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Yet strangely, the word "buy" is used in the Kindle store. Seems like straight up commercial fraud.

rpigab 4y ago
Related : "Games as a service is fraud" by Ross Scott https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bhdkvo/comment/elsch29 https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bhdkvo/comment/el...
MonkeyClub 4y ago
Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right. As OP said, > I'm never buying e-books again. I do something similar. If the book is worth it, I buy it in material form. If it’s not worth the bookshelf clutter it’ll cause, I just skip it. But then again, most of my books aren’t on digital subjects, for that I usually rely on specs and articles, as tech is moving too quickly to be worth being nailed down on paper.
- LudwigNagasena 4y ago
  > Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right. Yeah, just like someone can "buy" an empty iPhone box on eBay for $800.
  - dspillett 4y ago
    Those listings are usually honest. Misleading, yes, but nowhere in them does it state you are buying anything other than a box. The even more misleading ones, helped by the product name, are selling x-box boxes. I'd argue that the “buy now” when viewing a Kindle edition listing, or Audible edition, is noticeably less honest, especially as you are usually at most on click away from the dead-tree editions where buy actually does mean buy. I'd have that iphone box that I'd legally bought for as long as I choose to own it, the seller can not revoke access to it arbitrarily like Amazon can, will, and sometimes has (1984 being the most famous and somewhat ironic example) with ebooks and audiobooks.
    - puffoflogic 4y ago
      PSA that audible encryption can be stripped very easily with ffmpeg (`-activation_bytes`; for archival and interop purposes, naturally), and it's faster and easier to crack your personal encryption key than to figure out how to request it from audible servers.
      - dspillett 4y ago
        Though obviously you have to do that _before_ access is revoked. As easy as that may be, the shiver-me-timbers route might be even easier. (I use audible, if they want me to go pirate instead they know what to do!)
- eldaisfish 4y ago
  What you describe is a lease. Leasing or renting specifically grants you the right to use something for a period of time without a transfer of ownership. If Amazon are leasing you a book, labelling the button "Buy" is fraud. The problem here is that trade laws were not written for digital-only items so Amazon and their ilk get away with this fraud.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    > Leasing or renting specifically grants you the right to use something for a period of time without a transfer of ownership. What's the stated time period here? 1 year? 5 years? It is an indeterminate amount of time. It is not a lease.
    - xigoi 4y ago
      The period of time is “until they decide they don't want to lease you the book anymore”.
      - vel0city 4y ago
        FWIW in the above 1984 example it is because lots of people were publishing it when they had no rights to. I do agree that speaks volumes on Amazon not properly policing their platform and that they mishandled it. They should have instead properly credited people access to the properly licensed version.
    - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
      So, it's even less rights than a lease because you could lose it at any time, you aren't even guaranteed to keep it the full term of a lease.
      - vel0city 4y ago
        Yeah, that's absolutely one way to look at it. It could be less, it could be more. However, I still have access to movies I "bought" well over a decade ago on Amazon Unbox, meanwhile every movie I've "rented" on the service I no longer have access to. I'd say their record overall points to the license offering potentially more value over the short term defined rentals, if you're planning on watching the content again. Amazon isn't hiding any of this, there's a link to this that's close to the "Buy" button on their site and they mention you're agreeing to it when you check out. It is pretty easy to read and comprehend, it is not exactly fine print. https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=content-only https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=c...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  Especially on Amazon, I don't think this holds muster when "buying" on Kindle is listed directly next to other options which are genuinely purchasing a book with nothing to differentiate that the Kindle one is not actually a purchase of a book.
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  > Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right. By that definition of "buy" renters are home owners.
  - bumby 4y ago
    >renters are home owners. No, they are lease buyers. The lease (like the e-book purchase) is a right to use for a period of time. It's not equivalent to ownership. (That's not to say I don't think the practice by Amazon is bad)
f1shy 4y ago
I wonder if somebody will file a class action... if it didn't happened yet, is maybe because some obscure corner of the law is on their side... But seems strange that it is legal.
- cogman10 4y ago
  The issue in the US is harm has to be done first and the compensation is based on the harm done. You are only harmed when amazon loses rights to media you purchased and that harm is easily measured in terms of the monetary value of the thing they took from you (which, they'll likely refund if you start talking to lawyers because it's not worth it to them.) What we need is to get corporations out of politics.
  - garbagecoder 4y ago
    "In the US." Not in California. Google B&P 17200.
    - cogman10 4y ago
      Perhaps I'm missing something [1] I don't read anywhere in here where an unaffected individual can raise a case and collect money. Rather, this sets up how the government can enforce the law at various levels. That's pretty standard stuff everywhere (that's why every state has a department of justice). The government can police, but me, and average citizen, can't raise a case against amazon. Class action lawsuits are civil lawsuits. You can't raise a civil lawsuit if you aren't harmed. [1] https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/bpc/17200-17210.html https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/bpc/17200-17210...
patrec 4y ago
Incomprehensible to me that not a single country's courts put a stop to this. By now this “straight up commercial fraud” has become established industry practice and the corrupted meaning of “buy” (for “lease”) looks set to not only stay with us but gradually replace the old meaning in all walks of life as increasingly everything becomes “smart” (as the oft-quoted Ubik line goes: '“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”'). I wonder both how far away we once were from some less dystopian alternative timeline and what the chances of escaping our current apparent trajectory are.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  It is worth noting that when I buy a physical book, I am not acquiring ownership of the text. I do not have the right to do with the text what I please (e.g. make copies & distribute). The same goes for music. The same goes for software. What the format (digital+DRM vs. physical) makes possible is more fine grained control by the owner (or their proxy) of the work.
  - patrec 4y ago
    You seem to imply that technological advances have made new forms of contractual agreements about property possible that are not covered well by existing concepts such as "buy" and "lease" and that therefore to extend the meaning of "buy" to cover app store or kindle purchases is reasonable rather than fraudulent. What an app store or kindle "purchase" provides you with is exactly a lease. You gain a temporary right to utilize a resource (such as a particular physical or digital copy of a work) subject to various restrictions. By contrast property rights always imply the ability to transfer (via sale, inheritance or gift or voluntary abandonment) as well as to in fact not transfer. Both of which are fundamentally lost here. You can't sell your kindle ebooks, pass them on to your children or even keep them if Amazon decides otherwise (as in the case of 1984). And there is absolutely no technical or economic reason you can't inherit or sell a DRM protected work.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > You seem to imply that technological advances have made new forms of contractual agreements about property possible that are not covered well by existing concepts such as “buy” and “lease” and that therefore to extend the meaning of “buy” to cover app store or kindle purchases is reasonable rather than fraudulent. Nope, licenses as a form of intangible personal property long predate the “modern technological advances” being discussed (or, say, the existence of the US, for example), and the meaning of the word “buy” already encompasses buying licenses, which may have a variety of terms, including termination conditions. It’s just that you seem to be trying to falsely generalize the specialized meaning of “buy” that applies when the object of the purchase is an item of tangible personal property to things which are not tangible personal property.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Yet strangely, the word “buy” is used in the Kindle store. You can buy a license with specific terms, including termination conditions. This…long predates digital anything.

