Yet that's pretty much what Amazon did to this poor woman, except in the digital realm: Amazon 'broke and entered' into her Kindle, took away all her books, and then did not give her a straightforward explanation as to why they did so.
More alarmingly, Amazon did this with impunity, because this woman never really owned "her" books or, for that matter, anything else she "purchased" on "her" Kindle. In the digital realm, what Amazon did to this woman is perfectly legal.
Legal or not, this looks, smells, and feels so obviously wrong, it ought to be illegal.
It should be wire fraud, just like hacking a server and forcing it to act in a way the owner does not desire.
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 problem is that the law hasn't kept up with the digital age. Lawyers/judges are notably technophobes (as a whole) which I'm sure has kept it back. Plus, generally speaking, technology enjoys a nice balance of good companies, competition, and plenty of release valves (ie, piracy). In general, these events are rare and that keeps the world from addressing the underlying issues - it just rarely comes up as an issue for someone and when it does, they could find a way (like piracy) to make themselves whole again (and I know it isn't equivalent, but piracy is often a lower barrier than legal action). There are a lot of other issues where people are more likely to become un-whole with less easy recourse.
Right now, issues of what a license to digital content offers is a bit in flux. I think a lot of us have a similar idea to what we think it should mean, but that doesn't mean that the legal system does or will acknowledge that. We sometimes get complacent because we're in a pretty positive industry and often times regulation can stifle innovation. However, this might be an area where we want a standard definition of term rental (for things like the Zune music service) and license purchase (like a Kindle Book) that would allow for things like re-selling and such. Otherwise, we'll likely continue to be beholden to the ToS that we all just click "accept" on.
It's interesting how http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig described this situation back in 2004 in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_%28book%29
If Apple, Steam, and Amazon decided tomorrow that they wanted you to pay $10/item in your 'library' of things you have 'purchased' in order to be able to access it again, according to their contracts their users agreed to, they would be entirely within the contract to do that.
Expect publishers and digital content providers to wail and gnash their teeth and swear that giving consumers actual property rights will completely destroy their business. Other industries tried the same scare tactics. They're just lies. Being able to transfer your property, sell it 'used', etc actually massively boosts the success of markets and hopefully it is inevitable that this kind of thing will be extended to digital content.
If my collection of novels disappears, I'm inconvenienced. If my collection of textbooks disappears, my academic progress is severely jeopardized. Both seem extremely wrong as you mention, but I see potential for situations that are life-ruiningly wrong.
This is why I categorically refuse to pay a single penny for any digital media that has DRM attached to it and might prevent me from playing it at any time in the future and that I can't back up to my own media.
I very much doubt there's a plain english clause that goes a little something like:
"If we think you have violated (our?) DRM policies, we will delete every book you've ever purchased, and close your current and future accounts. If you think this is done in error, you may not ask us why we closed the account. You may only sue us to get an answer"
To call out a consumer for not being prepared for a no-warning, no explanation ban (and removal of all legally purchased content) seems extreme.
Have you tried explaining to a non-technical person about remote wipes?
I had a 20 minute discussion on this subject with a 58 year old friend of mine who has a doctorate, presents at conferences, etc.
I spent the first 15 minutes convincing him that the ebook publish had the right to do a remote wipe.
He remained unconvinced that an ebook publisher would ever do a remote wipe because it would be bad for business.
How many people, if they'd known this could happen, would have bought a Kindle in the first place? I suspect many would not. Digital rights activists need to educate the public that DRM = you have no rights.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blog...
Why use DRM? Demand an alternative, buy a physical copy, or holdout. Hopefully the ship will begin turning around soon.
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 one day, she could be disconnected altogether.
Yet Amazon is allowed to arbitrarily remove those very same files with no explanation.
Pretty mindblowing how severely copyright has been perverted from its original intent.
We, fortunately, do not live in this world. However, from the standpoint of someone that prefers to purchase books, movies, and video games to promote these arts, it seems that the entities "selling" the content to me are more eager to head down that chaotic road than I am. That's not to diminish the fact that there are many rampant copyright infringers that have already happily moved down that road and could care less about long term benefit. It's just that I am not one of those people, and I don't deserve to be hit with the crap-storm that you intend for them, particularly when there is no evidence that they feel any of that storm at all.
So I long ago decided on a solution, just do what feels right. Buy from whatever distributor you like (I tend to stay away from Amazon, competition is always good) and then circumvent whatever DRM they place on it (for instance, go to one of those places of ill repute and get the book in an accessible format). It's not perfect, but it sure as hell is better than playing the game they set up.
Make no mistake; I disagree with the humongous damages leveled against torrenters and I would be dead set against allowing an ISP to redirect or disconnect a user.
But Amazon doing something they claimed rights to in their ToS and sharing a copyrighted work via torrent are quite different.
"While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts, please know that we have reviewed your account on the basis of the information provided and regret to inform you that it will not be reopened."
This happens more frequently: Google says this all the time, based on posts here; Amazon now does the same thing; even apartment rental companies will say "you've been turned down on the basis of this report that we don't know the contents of."
