Comments on: Amazon's Orwellian deletion of Kindle books http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html Brain candy for Happy Mutants Sat, 09 May 2015 11:23:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2 By: BookGuy http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545809 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545809 @Clif #14

I don’t know if the DX needs to be “hacked,” per se. I have one, and I just don’t have any of Amazon’s stuff on it. (Well, one title that I bought when I first got it, just for giggles.) I don’t ever have the Whispernet on, and I transfer my various public domain or other non-DRM’d eBooks to it using the USB cable, including PDFs, which the DX supports natively. Having a whole slew of classics, including Euclid’s Elements and Hilbert’s Foundations of Geometry, has been a real boon for me. (I write/edit math textbooks.)

I’d like to think that by buying the DX but not buying content from Amazon, it says, “Hey, I like the device, but not how you handle content. Fix that,” although who knows. The whole situation is disheartening. They have a pretty good device, and although you can use it without any DRM ever touching it, the kerfuffles they’re causing are of course going to taint people’s feelings about the hardware.

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By: demidan http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545823 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545823 I for one do not see the magic of an “ebook” over let’s say a real book. Ebooks are not more portable hell Kindle is huge when compared to the average paperback; true if you are currently reading one of Stephenson’s books yes the Kindle is lighter but when dropped or coffee spilled on it the book is fine vs Dead Kindle.

And Yes they do smell better and no batteries needed!

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By: BookGuy http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545835 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545835 @Demidan (#18)

I think that’s why books haven’t gone the same way music has; books are a pretty good technology. mp3 players let users replaces bulky and/or easily breakable media with something portable, and the great part about it all is that you can buy any old CD you want, rip the songs, and put them on your player with ease. On the other hand, there’s no easy way to buy a paper book and rip its contents onto an eReader. (Other, than perhaps literally ripping it by cutting off the spine and feeding all the pages through a scanner, but that’s still pretty cumbersome.)

I love the idea of having something similar for books that I have for my music–setting aside the audiophile arguments of fidelity of vinyl vs. CD vs. mp3, I can carry just about every song I own with me. I hope it happens for books, but we’re not there yet.

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By: DWittSF http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545839 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545839 Question: Does the Kindle allow you to use Project Gutenberg or other non DRM content?

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By: MycroftMkIV http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545860 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545860 This is the most important reason I purchased another reader instead of the Kindle. Other considerations for me were

1. Size
2. Wireless connectivity (I don’t need it)
3. Price

I found exactly what I was looking for in the Cooler Reader (http://www.coolreaders.com/).

DRM didn’t work for Lotus 1-2-3 and it hasn’t worked for any other product, including that proprietary operating system 90% of the world seems to use.

Mike

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By: Takuan http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545609 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545609 just ain’t buying one.

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By: BookGuy http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545866 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545866 @DWITTSF

Yes, it does. Right now, about 90% of what I have on mine is from Project Gutenberg.

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By: hokano http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545614 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545614 I agree this is a noteworthy event in the history of electronic publishing.

But, I’m sorry, BoingBoing. You know I love you, honey. But I have a hard time separating this recent action by Amazon from this previous action of your own.

I know you’ll correct me. Because I know I’m wrong in your eyes. But I can’t help seeing the symmetries. Forgive me, my BoingBoing baby. I hope you can still love the Hokano.

And I do still love the BoingBoing.

Maybe you can explain it to me once again. Just so I have it clear.

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By: Takuan http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545618 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545618 not even close. What’d you pay to get here?

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By: Anonymous http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-546387 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-546387 It seems the real issue here is the connectivity which, as an earlier poster mentioned, is sneaking us into a world of licensing rather than buying. That concerns me more than DRM but I may be more paranoid than most ;)

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By: HotPepperMan http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545625 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545625 It’s why I buy paper books and buy them from stores and not on-line. Also, books smell better and do not usually need batteries or recharging.

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By: Anonymous http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-897121 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-897121 One way to get around this problem is to also download the books (in the proper format) to your PC/Mac/smartphone. IF you download to your PC/Mac,gather up a bunch of them and burn them to DVD – problem solved.

Then, you can still read the material that YOU paid for, and Amazon’s thievery won’t matter quite as much. Until they pull something new, that is.

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By: chaschas http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545640 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545640 Time was when “distributors” made things available. Nowadays, most distributors make their money by obstructing availability in various ways.

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By: wackyvorlon http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-549228 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-549228 Let’s see… You have to pay $400 for the privilege of owning a kindle. You have to pay to buy books that you can’t even do as much with as you can a paperback. And… you get the added feature of books randomly disappearing! Wonderful!

