.
I'm a total supporter of hard DRM.
And count me as another one who won't tolerate DRM -- not for movies, not for music, and not for books. I also want no part of closed-environment smart-phones where the manufacturer gets to decide what applications you are allowed to have and what those applications are allowed to do.
A very good reason to buy a G1 rather than an i-fraud.
The one and only reason I'm willing to consider buying a Kindle is because teh MobiPocket DRM that it uses is breakable. This sort of idiocy explains why I have the absolute policy of never buying anything that is "protected" by DRM that I can't break.
When I buy something, I will use it how I see fit. And if the publisher doesn't like it, that's just too damn bad for the publisher.
This is why most people, even people who don't mind paying for IP, don't like DRM. It's about control, in the sense that with DRM you don't have any. Even without the problems outlined in the article, if Amazon were ever to exit the business your bookshelf would last only as long as your last Kindle.
That's pretty much why I'm waiting to see if an industry standard format develops for ebooks before jumping onboard. I really like the idea, but don't want to be stuck with a library of books I'll never be able to read again. I care too much about my books for that to happen.
DRM is usually very screwfull. However there is one kind I'm okay with. If the company lets me access the data from anywhere at any time and just requires a user id/password to access that data, then I'm ok with it. For instance, Valve's Steam engine lets me download and play games I've purchased through them on any computer I want, including multiple personal computers or even using a friend's computer. This service has outlasted my ability to keep track of disks and CD keys for re-installs so I consider it valuable.
And that's the kicker: is the company using technology to add value, or to subtract value from your purchase?
Megan,
I was at that IHS Young Journalist seminar that you spoke at a couple of weeks back. And I'm sure I'm not the only one of us who has started to read your blog since then.
But I'm curious, why are you in favor of DRM, as a Libertarian?
Like anything else that limits the ability of the consumer to freely navigate the market, DRM essentially creates a black market for goods that could otherwise be purchased and owned freely. For example, downloading music for free, something that can get you fined/thrown in jail if you do it enough, thats basically a black market, right? Now, I'll accept the premise that the people who download music for free are criminals because they are basically looters who aren't paying for the goods they are taking, but what about the people who download music illegally because its not subject to DRM.
Those people have been driven into the black market because of restrictions on what they can purchase.
And I know, it should be the owner of the material who agrees what price and limits there will be on the material he or she is selling, thats their right as the owner and producer, but in the case of DRM, doesn't it just perpetuate the black market that undermines the producers anyway??
She may be a libertarian, but she is first and foremost an ip content producer. There are very few people that will let their political philosophy get in the way of their earning potential. That's not intended as a criticism, just an observation.
I don't favor hard DRM, but I don't see any inherent conflict between supporting it and being a libertarian.
DRM is a technological thing, not a legal thing. There are laws about DRM, making it illegal to break etc., but those aren't the same things as DRM or "hard DRM", itself.
DRM is a technological thing, not a legal thing. There are laws about DRM, making it illegal to break etc., but those aren't the same things as DRM or "hard DRM", itself.
Well, without those laws DRM is completely useless, since it would then be legal to break it (which is always possible for determined hackers) and make the tools to do so publicly available without fear of punishment. In order to be remotely effective DRM must be backed up by laws which prevent breaking it, and those laws must necessarily prohibit activities that don't otherwise violate copyright law. DRM is incompatible with physical property rights, and I know which one I prefer to keep.
Belief in intellectual property is entirely consistent with libertarianism.
...where "libertarianism" is construed to be a regime in which all rights to physical property are systematically gutted to prevent anyone from doing anything with their property that might, horror of horrors, cause it to resemble something someone else made in the past.
...or in which "intellectual property" is construed to be a person's property rights to their own intellect, which I'll grant you.
I am a total supported of technological warfare. DRM exists to be hacked.
"We were thinking of becoming a two-Kindle family. Now I'm rethinking the one I've got. I'm a total supporter of hard DRM. But if I have to wipe my Kindle, or upgrade to a new one, I don't want to find out I have to buy all my books again."
