Rant Buy real books, not DRM-laced bits

[Andy44]

[rant]

So check this out. You know the "Kindle", that portable electronic reading device that lets you buy and download lots of books without lugging hard copies around? It's becoming popular. It's a cool gadget.

Unfortunately, the DRM nazis we normally associate with the music and movie business are everywhere. Apparently Amazon accidentally sold lots of copies of some popular books to its Kindle customers, and then found out it didn't have the rights to the books.

No big deal for you, right? You paid for the book, fair and square. Amazon's problem, right? Wrong!

In the middle of the night Amazon sneakily accessed everyone's Kindles and deleted the book content, without so much as a notice to the owners!

It gets better: the books they deleted were works by George Orwell! Nice job, Amazon.

Here's the link: http://blogs.computerworld.com/think_you_own_your_kindle_books?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2009-07-20

If you really want a book, or a movie, or a music album, buy the hard copy. Don't rely on downloaded garbage. You may pay for it, but the DRM nazis say you don't own it, and they paid for the people who make the laws. With a hard copy, they have to come in your house to get it back, and first they have to know you even have it. So pay cash for the really important books.

Also, as the guy in the article pointed out, if Amazon or other DRM tools can access your data in the middle of the night, they can alter it without your consent, maybe even without your knowledge. Replace that copy of Fahrenheit 451 with a nice, watered-down, politically correct version.

[/rant]

 

[Kaito]

If I state my political views on this one, I'll get flamed/post deleted/possibly banned, so I'll go to part 2 of my response

Amazon, in my opinion, should have handled it differently. I think they should have told the people that bought the book that they (amazon) didn't have the rights to own it, so they are taking it back, but as compensation, they should send the people a hard copy. They (the people) already bought the book, so it wouldn't cost anything.

 

[Mafuskas]

I'll save my main opinion of this whole idea for another time, but I just wanted to comment on the dripping irony of them deleting an Orwell book out of all the books it could have happened to out there. :hmm:

 

[Andy44]

If I state my political views on this one, I'll get flamed/post deleted/possibly banned, so I'll go to part 2 of my response

Amazon, in my opinion, should have handled it differently. I think they should have told the people that bought the book that they (amazon) didn't have the rights to own it, so they are taking it back, but as compensation, they should send the people a hard copy. They (the people) already bought the book, so it wouldn't cost anything.

Sure, but that's not the main problem. No matter how "nice" Amazon is about it, they still set up the system so that they can control the data you have on your machine.

One of the comments mentioned how cloud computing will cause the same problem. You lose control over your data to a bunch of corporate lawyers and government thugs. Having to maintain a hard disk drive is so much more conducive to privacy and independence.

And so is owning your own paper copy of 1984.

 

[TSPenguin]

I don't like DRM.

Let me just throw some facts in:

They deleted Animal Farm and 1984.
The company that sold the book through amazons kindle store didn't own the right. Amazon itself does not hold rights.
The deletion is highly controversial, as it might be seen as destruction of the property of the buyers as per the contract they have with amazon.
A legit copy of 1984 is available in the kindle store, but no copy of Animal Farm is available.

 

[garyw]

Can't agree with TSP more. DRM has been shown to be a total shambles what with this Amazon incident and with Sony installing highly illegal software onto peoples machines a few years ago just to allow them to see content that they legally owned.

 

[Suzy]

I don't like DRM.

They deleted Animal Farm and 1984.
The company that sold the book through amazons kindle store didn't own the right. Amazon itself does not hold rights.
The deletion is highly controversial, as it might be seen as destruction of the property of the buyers as per the contract they have with amazon.
A legit copy of 1984 is available in the kindle store, but no copy of Animal Farm is available.

Curiously enough, both books are available legally online at the Australian Gutenberg site.

 

[Hielor]

Curiously enough, both books are available legally online at the Australian Gutenberg site.

Wouldn't be surprised if they aren't in the public domain in other countries (ie, the US)...