If your company can't reveal specific reasons or steps behind why an action was taken, DON'T TAKE THAT ACTION. Even my credit card issuer will tell me exactly why my card was flagged and they deal with ACTUAL MONEY. All these statements do is infuriate customers, create bad press, and drive away other customers. Scammers will just back up, look at their entire operation, and hammer away again with 300 new accounts so all you've accomplished is pissing off customers who want to do business with you.
It is very unfortunate that apparently the only way to resolve such cases is to bring them to enough media spotlight, that the corporation involved has to do something to avoid damages to its image.
Normally, I would have voted with my pocket book, but in this case they had the sole source of the item (for a time). I also wanted to cost them a huge amount of time for their error.
And this my friends is why artificial monopolies (created by vendor lock-in, proprietary devices, patents, or other perversions of the legal system) are inherently detrimental. Adam Smith, in his foundational work on Capitalism: The Wealth of Nations, rails against the practices that make monopolies possible. This market is not a free market.
Since we were on the "front line" we were usually the ones informing the customers of these policies. We were usually given very limited information about the hows/whys of these policies so when the customers started getting annoyed and asking questions all we could reply with was "I don't know, that is just our policy" and "I don't have the authority to do that".
Looking back on it I'm guessing we were kept in the dark on purpose since after a couple of minutes about 90% of the customers would just give up and accept it. Some asked to speak to a manager but of course we were instructed never to put a manager on the line and always to claim that the manager was unavailable or to just transfer the call to another agent who would give the same answer.
If they had given us more information about these policies then we would have ended up spending hours in discussion with the customer which is of course what the call centre managers specifically didn't want.
Essentially, as a customer one is often limited to submitting requests through web forms and receiving boilerplate answers (if at all) that lead nowhere if the case at hand is somewhat nonstandard, or to spend endless hours circulating through similarly scripted phone support hotlines, without ever reaching somebody that can actually fix the problem.
Kafka would be hard pressed to top some of those customer support experiences.
That's a specific example where it might not be legal but I agree that this is widespread and there are lots of things in the real world where it would be fine to tell you, but they choose not to. In my experience this is to protect internal process (so you can't cite why they're idiots) or so that they can sell you another product (credit score improvement, etc).
But I do agree, the withholding of detail is widespread to a point where it suggests people just plain don't want to tell you anything.
1) They don't want to get into a discussion which is likely to be time consuming. It's not just innocent people who appeal these things, often the most guilty are those who will most actively and vocally profess their innocence (in some cases up to and including going to court over it - c.f. the UK politician Jonathan Atkin).
The minute Amazon became willing to talk about this stuff they'd need a who bunch more people to start looking into each one in detail, review every claim and counter claim and so on, and they clearly don't think that that's a good use of their money.
2) The sorts of things they'd likely have to reveal are going to be the sorts of things people who are abusing the system want to know to get round it. Doing this would make their job harder.
Not saying that it's right that they take this approach, just I can see the reasons they do.
If they were in the U.S. I'd be suggesting they lawyer up.
[1] Won't, of course.
If a company has such rigid internal processes that it can't come up with a way to reveal at least some information to allow a paying[0] customer to successfully defend an allegation of fraud, then that process is broken.
0 - I leave as an exercise to the reader the question of what should be done for free services.
Then they just unflag it after I answer 10 security questions and that's it.
Pisses me off every time.
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 stories like this on HN where I have had some inside knowledge and I can tell you that there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies.
It's a common theme to have a post of "[BigCo] shut down my account for no reason". I describe such stories as "unverifiable stories in which the poster is a victim".
Like I said, this could all be exactly as the poster claims but it might not be as well. It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US. Who knows? Amazon needs to be extremely careful to be right in situations like this or they risk undermining the ecosystem they've spent so long to create.
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.
But when it comes to technical books--books I'll often refer back to and that can cost much more--I'll have to make sure I either only buy the PDF version or I buy the PDF+mobi+epub upgrade from the publisher after buying the Kindle book (2 thumbs up to publishers who do this BTW).
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. They don't want to talk to you.
The problem? Microsoft has your operating system, Google has your email, eBay has your stuff, PayPal has your money, Amazon has your books, Facebook has your social life, etc.
And they can yank all of that away.
They don't even press any button. It's triggered automatically by criteria they never disclose beyond a vague TOS.
We need to push for a universal option for arbitration by a 3rd party regarding these sorts of unilateral actions. If anything, it will probably reduce the support and legal costs for all of these companies.
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 50%.
Am I grossly underestimating here? Keep in mind that these stories tend to be very popular, so there could definitely be a lot more of these stories around than is statistically correct.
P.s. As for one of cletus' point above, I've also noticed a few of these kinds of points eventually bring out more details which tend not to confirm the events, as told in the original posts. Nothing specific to this case of course, I've just caught myself a few times thinking "hmmm, looks like it wasn't such a crystal-clear case of the company being wrong".
There are still many problems with the Music industry (and RIAA), but they really are leading the curve for the other content industries. Right now you can purchase DRM-free music for relatively cheap from a number of sources. (Apple, Google, Amazon, as well as many independent publishers and artists)
There's an opportunity here to make an automated backup service for people who want to keep greedy bastards from stealing the stuff they care for.