I find this part of the blog a bit incongruous in that if you were truly a supporter of hard DRM, then it you really shouldn't have an issue with Kindle or re-purchasing your books as no matter how robust a given DRM system is, at some point it will either become obsolete, unsupported, or broken.
Being as optimistic as I can about someone's intention about why they want to use DRM in the first place, the major downside of using technology based access control is that it is not possible for an implementer to anticipate all reasonable current or future access modes. Another point is that you are at the whims of a market, so if Amazon goes out of business, or the company whose DRM they chose to use disappears, you are stuck with a product you are unable to use.
My first experience with DRM was with an ebook. The DRM scheme used the computer processors serial number as a key. Well my system had two processors, so depending on which processor the system started on, I might not be able to access the book. There was a fix because I could force a certain processor to be the starting processor, but this was something the DRM implementers had not anticipated.
In the end, its nothing but a hassle, and can be an expensive lesson for the uninitiated.
In the end, its nothing but a hassle, and can be an expensive lesson for the uninitiated.
I also feel that it does little to prevent piracy. It's a fairly big deal with PC games because the DRM can prevent some computers from playing the game. It's not a small wonder why PC games have become less and less popular over time versus consoles.
no one likes to think they've just paid $23.50 for limited viewing rights of a book instead of the book itself.
Did anybody think that purchasing an e-version of that book was the same as purchasing a paper copy? It seems like to me most people have gone in with both eyes wide open. To me the better solution would be to severely limit copyrights from essentially forever to something like 14 years with a renewal at 7 years. At least at some point the book would be off copyright which would mitigate the DRM company going out of business.
I think that these two comments are linked:
The problem is that what Amazon is doing is arguably fraud. The customer is silly because he thinks he 'owns' the material; certainly he is encouraged to think that way by the Kindle Korpse. Imho, Amazon should not be allowed to use the phrase 'purchase a book' or any reasonable permutation thereof, because it tends to foster the belief in the end user that he has, you know, actually purchased a book. He hasn't. He has leased a digital file, with certain rights accruing to the leasor and not the leasee. Of course, if more people were told that, it would cut into Amazon's sales; no one likes to think they've just paid $23.50 for limited viewing rights of a book instead of the book itself.
Has there ever been talk of a class action lawsuit addressing this matter?
Isn't part of the problem that they failed to distinguish between redownloading to the same device and downloading to a new device? So while they meant to limit the number of devices, it was in effect a download limit. They also don't provide a good way to deauthorize old kindles, so even under the best set of assumptions your books do expire.
DRM fails from a technical perspective because it is tied to a device, not an individual. The computer or device didn't buy the file, a person did. I have tons of iTunes music that won't run on a number of computers I have and it's just too hard to figure it all out. I've given up and will buy only MP3 and other non-proprietary file formats.
Amazon's retarded customer policies are another thing. I tried buying an electronic book from Amazon about five years ago, had a hardware problem and wanted to download a copy again, to replace the copy that was lost. Amazon customer service said "too bad", so I said "no, it's only a few dollars to me and now I've learned my lesson and it's going to be too bad for Amazon". I'll never buy another electronic file from Amazon, and I spend a fair amount of money on books, videos, etc. with Amazon, but never on electronic versions, they are just too impermanent and overpriced for what you get.
Now I tell everyone who will listen what a crappy deal electronic versions of books, music and videos are when protected and serviced in this way. They could have given me another copy (I was completely honest about the loss of the file) which would cost them exactly ZERO. Now, they've lost my electronic file business forever. And potentially that of the thousands of people reading this. What fools!!
Jeff B, are you listening????
BUYER BEWARE!!!
As a user, I don't have a problem with DRM per se. I do think Amazon has an obligation to clearly display both a generic DRM rights statement, and specific DRM rights statements for specific books where DRM differs from the generic.
I've purchased DRM Mobipocket books in the past, and have used available tools so that I could register these to my (original) Kindle (they obtain the PID from the Kindle, and then adapt the MOBI header so that it appears as an AZW header to the Kindle). However, I found out subsequently that Amazon claims that this is somehow violating the DRM. I have a problem with a company that encourages me to purchase DRM books from one of its websites and then disallows me the use of that DRM book on a Kindle to the point of threatening to revoke my ability to ever use my Kindle with Amazon's website again. One would think the DOJ would also have a problem with this.