 

[Urwumpe]

Can't agree with TSP more. DRM has been shown to be a total shambles what with this Amazon incident and with Sony installing highly illegal software onto peoples machines a few years ago just to allow them to see content that they legally owned.

Which is why people call DRM digital restrictions management. It is just a weapon of the big media companies against their customers. Small companies don't use it, because the infrastructure for controlling many customers is not small at all.

The equivalent to the real world would be illegally printed books - these are also just copies of the original manuscript. Nobody would break into your house and remove such a illegally printed book. The company who sold such books would have to compensate the rights owner for each illegally sold book, as the error was on his side.

I think DRM should be declared a crime against civil code. I see that there could be in theory scenarios where DRM is a fair choice, but I have doubts that the reality is like that.

 

[GLS]

......or you can buy a copy of a book in this store near my university and then use that expense for IRS purposes....

 

[llarian]

While I agree, in general, with your collective opinions of DRM (odious as it is), some of you are ignoring an important point.

If someone does not have the right, or privilege, of selling you something, you do not have the right to buy it or continue holding it. If you purchase a motor vehicle, and the police show up at your door because the vehicle was stolen, you don't get to keep the vehicle just because you paid for it.

Copyrighted materials are the same. The seller must ensure that they have the rights to the material, or that it is in the public domain. A prudent buyer will also check in to the legitimacy of product, if possible (that's why there is this weird little concept called "caveat emptor").

If the materials that Amazon deleted where indeed public domain (and it is possible that the estate and/or heirs of George Orwell still hold legitimate copyrights ... they are renewable), then Amazon has just committed a very stupid error. If the materials are not public domain, you probably gave amazon or kindle the right to do what they did (remember clicking the "I agree" button on the licence without reading the agreement ... like all of do with every piece of software we install?).

If you don't like DRM, don't purchase products that contain it. Boycott them. If they are not making money with it, it will disappear ... or they will.

 

[Artlav]

If someone does not have the right, or privilege, of selling you something, you do not have the right to buy it or continue holding it. If you purchase a motor vehicle, and the police show up at your door because the vehicle was stolen, you don't get to keep the vehicle just because you paid for it.

There is a fundamental flaw in this example: A car is an object, something with a property of instance.

An e-book is information, something that lacks a property of instance.

A car can therefore be stolen, but a e-book cannot be.

 

[Ghostrider]

There's another angle to consider outside of the commercial implications. As an unrepentant capitalist I strongly believe that what I buy is mine, and I mean mine. Mine to use, abuse, dismantle, pervert, destroy and rebuild at my heart's content. I don't believe in paying for stuff that STILL belongs to someone else and can change the conditions of a contract AFTER it's been signed. This is enough to make me not want to touch the Kindle with a kilometer-length remote-controlled barge pole.

But we have to think also of the more worrying angle. What happens when ALL books (or the vast majority of them) are moved from dead tree storage from silicon? It happens that we give the right holders the ability to modify, delete or add content whenever they like. And this is BAD with capital B, A and D. I'd add more letters but then bad wouldn't be bad anymore, while not being necessarily better.

Apart from giving too much power to rights holders, those holders can be targeted by lawsuits from the WWMMS (Waah Waah Make Me Safe) and the PC (Politically Correct) crowd. Say goodbye to your Mark Twain. Say goodbye to any stuff that can offend anyone. You can have entire works of literature destroyed or changed beyond recognition to reflect the current "enlightened" viewpoint, thus negating the thought-provoking effect that good literature can produce.

This is worse than 1984. The history rewriters of 1984 had to work hard. The future guardians of our poor feeble minds will only have to click on a button. That's the dream of every Dolores Umbridge wannabe out there.

Don't think it can't happen. Some misguided souls believe anything that's not on teh interweb does not exist - nobody bothered to tell them someone has to put it there first.

 

[agentgonzo]

There is a fundamental flaw in this example: A car is an object, something with a property of instance.