How much someone would pay to have their emails, profiles, or content safe?
Deny continued service? Sure (though hardly in the way that is portrayed in the post, you must be able to know why and contest it). Remotely brick hardware and deletion of user data? Never, ever, ever. No - don't even think about thinking about it. NO.
For a legitimate purchase, I can think of nothing.
And?! That would be a horrible reason for deleting all of a user's purchased items. More reason for these types of posts to exist. The situation itself doesn't really matter, but bringing attention to the possible dangers of DRM is important. The fact that we don't own these DRMed items is incredibly scary.
"there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies."
Okay.. but without data this is just a vague anecdote.
If all you're trying to say is "be careful", well alright. But honestly I don't care. The story itself isn't that important in these cases as long as people are thinking about what the possible dangers of DRM are. And they are really big dangers.
These types of posts are the only action an individual can take when pitted against a big company.
Our email correspondence with them was very similar to the one reported in the original post. They will repeat the original mail 2-3 times and will walk away after that leaving you with no answers.
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.
Mass production has no beneficial effect when the incremental cost of each unit is indistinguishable from zero.
More likely, someone who has invested in a kindle will pay a higher price to obtain the convenience of the ebook and justify that investment. Publisher is just maximizing profit by setting price higher.
Dear Amazon,
Your service was really nice to me so far. But I happened to read a news that was not comforting. Following is a link to the story. http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
This makes me hesitant about making any future purchases. I understand your right to act against any abuse but I also believe that users have a right know what was really going on, especially when they are being totally banished.
This email is to direct your attention towards the problem so you can have another chance of finishing things in a nicer way. I strongly believe DRM sucks but I also believe there are valid reasons for it to be there. The problem is not black or white. I'd like to see a solution that is acceptable for both parties (Amazon and the customer).
Thank you
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/kindle-help.html/r...
If this person did in fact purchase DRM content and Amazon revoked it, then at a minimum the person should get a refund. There are ways that happens automatically (because it's the right thing for the customer -- Amazon doesn't want to take sides in the bigger debate). Since I don't see the refund mentioned I think there is more going on than "your account is connected to a flagged account."
Edit: SeanDav@ Deleting Amazon Account != wiping content from the device. They're different. It sounds like the person's account was deleted, but it shouldn't impact what's on the device save the revoked DRM licenses.
Edit 2: randartie@ I'm not blaming the victim, but refunds happen automatically if the customer originally paid for the content. There's a whole bunch of safeguards we have in place to protect customers and their content; this kind of sensational FUD continues to annoy me.
Minor quibble. Yes deleting & giving a refund is more moral than deleting without a refund. But deleting someone else's property without their consent is very unethical, and is not "the right thing to do".
As well, I don't see any reason why Amazon would not state what policy the 'linked' offending account was in violation of. It's easy to just blame this lady by saying more is going on that we don't know about.
This would mean, the only way to save your investment on the Kindle would be to strip DRM using calibre (or the unswindle tool) and transfer those copies to your Kindle. Well, obviously this negates the entire point if you have 3G but maybe you'd have to host stuff on your own private server if you want all your books available all the time.
Dear Amazon, Your Kindle service has been fantastic so far. I've only purchased a few books but my experience with your content and apps has been great, and I appreciate what you provide.
However I just read the account of one of your users who claims her account was closed, all of her content remotely erased from her device, and she was given no information or recourse regarding the reason for these actions: http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
I have no idea if this account is true, but if so it would be utterly appalling. The thought of such awful customer service is disturbing, and the idea that content I paid for could simply be revoked (as it was in the case of Orwell's work "1984") is chilling. Tales like this make me worry about purchasing Kindle content because of the risks involved.
Is there any reassurance you can give me regarding: 1. Your content deletion policy 2. Your policies towards giving fair warning and a chance to defend themselves to users before condemning them as some sort of malicious users? 3. Your policies regarding disclosure of the reasons for suspending someone's account? Is it within your policy to refuse to give users information?
Thank you
The Guardian is running a story [1] today about how Amazon forces publishers to cover the cost of 20% VAT (sales tax) on ebook sales, even though it only pays 3% to the Luxembourg government (where it is based for tax purposes). It also insists that if a publisher offers a better price to another retailer then it must offer the same price to Amazon.
They also pay no corporation tax in the UK, despite sales of more than £3.3bn/yr [2], through being based in Luxembourg.
I was going to jump ship to The Book Depository, but Amazon bought them last year. Its hard to understand why this was allowed by the competition regulator, and it doesn't give me much confidence that the UK government has much interest in limiting their control of multiple markets.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/21/amazon-forc...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-brit...
I wouldn't be surprised if someone higher up sees her issues and activates her account. But I can't trust my money to a company where you could lose access to books worth thousands if you talk with the wrong person.
Back then, they said "We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances". Looks like 3 years later they've decided to go back to what they were doing and promised not to do.
And THIS is why I won't buy a Kindle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...