As a published author with a title on Amazon, I can understand why authors want DRM, and why they don't want to distribute books that may sell a large number of copies in an easily-circumvented format. However, Amazon could do things like allow for 'trade-ins' (DRM license cancellations for credit) or even rentals (time-limited DRM). What does one get for a paperback at a used book store... $1? What does it cost Amazon to give Kindle owners a $1 credit if they agree to 'trade in' an ebook? Especially if they keep count of the licenses and sell the 'trade ins' for half the regular price?
Several different vendors are vying for the ebook market (Amazon, Adobe, Google, etc.), and it's the Wild West right now. Eventually someone will offer what consumers want, and everyone else will have to be compatible. I think Amazon is realizing that it has to support an industry-standard document format to gain wide acceptance for the Kindle line as general purpose reading devices, although the way PDF support has been implemented on the Kindle DX is charitably characterizable as 'grudging.' Amazon could be at the forefront, if they offered trade-ins from MOBI (Mobipocket) to AZW (Kindle) at a nominal fee, and this could be as simple as having the user upload the MOBI file for conversion at Amazon and getting an AZW in return.
Even bestsellers see a massive drop in sales fairly shortly after they're released, and eventually they become out of print. Perhaps the ebook business model will morph into something like the current music business model for radio stations. Certainly, allowing trade-ins of ebooks would enable a royalty model for authors on second-hand books, something that doesn't happen in today's secondary book market.
Electronic books, music and video definitely could offer advantages. It's extremely portable, just imagine being able to login on any computer/kindle/phone and have access to all of your books, music and video. One of the disadvantages of traditional media is that it's bulky to bring your collection with you. I know it's not very libertarian, but some government regulation may be needed here. At least laws that protect the consumer if the company happens to go out of business, or something like that.
Anyways, I still maintain that the true solution is to limit copyright length. Many of the problems with DRM go away if copyrights weren't life of the author + 90 years + whatever Congress gets lobbied to tack on.
I'm a big fan of audiobooks and renewed my first one year deal with Audible only because I'd heard that it had been purchased by Amazon. I thought that Amazon would shake up Audible, but after more than a year, the only notable change is that they rolled out a new front page with lots more cutesy pictures. They still offer no help whatsoever for users that want to find a good listening device (since listening to 8 or more hour book segments is very different from listening to random blips of music - with music you often want to flit quickly from file to file, whereas being accidentally slammed into a new file only 4 hours into a 9 hour book segment is not particularly desirable when all you wanted to do was go back and hear that last sentence again).
Anyway, Amazon doesn't seem to be handling innovation and customer service as well as I would have expected it to. I still love ordering a variety of things from them, because I can order almost anything and they never, ever start shoving catalogues (or even e-mails about sales) at me. It's such a joy to be able to order safely, without being attacked by relentless marketing for years afterwards. But perhaps they just don't understand what people want from either audiobooks or ebooks. I hope they sort it out soon.
By the way, for audiobooks, it's clear that books stay in my Audible library and I can download them as many times as I want over my lifetime (or Audible's), but I can only have up to 3 devices registered at once. This is clearly laid out and has worked well for me. At the very least, they certainly need to make their policies clear for ebooks.
Audible has lost a good customer with their desire to control how their wares are listened to.
My wife has listened to audiobooks for years. She is a member of a smallish market who loves to read but can't due to eye strain. We used to get book rentals on tape from Blackstone. Great system. The costs were high for purchase due to the format. An unabridged book can be 8-16 hours or more of audio, and cd's or cassetted (which we used to use) were expensive to buy. Rental was reasonable, the selection was good, readers were excellent, service was excellent.
Audible was ok. But the inherent advantages of the medium were removed by the DRM. There is an excellent audio format that has good quality, and readily available on all platforms and portable devices. So their brilliant move was to create an encumbered format, poor quality that limits where you can listen to it.
This is stupid lawyerly zero sum game thinking. We don't buy any audiobooks any more because of DRM. The demand is still here, but the supply sucks. Since I, and many others don't buy, what exactly have they gained from DRM? They might as well release in an openish format. I would buy again. Many others would too. Some would be able to get it for free. So.
