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I wish they would add ebook DRM to the list. Amazon has essentially locked the Kindle so that it can only purchase from Amazon and Amazon ebooks can only be use
by criddell 3y ago
I wish they would add ebook DRM to the list. Amazon has essentially locked the Kindle so that it can only purchase from Amazon and Amazon ebooks can only be used on the Kindle. On top of that, they offer no way of transferring ebooks and, AFAIK, offer no way to remove DRM after a work enters the public domain.
- taeric 3y agoI don't know, as I never had access to that data, but I would be shocked to find that is not demanded by their agreements with the publishers. Akin to why there is no library that will give you non-DRM items. Is almost certainly part of a strategy by the publishers to bolster other marketplaces they find more favorable.
- 542458 3y agoIsn’t Amazon also the publisher for a nontrivial number of ebooks on Amazon?
- taeric 3y agoThe ones folks are buying? Not really. :D Publishers still do a good job signing on authors. Audio books, I think, are very different. Audible was far more active in building up a market and voice talent than the competition for a long time. That said, I am not aware of any actual anti-competitive practices that they do there. The examples that some high profile folks have used feel very weak. Prices are lower for customers than they have ever been, and profits for the talent are almost certainly up due to increased sales volume. Their percentage profit per sale is down, but the history could also be that keeping that percentage high would not have grown the market? Such that, they could not have gotten the larger pie without the smaller slice. But, now that the pie is big, they want the bigger slice.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoAn agreement is constructed by two parties, not one.
- taeric 3y agoFeels like a non-sequitur? What are you trying to say? My specific point is that I would wager money that Amazon being required to have DRM on their devices is required by publishers for them to be able to have that publisher's offerings. If Amazon drops the DRM, they lose the ability to offer that content. I'm not as confident that they have the agreement include that they will not offer authors a way to have DRM free content on the platform, but I would not be surprised by it.
- criddell 3y agoDRM doesn't have to be proprietary. I should be able to buy books from any place and read them on any reader.
- taeric 3y agoI mean... not wrong. But useful? Does this happen with any technology? Is it being blocked by practices from Amazon? Still feels like a non-sequitur.
- criddell 3y agoDVDs could be purchased and played on any player. Most of the non-Amazon ebook world uses Adobe DRM.
- taeric 3y agoAs someone that was into DVDs from other regions, this comment is laughably wrong. Edit: Heck, just playing movies on my computer DVD drives was less than straight forward. For the longest time you basically had to feel like a hacker to get it working on a linux machine.
- criddell 3y agoIt wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the current situation with ebooks. You could go into an electronics retailer and choose one of a dozen DVD players then drive across town to video store and buy or rent any DVD and the chances that the two things would work together was very high.
- charcircuit 3y agoIf you buy a PS5 game you can only play it on the PS5 and they don't remove DRM after the came goes into public domain.
- j_maffe 3y agoPS5 doesn't have a monopoly over the console market, Amazon does.
- taeric 3y agoSony almost certainly has more marketshare of the console market than Amazon does of anything. The numbers that came out for sales of XBox were... sobering for how badly Microsoft is throwing cash to stay in the game.
- dartos 3y agoSo with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo: Sony has about 50% market share and Microsoft and Nintendo have about 25. That’s a very different (I’d argue healthier) world than online retailers where Amazon has like 36% but the next largest (Walmart) is like 6%. You need to weigh the market share against the number of players in the space. Also that’s not to mention how all 3 major game console players have some kind of moat or walled garden (exclusives.) Most online retailers are basically interchangeable, but Amazon is still the single largest player by far at 36%
- taeric 3y agoNote that I don't mean one to be a defense of the other. It can be argued well that both markets are unhealthy. :D To your numbers, though, I'm not sure I see the argument? I'd be very surprised if that 25 is evenly split between Nintendo and Microsoft. And where is Valve in that? Playing into your argument, is Walmart really only 6%? Of all sales that happen period, how is the online/offline split? From my perspective, folks love to hate tech companies. You'll see silly headlines about 1 in 169 people work for Amazon. You don't often see similar headlines for Walmart, which has twice the associates, if I recall...
- my123 3y ago(disclaimer: Amazon employee) For that one, it's mandated by publishers. There's nothing that can be done for e-readers from vendors that don't support third-party applications. Amazon e-books are accessible on Android and other platforms in addition to Kindle devices. Kindle is also not locked to only ebooks from Amazon, but third-party DRM schemes are not supported. Calibre for example comes with good tooling for that use case.
- criddell 3y ago> For that one, it's mandated by publishers. I believe the publishers want DRM. I'm not sure they want DRM that effectively locks in their readers to the Amazon ecosystem. I don't believe publishers would be upset if I could directly purchase books from Apple, Google, Kobo, or any other similar vendor directly on the Kindle. Is the audiobook market different? I know Cory Doctorow for one would like to sell his audio books through Audible but they require DRM. Care to defend that?
- my123 3y ago> but they require DRM There's no option to sell on Kindle's own store with DRM disabled indeed. edit: A poster has a link saying otherwise. Will ask what's up on the Audible side then.
- delecti 3y agoSure there is. From here https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0879H8NNB https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0879H8NNB > At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. (Specific title as just a convenient example from that publisher)
- emodendroket 3y agoNothing prevents you from buying from a different seller and reading the materials on your Kindle, other than the fact those other sellers have their own DRM locking you into their ecosystem instead.
- 3y ago
- circuit10 3y agoYou can at least copy files onto it if you already have non-DRMed ones
- jpk2f2 3y agoYou can easily use ebooks from anywhere on the Kindle. However, agreed on the DRM. Blindsided me when I tried to open some comics I had purchased on my computer (to read them in color). Luckily others have already made tools to remove that DRM...
- bigbillheck 3y agoDoes calibre not work on new kindles?
- criddell 3y agoI assume you are talking about the DeDRM tools? If so, the answer to your question is that it doesn’t work as well as it used to. The era of easily strippable DRM is ending. Amazon’s latest file format KFX hasn’t been entirely cracked and it’s possible it won’t ever be entirely cracked. The best anybody can do so far is to buy an older Kindle and download it to that in order to get a crackable version. The problem with that is you lose all of the typography improvements only available in KFX.
- boyesm 3y agoAdding a new book to a kindle is as simple as sending an email with a PDF attachment.
- emodendroket 3y agoThe Kindle has support for side loading books so I’m not sure how it’s locked to only reading Amazon purchases.
- pcchristie 3y agoIs this new? I specifically went for Kobo years ago because my research told me that Kindle didn't have that capability, and Kobo did. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough.
- emodendroket 3y agoNo, even the very first model could be mounted as a USB drive and you could add files that way. It doesn’t natively support epubs — that might be what you’re thinking of — but converting them into mobi or azw format is pretty trivial anyway.
- danielmarkbruce 3y ago"on the kindle". They have a web based kindle app. They have apps for android, iphone, pc, mac and probably 10 other things I'm unaware of.