You can still treat yourself with one of the many currently sold ebook readers out there: http://www.the-ebook-reader.com/ebook-reader-comparison.html . There is a world out there of (electronic) books that is not controlled by Amazon.
Vodafone, Amazon, Starbucks, Google, Apple, ...
I like my women like I like my coffee - paying tax on their income in the UK.
"Better World Books is a self-sustaining, for-profit social venture whose mission is to capitalize on the value of the book to fund literacy initiatives locally, nationally and around the world. We partner with nearly 1400 libraries and over 1800 college campuses across the U.S. and Canada, collecting unwanted textbooks and library discards in support of non-profit literacy programs. We have raised millions of dollars for literacy, saved millions of books from landfills, created jobs for hundreds of people, and provided wonderful books to millions of readers worldwide."
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/ is pretty good, particularly for difficult to find and second hand books. I've found more and more recently that play.com does almost as well as (and often better than) Amazon in terms of price, although I don't know much about their business tactics.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/james-daun...
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.
Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.
>Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.
Lawyers and librarians also do. There are big discussions in those circles about the meaning of the verbs "to buy" and "to possess" as used by Amazon, Apple and other big DRM "retailers". It is not only about DRM. Libraries are realising that paying for access to a website of a publishing house is not exactly like paying to receive a copy of a published journal or magazine. Have a look at all the dark archives and to who is financing them.
First it was an hacker problem, now it has spread to humanities, in five years the DRM will finally become a layperson problem. The first signs surfaced some years ago, when kids started complaining about the fact that their iPod could not be used to pass or share music while a cheaper Creative MP3 player could without a problem.
I agree with this, provided that we adopt Joel Spolsky's definition of "Nobody:"
Please understand that I'm talking about large trends
here, and therefore when I say things like "nobody" I
really mean "fewer than 10,000,000 people," and so on
and so forth.
That's the meaningful definition of nobody, and while it's entertaining for me to quibble that my ex-mother-in-law only "buys" light novels that she doesn't plan to re-read, your point is cogent.
Which is why the court hearing in cases like this should be short, and brutal to Amazon.
Of course, they know that by being based in a different jurisdiction from the person they're screwing, such a case is unlikely to materialise. This is a problem with legal systems generally: low-value cases are rarely worth pushing through if you're not a lawyer, because it takes so long to figure out how to do it without that legal education that you've lost more than you ever stood to recover anyway. This is why consumer protection organisations with the weight of national governments behind them are necessary, but the idea hasn't caught up with the Internet yet.
Fine let's say it's not a rental, and forget about the DRM issue for a second.
But what's your cost in keeping the data "alive"? I could copy it from machine to machine, maybe backup it on S3 (or similars), but all that has a cost (time, money, new reading devices, etc).
A physical book has a cost as well: space, weight, etc.
At some point, abandoning the book may be more cost effective, and even if digital books have a 'expire date' it looks like they may be cheaper in the long term
I don't buy e-books. It would annoy me to be locked out of e.g. a steam account or a Google Play account or an AppStore account or whatever, but I'd manage. Not having access to my books, that is something which wouldn't fly, books have been close friends for all my life, so I will remain physical-only until and unless DRMs are dropped from ebooks, as I did with music. I just don't see the benefits as worth the risk.
Seeing DRM'd ebooks as short-term rental is an interesting idea though. I would see myself "renting" an ebook for a buck. For the same price as the mass-market paperback it still makes no sense.
Most of the people I know do too... more or less. I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." The reality is that "ownership" of digital property is different from ownership of physical property emotionally, legally and practically.
I agree on the DRM content though.. The problem is that most people will probably not.
Because it appears to be Amazon UK dealing with the account holder I'd be interested to know if she would get anywhere by submitting a Subject Information Request [1].
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 an individual can submit a request for personal information held by an organization and they must comply within 40 days.
Whether she would get the information she is interested in, i.e. which account she is linked to, is another question.
[1] http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/personal_information/ho...
Whether she would get the information she is interested in, i.e. which account she is linked to, is another question.
Well if they don't provide it, they are breaking the law, so you can complain about them again that way.
If information is withheld she my be able to infer that the offending account to which she is linked is held by someone else - though the identity of the account holder would understandably not be given.
It's the game that many people play - trying to find the best Amazon (or Apple) store when they live and travel between countries. This means a constant struggle to find a combination of credit card, store with enough content (The US is best) and a local address (virtual and actual) to satisfy arcane internal rules.
Please Amazon - please move to one global store where any credit card from any country can purchase any edition of any book. Please Amazon and Apple, let us combine content from multiple stores into one account, and let us have a global price based on the best market. Yo usell more stuff, we but more as well.
Meanwhile take the chance to collect, and pay to the local authorities, consumption/sales tax based on the location of the IP address, not the credit card or address of the buyer. That way if someone is standing in the UK, buying content from the USA, then they pay UK tax (VAT), making it fairer versus the physical and local virtual alternatives.
Not gonna happen without a huge change in international copyright law, probably only possible if the Pirate Party gets constitution-changing majority in all of the key countries at the same time :)
Currently, for the most books there is no such thing as the right to publish a book globally, the existing deals are limited to geographic regions.
