5 ms·

Honestly? I'm okay with this business model. I know it's not a popular opinion here - but as there's no reasonable way to prevent people from unrestrictedly di

Honestly? I'm okay with this business model. I know it's not a popular opinion here - but as there's no reasonable way to prevent people from unrestrictedly distributing copies, the business model of licensing books sounds reasonable to me. What's not reasonable is the lack of transparency when you're suspected of abuse. I understand that there are many bad actors, but these companies are judge, jury and executioner when it comes to handling what they think are abuse cases - and honest people who get caught in the crossfire have no recourse. Regulation needs to be put in place saying that if you paid a company any significant sum for services, you have the right to contest any claims of abuse and must be provided with all reasoning they have on that abuse within 24 hours. And you have a right to take them to court without needing to show damages when they're being unreasonable.

londons_explore 6y ago
I'd also be fine with the T&C's saying "For any reason, we can terminate the services we provide to you, and we will refund any money's paid with interest". That way, the company can decide to keep the evidence to themselves and not need to go to court, but must forgo all revenue from your account.
- evgen 6y ago
  If you break the rules of the contract what makes you think you get your money back? If you want a refund you should be required to prove that the company was the one that violated the agreement.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Prove to whom? The arbitration judge?
  - buran77 6y ago
    The problem in countries with expensive litigation is that it raises the bar for what a person would be willing to fight for. If I'll end up spending $10000 whether I win or lose I'll think twice before I litigate for a few hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of ebooks. It also incentivizes companies to do it for as long as they know they'll get away with it. You're pitting a company with billions to spend on this stuff and all the incentive to keep doing it against a regular consumer with none of the resources or determination. This is where regulation comes in and it should always favor the consumer by default. It's why countries have consumer protection agencies but no company protection agencies.
    - chrononaut 6y ago
      > If I'll end up spending $10000 whether I win or lose I'll think twice before I litigate for a few hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of ebooks. Wouldn't a possible avenue here [in the US] be small claims court? Or could costs still rise to that level under that situation?
      - pnutjam 6y ago
        You would forfeit anything in excess of the small claims limit, probably around $5k. Also costs around $100 to file and you're looking at at a day or two of time away from work.
  - 0x_rs 6y ago
    "Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit" The company refusing to provide a service and shutting your account down should be the one to prove an eventual violation of an agreement. Too often we are witnessing content and/or service providers refuse to acknowledge the cause of an account being blocked - most of the times I've read about because of false positives in automatic detection systems and the likes. There should be at the very least a middle ground, such as being able to access content already paid for and only that.
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      "Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit" Means "The claimant is always bound to prove: the burden of proof lies on him." For anyone who can't read latin (and doesn't want to have to google a latin phrase in an english conversation).
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    The contract such as "we may block your account for uploading any content against our guidelines. We may rule content to be against our guidelines for any reason and at our sole discrecion."
- andybak 6y ago
  Some variation on this sounds like a good compromise. Both parties need to have some skin in the game but currently that's not true. At the moment terminating an account is a fast and nearly cost-free solution to many thorny account policing issues and therefore a great option for customer service drones. It's only the occasional "I managed to raise a storm on Twitter so the CEO noticed" that has any cost to the company and thus any chance of getting a resolution.
- nindalf 6y ago
  I’ve bought 100 books on Kindle. You’re saying I could do something that would cause Amazon to decide to break the contract, and I’d get a refund of all 100 books with interest? Seems like a sweet deal to me, since I’m not reading the old books very often.
  - justinclift 6y ago
    While true, for other people they'd use the money to repurchase those same books elsewhere. Or perhaps the printed version of them.
  - Drakim 6y ago
    Amazon could take you to court instead for breaking the contract. What he suggested was that it would be up to Amazon.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      The comment says "do something that would cause Amazon to break the contract", not "break the contract myself".
- underdeserver 6y ago