There is an upside to recessions. Fools go bankrupt (if the government lets them). What I would love to see is vast libraries of contractually DRM encumbered content sitting idle, or almost idle except for the continuous changing of ownership due to bankruptcy, losing value as the content ages.
I think that is a libertarian ideal, no? Let people suffer the full consequences of their decisions.
Derek
Totally understand the complaints about Amazon not doing anything interesting with Audible. Back in the 90s, I used to buy music from a site called CDNow.com, which had really well developed search functions. They were then bought out by Amazon, who replaced the search with their default search that was designed for books, so that there was no easy way to see all albums by an artist or everyone who recorded a certain song (instead, you would get everything in one of those pages-long Amazong results lists that never seem to be in any particular order). It irritated me to no end - here, Amazon had bought a company that, while struggling, had an extremely well developed website that was really useful, and instead of upgrading their website to use CDNow's technology, they just scrapped it entirely and basically just used the CDNow website as a redirect.
I can't actually remember buying a CD from Amazon since, though I have more recently bought some MP3s.
The root cause of the problem is the dependency upon central authorities to authenticate or verify users/use.
The problem gets much worse when you consider the failure of Clear (Registered Traveler). They hold 250,000 biometric templates. First, a judge now dictates who owns those files (your iris/fingerprint template) and second, the security controls are likely not going to be maintained. It will be an interesting world when rogue parties disassociate ones unique (iris/fingerprint) from ones identity.
What is needed is to flip the thinking and bind the rights into the content - Content-Centric Security (CCS). That approach enables the content to self-govern against pre-defined rule-sets (user profile, hardware fingerprints, etc.) so there is no need or dependency to authenticate against a central server. Updates are sent to the media itself.
The media may be exchanged securely to the end-nodes of the Internet and only execute for authorized users. Various, customer-driven rights are included up-front.
The funny thing is that people who pirate books never have to deal with any of this hassle, only paying customers do. Still think DRM is a good idea?
Amazon bans account - customer loses all Kindle books
The following is an edited message from the MobileRead forums. It raises a good point about the ephemeral quality of DRMed ebooks. I like the author’s characterization of the Kindle as a service. You can read the full thread here, and thanks to Paul Durrant for the heads up.
http://www.teleread.org/2009/04/07/amazon-bans-account-customer-looses-all-kindle-books/
That's why I won't buy from them.
This is why a traditional book is the ultimate data delivery device.
1) It is generally small enough to be carried anywhere.
2) It less subject to data-rot. In 100 years (if you take care of it), you will still be able to use it.
Anyone here read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series?
Thursday Next is a literary detective with Jurisfiction who can read herself in and out of books. In I think the third book, The Well of Lost Plots, Fforde totally predicted the DRM and limited reading predicament. In that book a secret coterie of officials in literature invent a system called UltraWord that prevents books to be opened by more than three people. The ThriceRead rule seals a book after three readings rendering second hand bookstores and libraries obsolete.
The Well of Lost Plots was written in 2004. Doesn't exactly make him Nostradamus, but it does appear this problem has been on the horizon and mockable for awhile.
There's a lot of good product out there, or soon to be out there; here's something I would really like:
There's a bunch of buzz surrounding this product, like the possible color option, as well as the ability to handle straight .pdf files built in from the get-go. On a more abstract level, I suspect that part of the problem is that DRM is the sign of a not yet matured technology. Something like the micropayments advocated by Vinge, et al may soon be feasible, at which point all bets are off. That's a fair chunk of processing power though, and would require some pretty hard-core security. PGP just wouldn't hack it.
I was walking through a bohemian part of town and ran across this place called a "bookstore". I thought, "Hmm, that's interesting. I've always gotten my books electronically on my kindle, but this could be an interesting idea." So I stepped inside. What I saw was an unfamiliar way of experiencing books: on hundreds of of sheets of paper, bound up on one side with glue and wrapped in a hard cardboard cover. They even smell a little musty, at least the old ones.