Wat? I've bought in .com, .ca, .co.uk, .fr and .es with (both) France and Spain based credit cards with no problems whatsoever.
PhantomLobe, you were hellbanned* for making a comment that didn't fit the the community guidelines:
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Looking at your comment history, you don't seem to be a spammer or a troll, I think it is more that your second comment didn't fit the guidelines and because you didn't have enough karma your account went under water, never to be seen again.
I don't know if it was by a mod, or by a robot, but to keep commenting with our PhantomLobe account is an effort in futility and a waste of your time.
I recommend that you review the guidelines doc above and avoid making comments that may be seen as not adding to the discussion. Also, start spelling words correctly. Wot is not a word and won't win you friends here.
On a related note: I wish HN would would stop hellbanning users for making comments that are not constructive. That's what downvotes are for! I have been seeing far too many people wasting so much time because they don't know they are hellbanned. Hellbanning should be reserved to obvious trolls and spammers, not people getting used to the standards of these discussions.
*http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-or-h...
Aren't they stuck by territorial rights deals? It's weird that books have region lock out.
For instance in South Africa while I can buy physical items from both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, if I try to buy anything from the Kindle store on Amazon.co.uk I get told to go to Amazon.com instead.
At least there's the book depository for paper books!
1. Complain. Keep complaining all the way to the top.
2. Sue. If complaining doesn't get you want you've paid for (or your money back, inc the Kindle you now can't use), you've just been robbed and you need to take legal action. You might think you're under a billion and five EULAs but when challenged, courts seem to side with the user when the EULAs attempt to restrict rights that they're not allowed to impinge upon. There are various sales laws that are protected well beyond the words of an EULA.
If you don't do anything about it, you make it worse for everybody else because <<insert horrid company here>> thinks they can get away with it now.
Also, actually writing letters is a great idea, I find it gets much more attention than filling a web form or firing off a hasty email. When you lick that stamp you're showing a company you're willing to put some effort in.
The DRM'd books are a different story. I still want my son to be able to read them, but I have no assurance that the ebooks will be available to him fifteen years from now.
So I yank the DRM from all of my Amazon purchases. These I put on backups. I do not share them.
I would like to see legislation about the ownership of digital content, requiring that purchased content be accessible /at all times/ -- held in escrow, if necessary. Clearly defining a purchase is probably part of this.
It seems like a common sense antecedent to the DMCA - if I'm legally prohibited from circumventing DRM, companies should be legally required to provide a means to shift that content to other media - failure to do this on request should void the DMCA's protections against unauthorized copying.
I agree that it's the sane thing to do. "Back up your documents" is important advice.
A part of me would like to dump amazon due to stories like this, but at the end of the day the whole set up is just too convenient (I can find, 'buy', and start reading a book in less than a minute directly from my kindle)
The worst part is that attitudes like mine are probably a big part of the reason Amazon will continue to get away with this. The even worse part is that I just don't care enough to do anything about it.
I wonder how many others there are like me who should know better, but enjoy the convenience too much?
Not that this makes the events in this story any less terrible.
It doesn't matter if it's 30 or 50 years from now; this person has been told that for the rest of their life, until they die, that they are never again able to become a customer.
Sounds like a long time to be banned without being told why.
I don't understand how that would justify or require revoking access to stuff that was already bought/licensed? You could simply deny the offending user access to buying new stuff instead.
As an example, I only buy non-DRM PDFs, but I never distribute them. Ever. And I never will, because those who use non-DRM PDFs get my hard earned money as I will then get to enjoy and profit from their works on any device that I so desire to use.
Now if, for example, I got a DRM encoded book and it was taken away from me due to some ridiculous arbitrary decision, I would be sorely tempted to get a non-DRM encoded copy of the book that I purchased. I think, in fact I know, I would be justified.
But given that I don't buy DRM encoded books, this will never be an ethical dilemna for me. And I'm no dirty hippy :-)
I haven't read the Amazon TOS but is it really as simple as "you rent this book for as long as we feel like and we can revoke it for no reason"?
In which case I would be somewhat surprised if this really held up in a court, for example what happens if you buy a book and they immediately decide to revoke the license 1 second after purchase?
In principle, possibly. It's a bit difficult to sue if you live in Norway & have been buying from Amazon US though: your costs will exceed any potential return very quickly!
(I'm assuming that filing a small claims suit remotely is either not possible or not effective here of course.)
In my mind, you're a complete idiot if you are an e-book consumer at this point in time.
You essentially rent the book for a price often higher than owning a physical copy of the exact same material. All this for the slight mobility advantage, and instant purchase ability. You can't share your ebooks with friends. You run the risk that the publisher might decide you're no longer worthy of that purchase.
I question the sanity of any person that has done a pro/con comparison and actually judged e-books to be superior. My guess is that most people don't bother to actually think about these purchases.
e-books can and should be revolutionary, but what is on offer now is essentially nothing more than window dressing - and people are eating it up.