Related : "Games as a service is fraud" by Ross Scott https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bhdkvo/comment/elsch29 https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bhdkvo/comment/el...

MonkeyClub 4y ago

Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right. As OP said, > I'm never buying e-books again. I do something similar. If the book is worth it, I buy it in material form. If it’s not worth the bookshelf clutter it’ll cause, I just skip it. But then again, most of my books aren’t on digital subjects, for that I usually rely on specs and articles, as tech is moving too quickly to be worth being nailed down on paper.

LudwigNagasena 4y ago
> Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right. Yeah, just like someone can "buy" an empty iPhone box on eBay for $800.
- dspillett 4y ago
  Those listings are usually honest. Misleading, yes, but nowhere in them does it state you are buying anything other than a box. The even more misleading ones, helped by the product name, are selling x-box boxes. I'd argue that the “buy now” when viewing a Kindle edition listing, or Audible edition, is noticeably less honest, especially as you are usually at most on click away from the dead-tree editions where buy actually does mean buy. I'd have that iphone box that I'd legally bought for as long as I choose to own it, the seller can not revoke access to it arbitrarily like Amazon can, will, and sometimes has (1984 being the most famous and somewhat ironic example) with ebooks and audiobooks.
  - puffoflogic 4y ago
    PSA that audible encryption can be stripped very easily with ffmpeg (`-activation_bytes`; for archival and interop purposes, naturally), and it's faster and easier to crack your personal encryption key than to figure out how to request it from audible servers.
    - dspillett 4y ago
      Though obviously you have to do that _before_ access is revoked. As easy as that may be, the shiver-me-timbers route might be even easier. (I use audible, if they want me to go pirate instead they know what to do!)
eldaisfish 4y ago
What you describe is a lease. Leasing or renting specifically grants you the right to use something for a period of time without a transfer of ownership. If Amazon are leasing you a book, labelling the button "Buy" is fraud. The problem here is that trade laws were not written for digital-only items so Amazon and their ilk get away with this fraud.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > Leasing or renting specifically grants you the right to use something for a period of time without a transfer of ownership. What's the stated time period here? 1 year? 5 years? It is an indeterminate amount of time. It is not a lease.
  - xigoi 4y ago
    The period of time is “until they decide they don't want to lease you the book anymore”.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      FWIW in the above 1984 example it is because lots of people were publishing it when they had no rights to. I do agree that speaks volumes on Amazon not properly policing their platform and that they mishandled it. They should have instead properly credited people access to the properly licensed version.
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    So, it's even less rights than a lease because you could lose it at any time, you aren't even guaranteed to keep it the full term of a lease.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      Yeah, that's absolutely one way to look at it. It could be less, it could be more. However, I still have access to movies I "bought" well over a decade ago on Amazon Unbox, meanwhile every movie I've "rented" on the service I no longer have access to. I'd say their record overall points to the license offering potentially more value over the short term defined rentals, if you're planning on watching the content again. Amazon isn't hiding any of this, there's a link to this that's close to the "Buy" button on their site and they mention you're agreeing to it when you check out. It is pretty easy to read and comprehend, it is not exactly fine print. https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=content-only https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=c...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ryanbrunner 4y ago
Especially on Amazon, I don't think this holds muster when "buying" on Kindle is listed directly next to other options which are genuinely purchasing a book with nothing to differentiate that the Kindle one is not actually a purchase of a book.
_Algernon_ 4y ago
> Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right. By that definition of "buy" renters are home owners.
- bumby 4y ago
  >renters are home owners. No, they are lease buyers. The lease (like the e-book purchase) is a right to use for a period of time. It's not equivalent to ownership. (That's not to say I don't think the practice by Amazon is bad)