At first I was excited; but then I began to think, well how would I do a text search in such a book? Supposing it was a reference book, or I wanted to find a quote that was particularly memorable? Also, I can resell it if I don't want it, but I can't take notes in the book without ruining its value. Plus, where am I going to keep these books if I buy a whole bunch of them? They're really heavy! And it uses a lot of paper - especially newspapers! What if it's dark and I need a bigger font? What if I'm on the train to work and decide I want to buy the paper version of the Times that day? Can't get it!! Not only that, but they wanted to charge me MORE for these clunky, static, physical, books than the normal electronic price! Honestly, with all these limitations and disadvantages, they should be giving them away for free. I decided I'm never going to pay a single red cent for a paper book until these issues are addressed. No way.
Guys, get over yourselves and your anti-DRM fundamentalism. Yes, kindle books are very different from paper books. They have a different set of advantages and disadvantages. By having kindles now, we are automatically early-adopters, and should expect some glitches here and there. When I first bought my kindle I was skeptical. That day, I purchased "The Road" and read it cover-to-cover. I was completely sold on the kindle concept after that. I have spent many times what I used to spend on books, and have been reading much more as well. Sure, in the unlikely event that Amazon exits the business in some way, I'd lose those books. I bet they would transfer the licenses to someone, but I'm not to worried about that happening. The advantages now far outweigh that possibility.
In my opinion, the very, very best of all is that my entire bookshelf and bookstore can be in my pocket. Currently I literally have about 70 books and samples available to read, and I can choose to read any of the dozen or so I'm partially through at any given time. I never did read a dozen books simultaneously pre-kindle, but now I can and do. To do this without the kindle I'd have to carry a wheelbarrow of books around. Everywhere I go I now have my books, even if I forget my kindle (on my iPhone).
I eagerly look forward to the day when I won't have a giant thousand-pound bookshelf taking up space. There are two kinds of books I buy: reference books, which go out of date and have to be repurchased anyway after a few years; and entertainment reading, which I read once and, only if they are exceptionally good, again years later. There are some books that are timeless classics that everyone should have and keep forever. These usually cost less than $2 on the kindle. I don't mind even having a small bookshelf with the cream of the cream, for old times' sake. I will not be devastated if I lose any of these e-books to a failure of the kindle business, though I would be quite disappointed that the concept didn't fly. Quite honestly, it's hard to imagine that electronic delivery is *not* the future of written media. It's almost unavoidable.
The number of downloads vs the number of downloaded instances at a given time is a subtle enough distinction that most people might have some difficulty understanding it at first. Customer Service Rep is generally an entry-level position and has the least-trained personnel, because 99% of the questions are "My wireless isn't working! (Turn on the wireless switch on the back)". I suspect that once the kindle and its ilk become more popular, the more onerous DRM aspects will be pushed aside by the market. This 6-book limit is pretty high and I doubt many customers have reached it.
Chill. And no, I don't work for Amazon.
They wanted to charge me MORE for these clunky, static, physical, books than the normal electronic price! Honestly, with all these limitations and disadvantages, they should be giving them away for free.
That's what we need. A place where you can get books for free, and not have to worry about ending up with a groaning bookshelf of stuff you're only going to read once. And maybe there could be a bunch of these places, all hooked up together, like a retail chain - you know, the way you can go into Macy's and they don't have what you're looking for, and they say, "no problem, we can get it from our other store"? That would be totally cool.
And to access the books, you'd have something electronically coded, just like a Kindle. Only smaller - maybe even as small as a credit card, to fit into your wallet or back pocket.
Damn. That would be really awesome -- imagine! Access to thousands of free books using something as small and thin as a credit card!
Ah, well. Maybe some hipster Silicon Valley geniuses like the Google guys will invent a system that does this.
Here's my beef: the set "people that make DRM products" is very similar to the set "people that used the state apparatus to make hacking tools illegal", (as with the DMCA provisions). The people in the former set that aren't in the later get a free pass, the rest need to have their products put onto saw-edged optical media bearing a warning label that states "by accepting this product into your rectum you waive all claims against the inserter etc." and sent back to them with a rapid and forceful content delivery system.