First, the instant purchase ability is extremely important. It means that books gain some measure of equality with other forms of media (the internet, movies/tv, music). With a Kindle I can read whatever book I want whenever I want, which means that I read many more books than I used to.
Second, the mobility advantage isn't slight at all, especially for people who read a lot. If you're never carrying more than a single book around that's one thing, but I read 1-2 books a week, and a lot more (often 5+ a week) if I'm traveling. Even just during my daily commute, it's far easier to read while standing on the subway with a Kindle instead of a book.
Beyond that, I find reading on a Kindle to be far more comfortable than reading a book. The actual reading experience is much nicer than trade paperbacks, which are printed very cheaply. It's much lighter and only requires one hand to hold/turn pages, so I can more easily read while lying down, and the newest version has a very nice backlight, so that I can read in bad lighting.
There are obvious disadvantages, and I absolutely hate that DRM is still a thing, but the benefits absolutely outweigh any possible disadvantages for me. Anecdotally, it's the difference between me reading 5-10 books a year and me reading 50-100 books a year, and I'm a much happier person in the latter state.
--
Also, if you're not saying something to be rude, you should actually write like that, not add a disclaimer at the top of what you're writing. There were a lot of ways to get the same message across without calling people idiots.
PS: Calling someone "idiot" is never a good way to start a discussion. Especially when you're wrong.
It's going to be interesting to see if they are able to get any traction on this. They actually might since her contact in Amazon seemed to be working for Amazon.co.uk, and Norway is part of the EU's inner market.
IANAL. But for anyone in a similar situation, consumer protection law is usually better than you think. Don't assume you can't sue, or have to sue in another country, just because the contract says you do. Consumer protection laws can trump contracts!
In particular, for anyone in EU or EFTA at least (i.e. part of the Brussels regime for determining jurisdiction to sue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_Regime ), who is acting as a consumer, you can sue in your own country: "A consumer may bring proceedings against the other party to a contract either in the courts... in which that party is domiciled or in the courts... in which he is himself domiciled."
If Amazon want to do business in a country, they have to abide by the consumer laws of that country.
I am not a lawyer. Get yourself a lawyer and know your rights!
this is a risk for publishers and loss-leaders (like amazon) alike.
- with DRMed books, Amazon says "yes, you >>have<< these ebooks, you paid for them [wink]", but Amazon actually can take them away from you and you can do nothing about it. You paid [for ebook copies] and are left with nothing
- in piracy, a person who gets pirated copies of a book says "yes, if I want to read your books, dear authors/publishers, I'll pay for them [wink]", but that person can actually get any number of books from you for free. You paid [for publishing/marketing] and are left with nothing
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.
Before everyone starts hating on Amazon specifically, remember that this same thing would happen with Apple, Xbox Live, or Barnes & Noble accounts. It's not that all these companies want to have DRM. It's the content owners who dictate the terms of licensing.
Oh I'm almost certain that this is stupidity, and not malice. (Why would amazon shut down an account of some regular person?)
However, the big problem is that "all the books you own" should be dependent on a massive company never acting stupid. The problem isn't stupidity/malice, the problem is that stupidity can have such a massive massive effect.
Definitely is a highly regulated (gov't, media co.'s) industry. Without knowing anything else about it - how hard is it to create a web application to serve e-book content? Not very. Yet how many good ones exist? One? Two? That alone should tell you there's a ton of baggage that goes with the market.
Dear Sir/Madam,
We've deleted your EC2, S3... Services and Permanently suspended your AWS account due to it's been linked to another account somewhere on the internet. In other words your companies services/product/startup is offline without notice and we don't care.
I've always been afraid of what might happen to vendor-controlled content (either cloud servers or DRM), so I maintain a local de-DRM'd version of every file. For Audible, I actually had to go through a download, aac playback in iTunes to mp3 compression, mp3 file split workflow to make Audible books work with the RNS-E audio in my audi (it has built-in SD slots to play MP3, but the iPod in interface won't work with Audible due to DRM restrictions in their app).
It's a shame that you have to go through all this trouble just to use things you've legally purchased. It's sort of ok when the system just works (like Steam does now, although it didn't always), but horrible when you don't trust the vendor much and where the software doesn't work very well (EA Origin...).
I don't think I'd buy anything where there wasn't at least a technical workaround to rip to servers and formats under my control.
It starts with the password policy. Passwords require a maximum length(!), which is not only stupid but also a strong indicator that they store the passwords in plaintext (like varchar(16)). I asked them whether they'd do that and they denied, but I don't believe them.
And, well, the whole DRM-nonsense and stupid file formats that don't play on my Android phone without their app. I won't buy via Audible again.
If you bought the books, you agreed [in the eyes of the law] to this kind of eventuality..
I'm as guilty of this kind of thing as well. We tend to assume an imaginary T&C that conforms to we think is fair when we buy things online - and we have to learn the hard way that the real T&C's are very much more dubious.
Here's the relevant bit in the T&C's:
"Upon your download of Digital Content and payment of any applicable fees (including applicable taxes), the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times"
"Your rights under this Agreement will automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term of this Agreement."
The key points is that this is a "license agreement" that grants you rights on the payment of applicable fees.
