Rant Buy real books, not DRM-laced bits

[Hielor]

By purchasing software, music, books, or movies which have DRMs, you are agreeing to the license agreement. It doesn't matter whether it's just bits and bytes that can't be stolen, you agreed to the terms of use.

One of those terms of use is that they can do whatever they want.

If you don't like those terms, don't buy it.

If you buy it and then they act on their terms, you have no right to complain.

---------- Post added at 01:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:56 PM ----------

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

They did not invade your property.

 

[Andy44]

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.

Oh, don't worry, the lawyers and politicians are working on that.

In the future, you won't own your computer, you'll only own the license to use it. And you'll have to store your data in the "cloud", which will make it much easier for government spies to read all your personal info, trawl your data to see what you've been up to, and delete any data that they think doesn't belong, while triggering an arrest warrant for you.

And everything Ghostrider said is also a threat, unless you buy and store the most important paper books for safe keeping, at least until this madness passes in a generation or three.

 

[Urwumpe]

They did not invade your property.

That is wrong. I don't know how things are in other countries, but even if you rent something, your privacy rights apply to it.

If you rent a flat, the owner of the flat has no right to walk into his flat without asking you here.

 

[Andy44]

They did not invade your property.

Who owns the hardware?

 

[Hielor]

That is wrong. I don't know how things are in other countries, but even if you rent something, your privacy rights apply to it.

If you rent a flat, the owner of the flat has no right to walk into his flat without asking you here.

The agreement that you entered into with Amazon (and agreed to) upon purchasing the book allows them to do it, so no, it's not wrong.

If you sign a rental agreement for a flat which states that the owner has the right to enter at will, then yes the owner has that right.

 

[Urwumpe]

The agreement that you entered into with Amazon (and agreed to) upon purchasing the book allows them to do it, so no, it's not wrong.

If you sign a rental agreement for a flat which states that the owner has the right to enter at will, then yes the owner has that right.

Actually not. Such phrases in a renting contract are illegal here and don't apply if they exist. You also have such rulings in other forms of business contracts, for example when a gas provider has the right to raise the prices when the market prices rise, but no obligation to lower it again.

 

[Hielor]

Who owns the hardware?

Doesn't matter. From the Kindle Terms of Use:

Changes to Service. Amazon reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service at any time, and Amazon will not be liable to you should it exercise such right.

By using the Kindle, people agreed to these terms of use.

I'm not saying it's morally correct or the best course of action, but they acted within their legal rights which you gave them by agreeing to their terms of use.

---------- Post added at 02:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:07 PM ----------

Actually not. Such phrases in a renting contract are illegal here and don't apply if they exist. You also have such rulings in other forms of business contracts, for example when a gas provider has the right to raise the prices when the market prices rise, but no obligation to lower it again.

With the Kindle, it's not a rental agreement, it's a license agreement.

You pay them money, they grant you a license to use the stuff. If they decide that the license is no longer valid, they can do whatever they want, because you gave them permission to do whatever they want.

 

[Linguofreak]

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.

But if the thief sold it to a fence, and you bought it from the fence, and when the original owner comes looking for it, the fence walks up to your house in the middle of the night and takes the car back with a copy of the key that he kept, that's bad. If he made you agree to him keeping a copy of the key before he'd sell you the car, that's even worse. The police coming to your door and demanding the return of stolen property is one thing. The thief or the fence coming to your door and demanding return of stolen property (or flat out stealing it back or destroying it), is another.

Not to mention the fact that copyright infringement and theft are *not* the same thing. There are legal and practical differences between the two. I'm not sure that the copyright holder does have the right (at least ethically, I'm not sure what the law says) to demand destruction of illicit copies, though it certainly *does* have the right to demand payment for the copies from the copier.

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?).

I actually try to read the license agreement, but for any given product there's generally enough legalese and doublespeak (not to mention sheer size) in there that I'm never quite sure if I've missed some really awful clause. Fortunately for me, I haven't bought a Kindle. But that is one of the great things about the Open Source industry: They tend to use short, understandable licenses which are shared between a large number of projects: If I see a product is licensed under the GPL, I know exactly what I'm dealing with, something I can never be sure of with Microsoft even if I've read the exact same license five times before.

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.

Exactly what's being advocated here. Boycott it. I have software on my computer to detect and remove rootkits, so why should I buy a product that comes with a rootkit pre-installed, and has a license agreement mandating that I accept that rootkit? Even if the customer doesn't have the right to continue to possess the book, Amazon has no right to make a unilateral connection to the customer's hardware and perform actions without consent, notification, or compensation upon the customer's data. All they can do is ask the customer to delete any offending material, and even then, they should refund the customer's money, since if they didn't have the right to make a sale, they don't have the right to continue to possess the customer's money.