As long as this keeps up, ebooks can never succeed. It is an astounding level of brain damage.

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By: Anonymous http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545909 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545909 We need to get some laws and definitions on the books right now regarding digital goods and DRM. Files that limit what the “owner” can do should require some kind of clearly worded disclaimer during the check out procedure and anything that can be removed, altered or disabled without the users consent should not use the word “buy”.

What I want to know is how far Amazon’s control over the Kindle goes. Can they delete my DRM-stripped versions of legally purchased books? Can they remove support for open files loaded over usb? At what point do they start breaking even existing laws?

I was going to buy a Kindle for the Wikipedia access and just strip out the DRM, but now I’m beginning to have second thoughts.

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By: Clif Marsiglio http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545912 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545912 @peterbruells

“In your parts of the world you have to give up your fingerprints if you want too pawn something? Yeech…”

Yes, in most US cities, the vast majority of items being sold in these institutions are stolen. At least until these cities instituted policies that were in line with the fingerprinting / identification…in my case, I asked around to a few less than desirable acquaintances where I could get rid of stuff with few questions asked, and my property was located quickly. These folks know where to go…

In studies I’ve read, policies like this actually significantly decrease the burglaries and car thefts…these days, there are almost NO car stereo theft in areas that require fingerprinting and ID. I’ve always believed, if you believe a right to be true, you don’t abuse it…it makes it easier for people to take them away…and it makes it easy for people like me who are actually pretty liberal on rights issues to agree something needs to be done. IN this case, it is a regulation of a business, not regulation of what private peoples do between each other (i.e., if you want to sell your car stereo to a buddy, there is no law that says he must finger print you before selling it).

“Personally, if I got something from a pawn shop and paid it, and the original owner or seller had his finger in my pocket, he would get them broken. Self defense, such a nice concept.”

And if I found someone with my personal property that was taken illegally, I would take it back at any expense.

Actually, no I wouldn’t…I support the rights of those that feel this way, but I don’t care much about MY property any more. I realized this a few years ago when someone stole a bike I was building. Had it locked up on a locked enclosed porch. I thought I was extra cautious about this, but I guess I wasn’t enough (my porch doesn’t have an alarm on it, but the rest of my house does…)

I saw my bike with its custom paintjob on the street while driving and actually made an effort to run the guy over (ruined a good set of tires on my car doing so jumping a curb). And I realized that it was just property…it was my work and soul that went into it, but it was only property. My personally belief is that if someone is willing to steal, they obviously needed it more than I do…and it took a while for it to actually get ingrained as part of my core beliefs…not just something I say. But thats on me…if you want to break someones fingers for taking something that belongs to someone else, good for you. If someone wants to run someone over for a piece of property, I wouldn’t hold it against him if I were on a jury…I personally decided it wasn’t worth hurting someone over it.

Anyhoo…

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By: Anonymous http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545659 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545659 Hokano: the difference between BB deleting free content from their server and paid content from your device in your home is night and day…no valid comparison at all.

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By: Mark Levitt http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545669 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545669 The first step (although no means the last) to fix this kind of thing would be to pass a simple law that says:

“If you have button on your website/software that says “Buy” or “Purchase” to complete the transaction and/or you call the transaction a “sale or purchase, etc” then, the consumer gets all of the first sale rights that are granted by copyright law, regardless of whatever other agreement might be in effect.

If you don’t want the consumer to enjoy all of the rights granted by the First Sale doctrine, then you should use “Lease Now” “Rent Now” or “Enjoy for a bit until we decide to take it back Now.”

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By: continuedfraction http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545670 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545670 This is exactly why one should vote with one’s money against broken technology. DRM = BROKEN. Sadly, too many “early adoptor”, “techno-geek” types buy and pimp this crap anyway.

“The problem is that device owners (that’s you and me) aren’t a party to these disputes or negotiations.”– You are party when you buy the crappy devices since you are supporting the manufacturers that build the junk.

There’s nothing to stop someone from building a non-broken “e-book reader/editor” with excellent features, and it gaining widespread acceptance. Buying anything less and pimping it on your blog, no matter its “cool” features just hurts the cause of freeing information and accelerating scientific/cultural progress.

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By: Bugs http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545672 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545672 Hokano: You paid for a copy of those articles, stored them on a device that you own, then discovered that someone from BB had taken control of your device to delete your copy from your device?

No? Then they’re not remotely similar. What happened here isn’t about censorship (although it sets a worrying precedent). Instead it’s just driving home the message that, despite all the money you spend on a kindle, you don’t own it; Amazon has complete control over it, so Amazon effectively still owns it. And you’re not buying a copy of the book, you’re buying a license to read that book until Amazon decides to revoke that license without asking you.