TL;DR: You don't own any content you licensed to read on your kindle.
Rights? You have no right to your eBooks. http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-y...
Edited to add: So this seems to be a case of a used Kindle's UDID being tied to a previously-suspended account and she got caught in the dragnet by buying that device used without knowing of its history. At some point -- if someone can get through to a live human being at Amazon -- this should all be straightened out. This is yet another reason why everyone should be careful buying used electronics with UDIDs (see eBay and Craigslist for all the "clean ESN" mentions for used phones!).
I'd like to retain ability to send documents from my computer to my Kindle over the internet.
Using a Kindle without DRM is very possible.
If you turn off wireless, then it will never try to do any software updating.
It's a necessity, not only for ideological reasons, nor only to protect myself against such abuse from Amazon: it keeps me able to move my virtual library to another platform, should I want to.
Managing side-loaded content is quite simple with Calibre, but if you don't want to muck around too much with software, you can also just drag and drop books onto the Kindle as a mass storage device (but you would have to take care that they're in 'acceptable' formats..)
What else are you trying to do that would require custom firmware?
I have a lot of unread Kindle books (I buy a lot at once), and would now like enough of a backup in a form that I could use such that I can be sure I could at least read the books.
According to my reading of the legal case (I am not a lawyer, but it would be interesting if any of you are could comment - grellas, perhaps) regarding Amazon's remote deletion of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, the settlement involving that case appears to protect what happened in this story from happening to users in the United States.
Of course, it goes without saying that I do not agree with how things went down in this story, where a person has absolutely no recourse with Amazon, with the proverbial door completely shut in their face. However, I find it interesting that, again, according to my interpretation of the aforementioned settlement, it appears that Kindle units that are purchased and used in the United States are afforded special protections by law from what specifically happened in the story (i.e., the settlement outlines very specific cases where remote deletion can occur, but they do not appear to apply with regard to what happened in the story).
Is my reading of this correct? If so, why aren't all Kindle owners afforded this protection?
Here is the citation from the settlement [1]:
"For copies of Works purchased pursuant to TOS granting "the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy" of each purchased Work and to "view, use and display [such Works] an unlimited number of times, solely on the [Devices] . . . and solely for [the purchasers'] personal, non-commercial use," Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless
(a) the user consents to such deletion or modification;
(b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment);
(c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or
(d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device).
This paragraph does not apply to
(a) applications (whether developed or offered by Amazon or by third parties), software or other code;
(b) transient content such as blogs; or
(c) content that the publisher intends to be updated and replaced with newer content as newer content becomes available. With respect to newspaper and magazine subscriptions, nothing in this paragraph prohibits the current operational practice pursuant to which older issues are automatically deleted from the Device to make room for newer issues, absent affirmative action by the Device user to save older issues."
[1] http://assets.bizjournals.com/cms_media/pdf/KindleCase1.pdf?...
In other words, he got restitution because of articles like this one. He no longer buys kindle books.
http://aaron.kavlie.net/2011/12/web/amazon-com-just-closed-m...
My story got to the top spot on Hacker News and, thanks to the exposure there, Amazon reversed its decision. At no point did I get anything that looked like a personalized response -- just terse form emails that didn't divulge any details.
What surprises me the most about this story is that they use the same approach with the consumer end of the business. I figured that the ham-handed treatment I got was due to Amazon's lack of care for that particular piece of their business, and that any issue with buyers would be taken up with more personal attention, and provide ample opportunity for appeal. Guess I was wrong.
So yes, it works just fine without an Amazon account. Granted I bought mine without any expectation to buy ebooks, so I can imagine this being unsatisfying for people the expect to actually purchase DRM books...
I believe there are legal (non-pirate) ways to buy these, but I've really no idea how good the vendors are or how wide the catalogues are.
When everything works we all ooh and aah over how great Kindle and a thousand other things like it are. When someone tries to bring a more expensive product to market we scoff and criticize and shake our heads.
Well kids, "cheap" has its price, and the price is shitty, impersonal, bullshit customer service. Amazon has been great at customer service for many years in their physical goods-business, but to push cost down for electronic services, this is what you have to expect.
In the future things will be cheap and human interaction will be at a premium.
These are two options for who Michael Murphy is:
Now my questions:
Does her account use her home address? That seems unlikely as she is in Norway but is dealing with Amazon US. What are the rules for purchasing content when you're not resident? Could this be the problem? If so that sucks.
Secondly, it appears that she began her Kindle odyssey with a used Kindle. Could that be what links her account to a fraudulent one? A unique ID from one of her devices has been used by someone else in the past?
Accounts are accounts on Amazon and will they link a consumer account you or your developers use with an account you use for hosting business web sites on EC2?
Or, reading the blog entry, will they mistakenly link another account with your other Amazon accounts, including the one you use for EC2?...
However, I am going to take the opposition view here because I feel like people don't understand 'the beast' also known as Amazon.
Amazon optimizes on low margins, and cheap prices for goods (both physical and electronic). Amazon optimizes on the benefit to the mass majority of their customers at the expense of a small minority who do occasionally get "thrown under the bus."
