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> Amazon can remotely delete the e-book using a back door. It used this back door in 2009 to delete thousands of copies of George Orwell's 1984. Tell the whole

> Amazon can remotely delete the e-book using a back door. It used this back door in 2009 to delete thousands of copies of George Orwell's 1984. Tell the whole story, guys. Framing it just this way is dishonest.

jordigh 11y ago
Do the other details matter? That Amazon had to recall the book and refunded customers? Not to me. They simply could not have "recalled" all books if they had been physically sold. They are holding a loaded weapon pointing at our e-books. The circumstances that make them fire it are not as important as the bizarre fact that they have this loaded weapon in the first place.
- Delmania 11y ago
  Yes, the details matter. The FSF is once again using aggrandizing to present their case. Amazon did not go in without cause and revoke the book. There was a specific reason they did so, and they did refund the customers' money. There was no back door in to the Kindle, it was all done through the account management services. The way the FSF is presenting it is intentionally done to make Amazon appear malicious, when the reality is it what a mistake on their part and they corrected it. This is typical of Stallman and his organization. They have good points, but the presentation of them is over the top to the point where people just stop caring.
  - boomlinde 11y ago
    How is it over the top? Is any of what they say false? That Amazon are able to remove a book from your reader is exactly the kind of contrast to physical books that the list intended to point out, regardless of their reason for doing so or the fact that they refunded their customers. The effect of these differences is that less power is in the hands of consumers, regardless of what positive effects it might have had otherwise or how they mitigated it.
    - fixermark 11y ago
      I think "regardless regardless of what positive effects it might have had otherwise" is generally the foil in accepting the full FSF position on political topics. When one's philosophy is that the Four Freedoms strictly trump any convenience in any context, you're missing out on the collective benefits that make the current transition to shared, administered, cloud-based technologies so powerful for the users that adopt them. Users are willing to accept a massive spike in convenience and utility for the drastically-less-than-1% chance that Amazon kills their favorite book from their device, without their consent, with a refund. That's not evil; it's the nature of progress (along the same lines as accepting that you might have to pay taxes---in essence, give up your own hard-earned possessions to a collective over which you have minimal power to decree how those possessions will be used---to live in a place where you don't have to arm yourself against bandits or maintain your own roads, etc.). Hell, if you don't like the way Amazon is administering its chunk of the cloud, it's a lot easier to leave Amazon than to leave a country.
      - Karunamon 11y ago
        The probabilistic chance that Amazon will do something untoward with your purchased content is completely irrelevant. The fact that they have that ability in the first place is. That is not a thing that they should have the ability to do. Full stop, end of story.
        fixermark 11y ago
        Why not? It's a business-necessity to offer the catalog they offer.
      - jordigh 11y ago
        > Users are willing to accept a massive spike in convenience and utility for the drastically-less-than-1% They're usually not willing, just feel helpless and like they don't have a choice. They don't know they have a choice. They are also frequently unaware of what Amazon can do: https://www.epic.org/privacy/survey/ https://www.epic.org/privacy/survey/
- fixermark 11y ago
  That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that building the loaded weapon was a prerequisite for their capacity to offer the world's largest library of commercially-viable ebook content, and without that "bizarre fact," the content simply wouldn't be available to anyone electronically because of the legal wrangling necessary to get it into publicly-accessible electronic format.
  - jordigh 11y ago
    These manacles are always sold to the public as "for your own" or "for your own protection" as if they were an inevitable fait accompli of how things should proceed. Very Machiavellian, very gangsterish. We have evidence of these libraries growing without these restrictions, so we know it's simply a lie that we need these restrictions. The ends do not justify these means.
    - fixermark 11y ago
      They grow faster with the restrictions. Digital music was doable, but wasn't easy until Apple did the business work necessary to make the iTunes Music Store possible. eBook access to the latest publications on day-of publication across fiction and nonfiction was functionally a non-starter until Amazon did the business work necessary to make the Kindle Store possible. Their competition who didn't want to play by the rules of the restrictions the content owners wanted were plowed under by the volume and convenience generated by successful business partnerships. It's inconvenient for those who prefer a world without business-driven constraints that the processes that create those constraints also create massive convenience. But they do, and the world is full of potential customers who want that convenience. Because the alternative of a marketplace where they can pay someone (and play by that someone's terms of service) to do the work for them is to learn to do that work themselves, and that's not what people want to specialize in.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
jeremysmyth 11y ago
Adding more details (the book's publisher did not have rights to sell that edition; customers were refunded) does not change the key message being communicated: Amazon removed books that had been purchased in good faith from Kindles without the purchasers' involvement or consent. That's something Amazon could do (and still can) that would not be possible to do with paper books or ebooks that were not purchased through Kindles or other devices that are not directly connected to the Internet. Not without some sort of massive intrusive recall effort anyway. Having said that, this article is quite straw-manny. I've an ebook reader that I cannot connect to the Internet, and I use it daily. For books that I purchase, I still need to do so electronically, and that usually requires identification (through PayPal or credit card). I have no problems with ebooks in general, though; not every ebook format or reader grants the same access to the vendor, and it's not that difficult to vote with your feet.
- jordigh 11y ago
  > I've an ebook reader that I cannot connect to the Internet, and I use it daily. I don't think you're "fairly typical" in this regard, nor is most of the HN user base. Most people are doing what Amazon publishes as "most convenient", which is internet-enabled e-readers with all of Amazon's restrictions.
  - jeremysmyth 11y ago
    Very true. The same is also true in other situations where the dominant player creates a "walled garden"[1] over which they have complete control, as with Apple (although in that regard, I expect much of the HN user base is happy to be subjected to the joys of that particular walled garden). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform
    - masklinn 11y ago
      > The same is also true in other situations where the dominant player creates a "walled garden"[1] over which they have complete control, as with Apple It's somewhat unclear what you mean, especially with apple having added sideloading support in Xcode 7/iOS9.

jordigh 11y ago

Do the other details matter? That Amazon had to recall the book and refunded customers? Not to me. They simply could not have "recalled" all books if they had been physically sold. They are holding a loaded weapon pointing at our e-books. The circumstances that make them fire it are not as important as the bizarre fact that they have this loaded weapon in the first place.