---------- Post added at 06:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:29 PM ----------

With the Kindle, it's not a rental agreement, it's a license agreement.

There are still limits to what you can legally put into a license agreement. And in any case, Urwumpe was talking about German law, not US law. I'm not sure if an agreement that legitimizes Amazon's rootkit is legal under US law. If it is, it shouldn't be.

And whether or not such an agreement is legal, I'm not going to sign any such agreement.

 

[Hielor]

But if the thief sold it to a fence, and you bought it from the fence, and when the original owner comes looking for it, the fence walks up to your house in the middle of the night and takes the car back with a copy of the key that he kept, that's bad. If he made you agree to him keeping a copy of the key before he'd sell you the car, that's even worse. The police coming to your door and demanding the return of stolen property is one thing. The thief or the fence coming to your door and demanding return of stolen property (or flat out stealing it back or destroying it), is another.

Not to mention the fact that copyright infringement and theft are *not* the same thing. There are legal and practical differences between the two. I'm not sure that the copyright holder does have the right (at least ethically, I'm not sure what the law says) to demand destruction of illicit copies, though it certainly *does* have the right to demand payment for the copies from the copier.

Exactly--theft and copyright infringement are not the same thing. Nor are physical books and electronic copies. This is not the same as someone walking into your house and taking a car you bought.

I actually try to read the license agreement, but for any given product there's generally enough legalese and doublespeak (not to mention sheer size) in there that I'm never quite sure if I've missed some really awful clause. Fortunately for me, I haven't bought a Kindle. But that is one of the great things about the Open Source industry: They tend to use short, understandable licenses which are shared between a large number of projects: If I see a product is licensed under the GPL, I know exactly what I'm dealing with, something I can never be sure of with Microsoft even if I've read the exact same license five times before.

Wait what? Microsoft? Where did that come from? This is Amazon, not Microsoft...

Exactly what's being advocated here. Boycott it. I have software on my computer to detect and remove rootkits, so why should I buy a product that comes with a rootkit pre-installed, and has a license agreement mandating that I accept that rootkit? Even if the customer doesn't have the right to continue to possess the book, Amazon has no right to make a unilateral connection to the customer's hardware and perform actions without consent, notification, or compensation upon the customer's data. All they can do is ask the customer to delete any offending material, and even then, they should refund the customer's money, since if they didn't have the right to make a sale, they don't have the right to continue to possess the customer's money.

No, they do have the right to access the hardware and delete content, and users GAVE THEM THAT RIGHT when they accepted the license agreement. And refunds were given--many people affected first noticed the issue when they received an e-mail about having received a refund.

---------- Post added at 04:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 PM ----------

There are still limits to what you can legally put into a license agreement. And in any case, Urwumpe was talking about German law, not US law. I'm not sure if an agreement that legitimizes Amazon's rootkit is legal under US law. If it is, it shouldn't be.

And whether or not such an agreement is legal, I'm not going to sign any such agreement.

How is this a rootkit? The customer agreed to buy the Kindle, with all of Amazon's software installed, and agreed to allow Amazon to do whatever they wanted with the software on it. The Kindle is a special-use device which is only usable through Amazon, not on its own.

That's a far cry from a company installing a rootkit on a machine which you use for other things as well.

Somehow I doubt that these agreements are actually illegal, considering how widely used they are and the fact that no one has ever so much as started a lawsuit regarding it, much less succeeded with one...

 

[Linguofreak]

Somehow I doubt that these agreements are actually illegal, considering how widely used they are and the fact that no one has ever so much as started a lawsuit regarding it, much less succeeded with one...

As I said, if they're not, they should be, and I will never buy anything with such a licensing agreement.

 

[tblaxland]

Somehow I doubt that these agreements are actually illegal, considering how widely used they are and the fact that no one has ever so much as started a lawsuit regarding it, much less succeeded with one...

I would not be so sure. I am no expert on DRM but you would be surprised how many such non-legally-enforceable statements I see put into something as common as building contracts. It is often about a game of intimidation/bullying. Picture this scenario: A builder and his sub-contractor are having a dispute over some issue, it gets heated and the builder whips out the contract and says "but look it is in your contract to do such-and-such and you have not done it". The poor sub-contractor, having little legal knowledge, bows to the pressure of the builder and performs whatever service he is being strong-armed into. The point of this story is that contracts, and contract enforcement, usually come down to personal relationships between the people at the coal face, whose job is not lawyer-ing. In such cases, the person who has the perceived stronger position wins the dispute, not the person who is legally correct. If lawyers get involved, such contract clauses may be invalidated but most people consider it less pain to roll over and let the big guy have his way than to hire a lawyer and fight him. We have laws saying such clauses are not legally enforceable precisely because they are so prevalent.