  All money and interest is not enough. If sign a contract that you will provide me a service and you back out of it midway, I'm usually worse off than if you had declined the engagement in advance. For example, if I contract you to build me a house, it takes six months, and three months in you decide to back out and pay me back with interest, I still have half a house I need to demolish or else I have to find someone who would continue your work (which I likely won't find), and I'm out 3 months' rent. I would expect additional compensation.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    This doesn't transfer well into this example though. You could argue that if you lose a library of 100+ books you also lose information on what those books even where, but a better solution for that would be to just demand some machine-generated list of what you had so you can buy them again somewhere else.
    - underdeserver 6y ago
      There's other lost value. What if a book is out of print or out of publishing? What if you had comments? What if you had bookmarks? What if you brought your Kindle on a two-month-long hiking trip to South America and they don't sell them over there?
  - learnstats2 6y ago
    I'm doubtful that you would get additional compensation in your hypothetical example. You're not worse off if you didn't spend anything and you are half-way towards your goal of having a house.
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      "You're not worse off if you didn't spend anything and you are half-way towards your goal of having a house. " Contractors hate taking over someone elses' half-done work, as they now have to deal with someone else's shortcuts without knowing what they are.
    - 6y ago
- pyuser583 6y ago
  What about the notes that you add to the books? For students they can mean failing a course.
kelnos 6y ago
I'd also like to see requirements that companies aren't allowed to use terms like "own" or "buy" when referring to their content. They should have to use a term like "license" or even "borrow" to drive home that you're not paying for unfettered ownership. I get what you're saying about preventing copying being impossible without DRM, but I think you overestimate the prevalence of unauthorized copying, at least when the convenience and cost of purchasing a legal copy is reasonable enough. DRM has other bad societal effects, like locking up works beyond their copyright expiration, and causing people to lose access to those works if the company goes out of business (for DRM systems that require periodic license refreshes). DRM also generally disallows all legal copying under fair use terms. I think the only way that I'd be even remotely comfortable with DRM is if companies using it were required to place their DRM keys in escrow; if the company ever decides to stop offering the service, or simply goes out of business, those keys should be released to the public. And companies should be required to remove DRM from works when its copyright expires. Even with all that, though, I'd still find DRM undesirable.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  "I think the only way that I'd be even remotely comfortable with DRM is if companies using it were required to place their DRM keys in escrow;" Even then, who verifies that the correct keys are uploaded? And for that matter, what counts as "going out of business"? Maybe they'll stop providing service and say "a patch is just around the corner" and then simply never release (or work on) the patch?
  - imtringued 6y ago
    It's also possible that a company sells their DRM keys during liquidation to someone who is not interesting in actually providing access to the work e.g. a competitor who wants everyone to move to their platform. It wouldn't surprise me if something absurd happens like Epic buys GOG and then forces you to buy the same games on Epic store again.
    - IX-103 6y ago
      I think that would be the point of putting the keys in escrow. Think of escrow as a kind of property limbo where there is no owner, just a responsible party for following a contract regarding the transfer of ownership. The company doesn't own the keys, so it can't sell them. The user doesn't get the keys until the contract is fulfilled. I'd expect losing access to the game or not being able to make be installs of the game (in a reasonable time frame) would be in the contract as sufficient conditions to give ownership to affected users.
martyvis 6y ago
Publishers like O'Reilly explicitly don't put DRM on ebooks you buy from them. They also have a subscription library model in parallel. I use both these methods for books from them and I understood the difference. Somehow O'Reilly remains one of the premium and presumably profitable tech book publishers
- callahad 6y ago
  Which is a shame, because O'Reilly stopped selling ebooks more than three years ago: https://www.oreilly.com/content/the-mission-of-spreading-the-knowledge-of-innovators-continues/ https://www.oreilly.com/content/the-mission-of-spreading-the...
chx 6y ago
A watermark is just about as effective to deter the casual user from distributing their books nilly-willy. I have DRM free ebooks which contain something like "Thanks X Y for buying this book" and so it's blatanly obvious who it belongs to. Now, you could remove it but you could also remove DRM.
swiley 6y ago
> there's no reasonable way to prevent people from unrestrictedly distributing copies Why is that a hard requirement though? Also, DRM really doesn't prevent that. I got through my last couple years of college on books from libgen.