That would be OK if Amazon advertised itself as “The world’s biggest library” and permitted users to reverse the sale whenever they want, but it doesn’t. The terms of the Kindle site talk about buying a “permanent license to read the book” but all of their marketing, site design and the “buy” button tell users that they’re buying a copy of the book, with all the property rights and First Sale Doctrine rights that word implies. It’s deliberately deceitful.

If you want to get back into tinfoil hat mode, you shold be much more worried about stories like this one. Amazon has been pushing updates to books. Presumably this is just to correct typos and format problems, but the ability to edit books after distribution — and without the permission of the owner/licensee of each copy — has scarier censorship implications than merely deleting them.

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By: Blaven http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545935 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545935 My wife and I considered buying a kindle. Due to these cheesy antics we’ve decided against it.

Does anyone at Amazon pay attention to this stuff?

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By: PaulR http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545684 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545684 Speaking as an early adopter:

I have an ereader. Nope, I don’t have a Kindle.

Screen too small, annotating on documents is a pain, non-native PDF support is a pain, lack of open-source-ness was a BIG factor.

I put my money where my mouth is and purchased a more expensive reader than the Kindle.

A year later (or in other terms, some 1,500 documents (books, magazine articles, research papers, essays)(roughly 300MB) I’m still happy with my purchase. None of the documents on my iLiad have/had any DRM.

Yeah, and a lot of them have marginal notes scribbled a over them. And some of these initiated conversations with the authors about those notes. Speaking of which, um, Cory…

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By: Antiqueight http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545685 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545685 If they can reach in and remove the book what is to stop someone reaching in and changing the wording of the book?

Distribution n. the act of ensuring media can not be viewed by the public.

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By: VinceKlortho http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545687 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545687 Here’s the thing… no one is *forced* to buy a Kindle. Just vote with your wallet and don’t buy one. That’s the only ‘voice at the table’ you get, so use it.

Don’t buy craptacular products like a Kindle and they will go away. It may be the coolest piece of HW since the Newton, but it’s still a deal with the devil.

Speaking of Apple….

Same thing’s true about Itunes, too. Funny how Amazon sells DRM free music to compete against the big red fruit. Will Apple start selling DRM free books? (Doubtful).

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By: WalterBillington http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545688 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545688 This is phenomenally bad – are we to end up with purely licensed material? Just 10 minutes ownership? And it’s great that this was Orwell.

There’s a point where the importance of copyright is exceeded by the importance of the maintenance, alive and kicking, of key literary and philosophical concepts, so shag the system – it is highly important that people retain unfettered and easy access to all ideas – otherwise we become China.

For the same reason I rarely buy MP3s. Just, low-fi, electronic, and easily lost by my disorganised file keeping.

So – for those AGAINST this kind of thing, form a huge community of people willing to invest time in pumping and supporting demand for this, then don’t buy anything at all. Make the budgets disappear down the plug. Make the investors way over-estimate the potential market. They’ll get badly, badly slapped.

The key to product launch is that estimate of demand, and the preparation spend is calculated according to those market tests.

C’mon, I hear the a-moanin’ and a-groanin’ like a pack of hawgs, but do something amusing and effective to shift this. The marketeers and the copyright-holders smell dollaroonees in the hills, and will do anything to get them.

Hold ’em back.

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By: hokano http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-553880 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-553880 Takuan, et al: You’re right, of course. The situations are completely different.

After all, you and I are not the customers around here. The readership is the product. The advertisers are the customers.

My comment was a silly, alcohol-fueled rant that I now find somewhat embarrassing.

Say, how do I go about deleting it?

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By: shawnhcorey http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545691 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545691 There are alternatives: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

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By: Anonymous http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545700 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545700 I realize that this is phenomenally bad, but it seems disconnected from DRM. It’s just about who controls your device.

And I don’t know a good way to solve this conundrum. I want my machines to download bug fixes, but I don’t want them to delete things. Hmmm. But I can’t scrutinize every new patch. This sux but it has nothing to do with DRM which is all about what I do with my copies.

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By: Anonymous http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545706 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545706 What would you expect?

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By: Anonymous http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html#comment-545718 Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-545718 A Kindle book is nothing like buying a real book in bookstore. You are buying a subscription service with the rights to read the book. You do not “own” the book anymore than you own the cable programs you pay to watch on your television. So no one is “entering your home without your permission” to take the book back if there is a legal claim against the book you purchased the rights to read via Kindle. In any case, if you unwittingly bought stolen merchandise, wouldn’t the rightful owner be entitled to reclaim it?

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