 

[Hielor]

I would not be so sure. I am no expert on DRM but you would be surprised how many such non-legally-enforceable statements I see put into something as common as building contracts. It is often about a game of intimidation/bullying. Picture this scenario: A builder and his sub-contractor are having a dispute over some issue, it gets heated and the builder whips out the contract and says "but look it is in your contract to do such-and-such and you have not done it". The poor sub-contractor, having little legal knowledge, bows to the pressure of the builder and performs whatever service he is being strong-armed into. The point of this story is that contracts, and contract enforcement, usually come down to personal relationships between the people at the coal face, whose job is not lawyer-ing. In such cases, the person who has the perceived stronger position wins the dispute, not the person who is legally correct. If lawyers get involved, such contract clauses may be invalidated but most people consider it less pain to roll over and let the big guy have his way than to hire a lawyer and fight him. We have laws saying such clauses are not legally enforceable precisely because they are so prevalent.

Large companies such as Amazon have their own lawyers who write these. IANAL, but I'd be willing to bet that they write the things carefully.

 

[Andy44]

If you don't like DRM, don't purchase products that contain it.

Please read the title of this thread.

 

[tblaxland]

Large companies such as Amazon have their own lawyers who write these. IANAL, but I'd be willing to bet that they write the things carefully.

IANAL either, and IDK how they do things in your country, but here companies take advice from lawyers on the content of contracts. Such advice need not be, and is not always, heeded by the parties signing the contract. Such clauses can be thrown in there with the thought "well it might protect us in such-and-such hypothetical scenario". There is typically no disincentive to do so because such clauses will typically not invalidate a whole contract, just the relevant clauses may be un-enforcable.

 

[Hielor]

Please read the title of this thread.

And I agree with you there -- this is a ridiculous thing for Amazon to have done and has generated a whole lot of negative publicity for them. I was previously considering getting a Kindle but certainly won't do so now.

All I'm saying is really that people who don't read the license agreements they agree to are really not in a position to be complaining that an action they agreed to allow the company to do happened.

 

[tblaxland]

Reading this article, my opinion would be that Amazon's actions were not legal (if in Australia). The clause allowing termination of service would not imply that Amazon has the right to delete the copy on the user's device. The issue of Amazon or the publisher not having the license to sell the content would also likely be a problem under the Trade Practices Act. As for the deletion of associated notes and annotations, that may also be a problem under the Privacy Act.

BTW, has anyone reviewed the Orbiter-Forum Terms of Service lately:

9. ORBITER-FORUM.COM reserves...the right to change the terms, conditions, and notices under which this Web site is offered.

 

[Andy44]

I was previously considering getting a Kindle but certainly won't do so now.

I'm in the same boat. I like the idea of a digital book reader, but if I don't own both the hardware and the data on it, I won't pay for it.

It's like paying somebody to paint your living room, but the contract says they can come into your living room in the middle of the night and secretly paint it a different color anytime they want.

 

[Viper1]

Bottom line is NO procedure was followed

Fourth Ammendment, clearly states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The "Digital Nazis" will do anything they can to circumvent your rights. Don't support them, don't listen to them, keep your freedom.

I rest my case!

 

[Andy44]

Fourth Ammendment, clearly states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The "Digital Nazis" will do anything they can to circumvent your rights. Don't support them, don't listen to them, keep your freedom.

I rest my case!

If you invite someone to come into your house to rifle through your personal effects, by signing an agreement with Amazon, the 4th Amm. is not applicable. Hielor is correct as far as that goes.

Some contract law forbids that sort of agreement, which is what those arguing with Hielor are getting at, but such law apparently doesn't yet exist in the case of Kindle-type devices, and in any case such laws are restrictions against your right to make agreements as well as Amazon's.

Your second paragraph is correct. Buy real books!

Even better, if you have the know-how and can get enough capital, start your own digital book service and make an agreement that is more respectful of people's privacy. Sell them devices that cannot be remotely controlled by you or anyone else. And agree to suck up the cost when you screw up and violate a copyright, instead of yanking the sold item out of your customers' hands.

 

[tblaxland]

Some contract law forbids that sort of agreement, which is what those arguing with Hielor are getting at

I didn't think we had elevated it to such levels yet. More of an informative discussion, IMHO. In any case, I am ill-placed to advise Heilor or anyone else on law in the US. I am just trying to provide an Australia perspective on the case.

in any case such laws are restrictions against your right to make agreements as well as Amazon's.

That is an interesting perspective. Do you not agree that if some action is illegal then a contract clause requiring or permitting such an action should not be enforceable?

Your second paragraph is correct. Buy real books!

They smell nicer anyway.