Follow Greg Q's lead. It's called mobidedrm, it's in Python, and it's not terribly hard to use.
If you're going to buy a DRMed product, make sure it's one you can strip the DRM from. DRM-free MOBI files can be used forever; just be sure you keep a backup around.
BTW - if you still have any DRMed iTunes audio, the equivalent is called requiem.
As for the old books, you really owe it to yourself to load The Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg ebooks onto your Kindle. It's hyperlinked so that you can download PG ebooks directly to the Kindle over the wireless service - just as easy as buying from Amazon, but free.
... speaking of which, when is "McMegan's Timeless Musings" coming out? I'm holding off buying the device until then.
You are missing the point of my earlier comment. With any object be it physical or IP; when you buy it, you own it. It is yours you can do whatever you want. When you buy a DRM book from Amazon, you don't own it. They can cut your access to it when they want to. I've spent thousands on my personal library; I'm not willing to put control of that investment into another's hand. If I can't control when and where I want to do or access something then I haven't purchased it, Ive merely subscribed to a service and prices should reflect that.
"Apparently, the limits are on simultaneous devices, not downloads."
That is a distinction without a difference unless they have some way to tell how many simultaneous devices you're using a book on. Which they don't, or else this guy wouldn't have hit the limit. So the "simultaneous" part is a lie. It's a limit on devices, full stop. Since they claim the *intent* was to limit simultaneous devices, when you hit your limit there might in the future be some arbitrarily-complex mechanism whereby you can try to convince them you aren't using the older copies any more, but that mechanism doesn't exist yet. So bottom line: every time you upgrade your kindle or iPhone, you lose a copy; a technophile is likely to run out of copies in a year or two, and Amazon hasn't yet thought about how to deal with that.
"I'm willing to bet they'll lose substantial sales to people who see the first post, but not the second."
I don't get why the second post comforts you.
Yeah, neither do I. It really just convinces me I have to wait until there's a genuine solution adopted across the industry, not just something Amazon (a company that's barely ten years old) says it plans to do in the future.
I understand why producers of IP want DRM -- they want to make a living and not get ripped off. But look at the history of DRM. It's a failure. People who argue: "Get over it! Accept it!" are just shouting a loosing argument. I can and have bought a DRM-free e-reader and used it to read e-books without DRM. In the past, DRM-free products have beaten DRM encumbered products in the marketplace. Look at music. Look at software. Besides, look at the pace of technological change. If Kindles are around still around in 20 years you probably won't be able to read today's books on them. Meanwhile, those classics collecting dust on your bookshelf can be read by everyone. What's the value of an ephemeral product compared to something built to last? Many books probably deserve to be electronic and subject to data rot. Hopefully, we'll get more thoughtfully published works on acid free paper.
One point no one has commented on yet is that it's the PUBLISHER of the book who decides how many devices you can simultaneously download to. Most publishers allow 5 or 6. Some publishers only allow 1. That's the problem that the article's author ran into. Amazon does not tell you how many devices you can download the book to. It's not even buried in the fine print; that just has a general disclaimer that you will be limited in the number of devices the book can be downloaded to. You'll only discover that it's one (or five, or whatever) by downloading to lots of different devices. Kind of like determining bridge load capacity by driving over heavier and heavier trucks until the bridge breaks.
At the very least, Amazon should have the number of allowed simultaneous device downloads on the purchase page. That way, consumers know exactly what they're buying. Also at the very least, there should be some utterly easy way to deregister an old or broken kindle so that it doesn't muck up someone's device count.
I'm not betting my library or my money on Amazon always being around to guarantee me access to ebooks or downloaded movies or music.
Rather than complaining about Amazon, how about getting active in reducing the time that Copyrights are extended for?
Copyrights are in the constitution in order to foster creativeness. But in this rapidly changing age, copyrights are lasting longer and longer. The original Mickey Mouse is still under copyright!
Meanwhile, an inventory of a world changing device only gets 17 years protection.
The copyright holders (big media) have bought enough politicians to keep extending their government sanctioned monopoly forever.
Some relevant criticism of Miss Mcardle from one of the blogs I read regularly
to exerpt;