londons_explore 6y ago

I'd also be fine with the T&C's saying "For any reason, we can terminate the services we provide to you, and we will refund any money's paid with interest". That way, the company can decide to keep the evidence to themselves and not need to go to court, but must forgo all revenue from your account.

evgen 6y ago
If you break the rules of the contract what makes you think you get your money back? If you want a refund you should be required to prove that the company was the one that violated the agreement.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Prove to whom? The arbitration judge?
- buran77 6y ago
  The problem in countries with expensive litigation is that it raises the bar for what a person would be willing to fight for. If I'll end up spending $10000 whether I win or lose I'll think twice before I litigate for a few hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of ebooks. It also incentivizes companies to do it for as long as they know they'll get away with it. You're pitting a company with billions to spend on this stuff and all the incentive to keep doing it against a regular consumer with none of the resources or determination. This is where regulation comes in and it should always favor the consumer by default. It's why countries have consumer protection agencies but no company protection agencies.
  - chrononaut 6y ago
    > If I'll end up spending $10000 whether I win or lose I'll think twice before I litigate for a few hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of ebooks. Wouldn't a possible avenue here [in the US] be small claims court? Or could costs still rise to that level under that situation?
    - pnutjam 6y ago
      You would forfeit anything in excess of the small claims limit, probably around $5k. Also costs around $100 to file and you're looking at at a day or two of time away from work.
- 0x_rs 6y ago
  "Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit" The company refusing to provide a service and shutting your account down should be the one to prove an eventual violation of an agreement. Too often we are witnessing content and/or service providers refuse to acknowledge the cause of an account being blocked - most of the times I've read about because of false positives in automatic detection systems and the likes. There should be at the very least a middle ground, such as being able to access content already paid for and only that.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    "Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit" Means "The claimant is always bound to prove: the burden of proof lies on him." For anyone who can't read latin (and doesn't want to have to google a latin phrase in an english conversation).
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  The contract such as "we may block your account for uploading any content against our guidelines. We may rule content to be against our guidelines for any reason and at our sole discrecion."
andybak 6y ago
Some variation on this sounds like a good compromise. Both parties need to have some skin in the game but currently that's not true. At the moment terminating an account is a fast and nearly cost-free solution to many thorny account policing issues and therefore a great option for customer service drones. It's only the occasional "I managed to raise a storm on Twitter so the CEO noticed" that has any cost to the company and thus any chance of getting a resolution.
nindalf 6y ago
I’ve bought 100 books on Kindle. You’re saying I could do something that would cause Amazon to decide to break the contract, and I’d get a refund of all 100 books with interest? Seems like a sweet deal to me, since I’m not reading the old books very often.
- justinclift 6y ago
  While true, for other people they'd use the money to repurchase those same books elsewhere. Or perhaps the printed version of them.
- Drakim 6y ago
  Amazon could take you to court instead for breaking the contract. What he suggested was that it would be up to Amazon.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    The comment says "do something that would cause Amazon to break the contract", not "break the contract myself".
underdeserver 6y ago
All money and interest is not enough. If sign a contract that you will provide me a service and you back out of it midway, I'm usually worse off than if you had declined the engagement in advance. For example, if I contract you to build me a house, it takes six months, and three months in you decide to back out and pay me back with interest, I still have half a house I need to demolish or else I have to find someone who would continue your work (which I likely won't find), and I'm out 3 months' rent. I would expect additional compensation.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
  This doesn't transfer well into this example though. You could argue that if you lose a library of 100+ books you also lose information on what those books even where, but a better solution for that would be to just demand some machine-generated list of what you had so you can buy them again somewhere else.
  - underdeserver 6y ago
    There's other lost value. What if a book is out of print or out of publishing? What if you had comments? What if you had bookmarks? What if you brought your Kindle on a two-month-long hiking trip to South America and they don't sell them over there?
- learnstats2 6y ago
  I'm doubtful that you would get additional compensation in your hypothetical example. You're not worse off if you didn't spend anything and you are half-way towards your goal of having a house.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    "You're not worse off if you didn't spend anything and you are half-way towards your goal of having a house. " Contractors hate taking over someone elses' half-done work, as they now have to deal with someone else's shortcuts without knowing what they are.
  - 6y ago
pyuser583 6y ago
What about the notes that you add to the books? For students they can mean failing a course.

kelnos 6y ago

I'd also like to see requirements that companies aren't allowed to use terms like "own" or "buy" when referring to their content. They should have to use a term like "license" or even "borrow" to drive home that you're not paying for unfettered ownership. I get what you're saying about preventing copying being impossible without DRM, but I think you overestimate the prevalence of unauthorized copying, at least when the convenience and cost of purchasing a legal copy is reasonable enough. DRM has other bad societal effects, like locking up works beyond their copyright expiration, and causing people to lose access to those works if the company goes out of business (for DRM systems that require periodic license refreshes). DRM also generally disallows all legal copying under fair use terms. I think the only way that I'd be even remotely comfortable with DRM is if companies using it were required to place their DRM keys in escrow; if the company ever decides to stop offering the service, or simply goes out of business, those keys should be released to the public. And companies should be required to remove DRM from works when its copyright expires. Even with all that, though, I'd still find DRM undesirable.

Qwertious 6y ago
"I think the only way that I'd be even remotely comfortable with DRM is if companies using it were required to place their DRM keys in escrow;" Even then, who verifies that the correct keys are uploaded? And for that matter, what counts as "going out of business"? Maybe they'll stop providing service and say "a patch is just around the corner" and then simply never release (or work on) the patch?
- imtringued 6y ago
  It's also possible that a company sells their DRM keys during liquidation to someone who is not interesting in actually providing access to the work e.g. a competitor who wants everyone to move to their platform. It wouldn't surprise me if something absurd happens like Epic buys GOG and then forces you to buy the same games on Epic store again.
  - IX-103 6y ago
    I think that would be the point of putting the keys in escrow. Think of escrow as a kind of property limbo where there is no owner, just a responsible party for following a contract regarding the transfer of ownership. The company doesn't own the keys, so it can't sell them. The user doesn't get the keys until the contract is fulfilled. I'd expect losing access to the game or not being able to make be installs of the game (in a reasonable time frame) would be in the contract as sufficient conditions to give ownership to affected users.

martyvis 6y ago

Publishers like O'Reilly explicitly don't put DRM on ebooks you buy from them. They also have a subscription library model in parallel. I use both these methods for books from them and I understood the difference. Somehow O'Reilly remains one of the premium and presumably profitable tech book publishers

callahad 6y ago
Which is a shame, because O'Reilly stopped selling ebooks more than three years ago: https://www.oreilly.com/content/the-mission-of-spreading-the-knowledge-of-innovators-continues/ https://www.oreilly.com/content/the-mission-of-spreading-the...

chx 6y ago

A watermark is just about as effective to deter the casual user from distributing their books nilly-willy. I have DRM free ebooks which contain something like "Thanks X Y for buying this book" and so it's blatanly obvious who it belongs to. Now, you could remove it but you could also remove DRM.

swiley 6y ago

> there's no reasonable way to prevent people from unrestrictedly distributing copies Why is that a hard requirement though? Also, DRM really doesn't prevent that. I got through my last couple years of college on books from libgen.