An e-book is information, something that lacks a property of instance.

A car can therefore be stolen, but a e-book cannot be.

Also, if someone sells you a car that is stolen, they do not have the right to come around to you house and remove it from your possession - only the police have the right to do that.

I don't buy DRMed stuff unless I know I can remove the DRM (eg, DVDs with decss). I don't like the idea that someone else can decide that I can't watch/listen-to/read the stuff that I have bought and own because it's not being played on their device. Only now will I now buy stuff from iTunes as it is DRM free and will play on mpd on my linux machine. And because it is DRM free, I know I can just convert it to whatever new-fangled-audio-playing-device I get in the future, rather than being stuck with "will-only-play-on-an-apple-certified-(or-playfair)-device"

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, if someone sells you a car that is stolen, they do not have the right to come around to you house and remove it from your possession - only the police have the right to do that.

And that only after a judge said so - most modern internet laws try to do away with the justice. The German internet censorship law is planned to only let a judge control excerpts from the full list after some time, but not in advance if a content is really illegal and really requires to be censored (which is against the constitution if it is not for protecting the youth) because no other legal action exists.

I don't buy DRMed stuff unless I know I can remove the DRM (eg, DVDs with decss). I don't like the idea that someone else can decide that I can't watch/listen-to/read the stuff that I have bought and own because it's not being played on their device. Only now will I now buy stuff from iTunes as it is DRM free and will play on mpd on my linux machine. And because it is DRM free, I know I can just convert it to whatever new-fangled-audio-playing-device I get in the future, rather than being stuck with "will-only-play-on-an-apple-certified-(or-playfair)-device"

Exactly - or better: Why should I pay a lot of money for something I don't own afterwards or have any rights on it? Even if I buy cheap, I pay more for a CD as legal download than I do when I buy the CD and convert it into MP3.

 

[TSPenguin]

DRM and any other form of restricting copy are aimed at preventing illegal distribution of said product.
Completely failing to realise that it takes only one individual to break the protection and everyone else can download it without having to deal with annoyances.
All that those mechanisms do is punish honest paying customers for doing what is supposed to be right.
Games refuse to run for many obscure reasons, require you to be online at all times, even register with your personal information. Reading the licenses, you will realise that you did not purchase the product. You only purchased the possibility to use the software.
HDDVD is dead, but Blueray works nearly the same. It is entirely possible (and happened with HDDVD a few times before Blueray took off) that you put in a newly purchased disc and won't be able to play any previously purchased discs at all.

Whilest you have the right to make personal copies without limitations, it became illegal a few years ago to circumvent any encryption (aka DRM) and even own software that could do so.

Now I have to hurry before the license to my steak runs out and it is remotely deactivated. I just hope moving it from the pan to the plate won't make me register it again...

 

[Ghostrider]

Whilest you have the right to make personal copies without limitations, it became illegal a few years ago to circumvent any encryption (aka DRM) and even own software that could do so.

And what's worse, there are people suggesting that it be made illegal to own any tool that *could* be used to circumvent any copy protection and even to *discuss* them.

 

[Artlav]

And what's worse, there are people suggesting that it be made illegal to own any tool that *could* be used to circumvent any copy protection and even to *discuss* them.

Sounds quite interesting, considering that any computer is such a tool.
We can't own computers then?
If so, there is nothing legal in existence to reproduce DRM'ed content with, since you need some kind of computer to process digital data.

Nice legal paradox.

 

[mbartley]

Which is why people call DRM digital restrictions management.

The way I always heard it is that DRM "manages" rights in exactly the same way that jail "manages" freedom.

How appropriate that this happened to "1984".

 

[Andy44]

Also, if someone sells you a car that is stolen, they do not have the right to come around to you house and remove it from your possession - only the police have the right to do that.

No, even the police don't have the right to do that. They have only authority, and only if they have a warrant signed by a judge.

Amazon is neither a cop, nor did it ask a judge for a warrant to invade your property.