You don't own your Kindle books, Amazon reminds customer

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/gadgets/you-dont-own-your-kindle-books-amazon-reminds-customer-f1C6626211

by geekam • 12 years ago

16 20 12 years ago

shmerl6• 12 years ago

Sure. Don't buy e-books from DRM afflicted distributors. There were enough stories that anyone should learn that lesson by now. And that applies to everything, not just e-books.

By buying from them you only help proliferating that sickness.

marcus_holmes2• 12 years ago

yes I do. I rip them off the device as soon as they download and store a copy on my PC.

shmerl6• 12 years ago

That might help preserving the backup, but that contributes to the bigger problem (since you are supporting those who proliferate DRM). Voting with your wallet and avoiding distributors who insult users with this unethical garbage is a better approach.

betterunix3• 12 years ago

Yeah but then you are forced to make a choice: avoid authors who fail to provide non-restricted books, or download books illegally.

anigbrowl• 12 years ago

This story is from October 2012. It's not very obvious from the NBC website, but if you follow the link to BoingBoing it is. I seem to remember there had been some change/improvement in Amazon's TOS over this issue sometime in the last 18 months, though I don't recall when exactly so I might be wrong.

I understand old stuff getting posted because many websites recycle non-current stories automatically as 'you might also like...' linkbait, but it is worth checking the date of something before you post.

userbinator• 12 years ago

That reminds me of this which happened a few years ago: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/18/amazon_removes_1984_...

betterunix3• 12 years ago

I have to wonder if the authors who demanded DRM from Amazon have figured out that this is the kind of behavior that drives people to download books illegally, or if they still fail to see the connection.

shmerl6• 12 years ago

Probably most of the time it's not demanded by authors, but by legacy publishers. They have some distortion in their mind, which was already compared to Lysenkoism:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blog...

betterunix3• 12 years ago

Perhaps, but then I am left wondering about newly written books -- why are the authors continuing to endorse DRM? Why are the authors continuing to do business with the publishers who demand it?

Turing_Machine• 12 years ago

It definitely isn't authors, at least not conventionally-published ones.

TradPub authors have essentially zero input in the marketing and distribution of the book (they usually don't even get any input on the cover design).

Amazon's publishing portal lets the publisher add DRM or not -- it's a checkbox. So, yeah, the blame for DRM (or praise for non-DRM) should accrue to the publisher, not the author (unless it's an indie author) or Amazon.

coin• 12 years ago

-1 for nbcnews disabling pinchzoom on mobile devices, and rendering text on only the left 5/8 of the screen.

merryandrew2• 12 years ago

From the terms, here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

kzrdude• 12 years ago

Take that thing to the Consumer Protection Ombudsman in Norway

jrockway• 12 years ago

Seems like it was bought in the UK, from Amazon.co.uk, so what relevance would Norway have? They're not even in the EU.

(If I import some random device from China, I don't complain to the FTC when it doesn't work.)

You don't own your Kindle books, Amazon reminds customer

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