I buy lots of Kindle books, but there are a few things I do to mitigate risk. First, for technical books I try to buy from publishers who have daily 30% to 50% off sales where I get PDF, a MOBI (Kindle format), and a iPub files. Secondly, I buy a physical book if I think that a book will have long term value (for example, I would read it several times during a financial meltdown when electricity is scarce, and we spend most of our time grubbing around for food - this has happened in Argentina, Russia, Iraq, etc., and it may well happen sometime in the USA). Thirdly, I buy "good deals" on the Kindle; for example, I am reading James Joyce's "Ulysses" right now and I only paid about $2 for it - a great bargain.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/forums/kindleqna/ref=...
via http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-d...
The very fact this story is this popular is because we all understand it could happen to us, think that by upvoting it, commenting on it, and sharing it, we're making a difference, but then we go right back to Amazon and purchase more things. Perpetuating the cycle.
"We would like to clarify our policy on this topic. Account status should not affect any customer's ability to access their library. If any customer has trouble accessing their content, he or she should contact customer service for help. Thank you for your interest in Kindle."
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-d...
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
Go back through the New York Time Best Seller list in 5 year increments, and see at what point you start reaching books you've never heard of and that are no longer in print.
It's pretty revealing that except for novels that are in school curriculum or transferred to another medium (book, TV) the majority of best sellers are only relevant for 15-20 years.
If you're in your late 30s or old, try to find a new copy of some favourite novels from your adolescence. Good luck.
You can try to find the Kindle/iBook version, but as this article points out "its a license to read" ... and very often, the quality of the digital conversion is very poor, especially for literature with illustrations.
DRM-free PDF is the only way for me.
It is pathetic what we have allowed corporations to do to us when we are the one's providing them the power to do it. Maybe we, as a society, have just become too lazy and complacent to worry about being trampled on?
Assuming Lynn did no wrong and this is entirely a fraud algorithm problem on Amazon's side, you would think there is a higher authority within Amazon to dispute the problem. It's a shame they they didn't offer her anything in terms of dispute resolution or fraud prevention.
I'm going to email Amazon's feedback link as chanux did, I hope the larger HN community does the same.
Amazon's service was so sweet I didn't mind the DRM, the metaphorical diabetes. It seems now is the time to open my eyes and (again) realize 'RMS is always right'. I think I will stop buying any amazon e-book at least until I hear something good regarding this issue.
It is detailed in the contract few people bother to read prior to signing!
.
> The problem? Microsoft has your operating system,
> Google has your email, eBay has your stuff, PayPal
> has your money, Amazon has your books, Facebook has
> your social life, etc.
.
The problem is YOU GAVE each of those entities information out of hand with misplaced trust.
.
> We need to push for a universal option for arbitration
Push for less inane contractual terms first. Then change the cultural ethos of wrong-tolerance.
My experience, as a Canadian, is that Amazon encourages use of amazon.ca (your local version of their site) and you have to go through some tricks to use Amazon.com.
Many of my friends did because that was the only way to get a kindle and books for years. Are they all at risk of this?
On a related note (unfortunately not an alternative to everything Amazon offers):
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/torforge-e-books-are-now-dr...
A comment from the Norwegian Government's "Consumer Council" - charged with protecting (private) consumer rights.
I've spent more than $1k on ebooks for my kindle. If Amazon did this to me they'd definitely have a lawsuit on their hands. Not because I would win in court, but because I could use it as a springboard to do millions of dollars in damage to their reputation.
They aren't her books, they aren't even books in the physical sense. They are the copyright owner's "books". All she had (and paid for) were licenses to display (in limited fashion) "books".
Linn might not like this, she should fight (infinite, broad) copyright which is the root of all this evil, not Amazon.
Some low level intern screwed up somewhere. While that hardly excuses Amazon for their exceptionally horrendous CS in this case (usually they're know for being good on that front), ask yourself:
* How many customers does Amazon have?
* How many instances of this have ever happened?
* How likely is it to happen again?
One cockup with one customer hasn't shaken my faith in Amazon's ecosystem. They're going to have to try a lot harder in order to achieve that goal.
Look at another platform like Steam. I'd say they have even more issues because they'll actually dismiss people from the service for things like card chargebacks or restrict multiplayer account-wide in case of cheating. They've had errors too. They're rare and statistically insignificant, just like in this case.
And for the love of god if you're going to downvote me, please at least bother to explain why so we can all learn something.
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-d...
I've mailed amazon to hear if this is the norm.
I don't really expect a response, but hopefully a few 1000's emails like that will at least let them give the situation more attention ?
I still read a mix of kindle stuff and paper books, but the kindle is invaluable for travelling light. This is disappointing to hear about.
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.
Unfortunately, I see no shortage for stories like this in the future.
If everything is as stated - I have no reason to doubt it - it's very disappointing.
Of course, for the ones willing to search, the truth is out there ... but the truth is copyrighted. That's what they forgot to mention in the X-Files.
Yes the Kindle is awesome, but how hard is it for a bookstore to come to your house and repossess a book?