Delmania 11y ago
Yes, the details matter. The FSF is once again using aggrandizing to present their case. Amazon did not go in without cause and revoke the book. There was a specific reason they did so, and they did refund the customers' money. There was no back door in to the Kindle, it was all done through the account management services. The way the FSF is presenting it is intentionally done to make Amazon appear malicious, when the reality is it what a mistake on their part and they corrected it. This is typical of Stallman and his organization. They have good points, but the presentation of them is over the top to the point where people just stop caring.
- boomlinde 11y ago
  How is it over the top? Is any of what they say false? That Amazon are able to remove a book from your reader is exactly the kind of contrast to physical books that the list intended to point out, regardless of their reason for doing so or the fact that they refunded their customers. The effect of these differences is that less power is in the hands of consumers, regardless of what positive effects it might have had otherwise or how they mitigated it.
  - fixermark 11y ago
    I think "regardless regardless of what positive effects it might have had otherwise" is generally the foil in accepting the full FSF position on political topics. When one's philosophy is that the Four Freedoms strictly trump any convenience in any context, you're missing out on the collective benefits that make the current transition to shared, administered, cloud-based technologies so powerful for the users that adopt them. Users are willing to accept a massive spike in convenience and utility for the drastically-less-than-1% chance that Amazon kills their favorite book from their device, without their consent, with a refund. That's not evil; it's the nature of progress (along the same lines as accepting that you might have to pay taxes---in essence, give up your own hard-earned possessions to a collective over which you have minimal power to decree how those possessions will be used---to live in a place where you don't have to arm yourself against bandits or maintain your own roads, etc.). Hell, if you don't like the way Amazon is administering its chunk of the cloud, it's a lot easier to leave Amazon than to leave a country.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      The probabilistic chance that Amazon will do something untoward with your purchased content is completely irrelevant. The fact that they have that ability in the first place is. That is not a thing that they should have the ability to do. Full stop, end of story.
      - fixermark 11y ago
        Why not? It's a business-necessity to offer the catalog they offer.
    - jordigh 11y ago
      > Users are willing to accept a massive spike in convenience and utility for the drastically-less-than-1% They're usually not willing, just feel helpless and like they don't have a choice. They don't know they have a choice. They are also frequently unaware of what Amazon can do: https://www.epic.org/privacy/survey/ https://www.epic.org/privacy/survey/
fixermark 11y ago
That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that building the loaded weapon was a prerequisite for their capacity to offer the world's largest library of commercially-viable ebook content, and without that "bizarre fact," the content simply wouldn't be available to anyone electronically because of the legal wrangling necessary to get it into publicly-accessible electronic format.
- jordigh 11y ago
  These manacles are always sold to the public as "for your own" or "for your own protection" as if they were an inevitable fait accompli of how things should proceed. Very Machiavellian, very gangsterish. We have evidence of these libraries growing without these restrictions, so we know it's simply a lie that we need these restrictions. The ends do not justify these means.
  - fixermark 11y ago
    They grow faster with the restrictions. Digital music was doable, but wasn't easy until Apple did the business work necessary to make the iTunes Music Store possible. eBook access to the latest publications on day-of publication across fiction and nonfiction was functionally a non-starter until Amazon did the business work necessary to make the Kindle Store possible. Their competition who didn't want to play by the rules of the restrictions the content owners wanted were plowed under by the volume and convenience generated by successful business partnerships. It's inconvenient for those who prefer a world without business-driven constraints that the processes that create those constraints also create massive convenience. But they do, and the world is full of potential customers who want that convenience. Because the alternative of a marketplace where they can pay someone (and play by that someone's terms of service) to do the work for them is to learn to do that work themselves, and that's not what people want to specialize in.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

jeremysmyth 11y ago

Adding more details (the book's publisher did not have rights to sell that edition; customers were refunded) does not change the key message being communicated: Amazon removed books that had been purchased in good faith from Kindles without the purchasers' involvement or consent. That's something Amazon could do (and still can) that would not be possible to do with paper books or ebooks that were not purchased through Kindles or other devices that are not directly connected to the Internet. Not without some sort of massive intrusive recall effort anyway. Having said that, this article is quite straw-manny. I've an ebook reader that I cannot connect to the Internet, and I use it daily. For books that I purchase, I still need to do so electronically, and that usually requires identification (through PayPal or credit card). I have no problems with ebooks in general, though; not every ebook format or reader grants the same access to the vendor, and it's not that difficult to vote with your feet.

jordigh 11y ago
> I've an ebook reader that I cannot connect to the Internet, and I use it daily. I don't think you're "fairly typical" in this regard, nor is most of the HN user base. Most people are doing what Amazon publishes as "most convenient", which is internet-enabled e-readers with all of Amazon's restrictions.
- jeremysmyth 11y ago
  Very true. The same is also true in other situations where the dominant player creates a "walled garden"[1] over which they have complete control, as with Apple (although in that regard, I expect much of the HN user base is happy to be subjected to the joys of that particular walled garden). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > The same is also true in other situations where the dominant player creates a "walled garden"[1] over which they have complete control, as with Apple It's somewhat unclear what you mean, especially with apple having added sideloading support in Xcode 7/iOS9.