f1shy 4y ago

I wonder if somebody will file a class action... if it didn't happened yet, is maybe because some obscure corner of the law is on their side... But seems strange that it is legal.

cogman10 4y ago
The issue in the US is harm has to be done first and the compensation is based on the harm done. You are only harmed when amazon loses rights to media you purchased and that harm is easily measured in terms of the monetary value of the thing they took from you (which, they'll likely refund if you start talking to lawyers because it's not worth it to them.) What we need is to get corporations out of politics.
- garbagecoder 4y ago
  "In the US." Not in California. Google B&P 17200.
  - cogman10 4y ago
    Perhaps I'm missing something [1] I don't read anywhere in here where an unaffected individual can raise a case and collect money. Rather, this sets up how the government can enforce the law at various levels. That's pretty standard stuff everywhere (that's why every state has a department of justice). The government can police, but me, and average citizen, can't raise a case against amazon. Class action lawsuits are civil lawsuits. You can't raise a civil lawsuit if you aren't harmed. [1] https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/bpc/17200-17210.html https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/bpc/17200-17210...

patrec 4y ago

Incomprehensible to me that not a single country's courts put a stop to this. By now this “straight up commercial fraud” has become established industry practice and the corrupted meaning of “buy” (for “lease”) looks set to not only stay with us but gradually replace the old meaning in all walks of life as increasingly everything becomes “smart” (as the oft-quoted Ubik line goes: '“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”'). I wonder both how far away we once were from some less dystopian alternative timeline and what the chances of escaping our current apparent trajectory are.

andsoitis 4y ago
It is worth noting that when I buy a physical book, I am not acquiring ownership of the text. I do not have the right to do with the text what I please (e.g. make copies & distribute). The same goes for music. The same goes for software. What the format (digital+DRM vs. physical) makes possible is more fine grained control by the owner (or their proxy) of the work.
- patrec 4y ago
  You seem to imply that technological advances have made new forms of contractual agreements about property possible that are not covered well by existing concepts such as "buy" and "lease" and that therefore to extend the meaning of "buy" to cover app store or kindle purchases is reasonable rather than fraudulent. What an app store or kindle "purchase" provides you with is exactly a lease. You gain a temporary right to utilize a resource (such as a particular physical or digital copy of a work) subject to various restrictions. By contrast property rights always imply the ability to transfer (via sale, inheritance or gift or voluntary abandonment) as well as to in fact not transfer. Both of which are fundamentally lost here. You can't sell your kindle ebooks, pass them on to your children or even keep them if Amazon decides otherwise (as in the case of 1984). And there is absolutely no technical or economic reason you can't inherit or sell a DRM protected work.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > You seem to imply that technological advances have made new forms of contractual agreements about property possible that are not covered well by existing concepts such as “buy” and “lease” and that therefore to extend the meaning of “buy” to cover app store or kindle purchases is reasonable rather than fraudulent. Nope, licenses as a form of intangible personal property long predate the “modern technological advances” being discussed (or, say, the existence of the US, for example), and the meaning of the word “buy” already encompasses buying licenses, which may have a variety of terms, including termination conditions. It’s just that you seem to be trying to falsely generalize the specialized meaning of “buy” that applies when the object of the purchase is an item of tangible personal property to things which are not tangible personal property.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Yet strangely, the word “buy” is used in the Kindle store. You can buy a license with specific terms, including termination conditions. This…long predates digital anything.