4 ms·

An agreement is constructed by two parties, not one.

taeric 3y ago
Feels 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 ago
  DRM doesn't have to be proprietary. I should be able to buy books from any place and read them on any reader.
  - taeric 3y ago
    I 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 ago
      DVDs could be purchased and played on any player. Most of the non-Amazon ebook world uses Adobe DRM.
      - taeric 3y ago
        As 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 ago
        It 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.
        taeric 3y ago
        No real disagreement from me, on that general point. Things were certainly more convenient in some older formats. I'm not clear on the relevance to this particular story. For one, ebook practices are literally not part of this case. For two, the assertion in this branch is that that exists at the demands of publishers.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  If Amazon refused to enter that agreement, would the publisher simply refuse to sell ebooks on Amazon? I sincerely doubt that. If Amazon was actually motivated to refuse DRM, then we would be in an entirely different situation. The reality is that the opposite is true, and that Amazon itself is one of the publishers requiring DRM!
  - taeric 3y ago
    You do know there was an antitrust against the publishers and Apple where they did collude and force changes to the agreement onto Amazon, right? This isn't even hypothetical. Literally happened. Amazon absolutely cannot live without publishers right now.
    - thomastjeffery 3y ago
      But can publishers live without Amazon? My point is that that question was never asked: practically all of the publishers that sell on Amazon's marketplace - including Amazon Publishing - agree that they want DRM incorporated into Amazon's digital marketplace platform.
      - taeric 3y ago
        Almost certainly they would be fine, given some time. Is why they were willing to strong arm Amazon into changing terms on how they sell ebooks. And you seem to be dodging my point? My assertion/wager/whatever is that the publishers actively want it so that Amazon has to have DRM on their devices and sales. Just as they want it on libraries lending. Do I /know/ this? No. That is why I worded it as something that would shock me. I agree that my willingness to wager on this would go down as I extend it to my larger guess, that they also have terms covering things that Amazon publishes. That said, it lowers my willingness, but it does not seem beyond the pale.

Feels 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 ago
DRM doesn't have to be proprietary. I should be able to buy books from any place and read them on any reader.
- taeric 3y ago
  I 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 ago
    DVDs could be purchased and played on any player. Most of the non-Amazon ebook world uses Adobe DRM.
    - taeric 3y ago
      As 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 ago
        It 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.
        taeric 3y ago
        No real disagreement from me, on that general point. Things were certainly more convenient in some older formats. I'm not clear on the relevance to this particular story. For one, ebook practices are literally not part of this case. For two, the assertion in this branch is that that exists at the demands of publishers.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
If Amazon refused to enter that agreement, would the publisher simply refuse to sell ebooks on Amazon? I sincerely doubt that. If Amazon was actually motivated to refuse DRM, then we would be in an entirely different situation. The reality is that the opposite is true, and that Amazon itself is one of the publishers requiring DRM!
- taeric 3y ago
  You do know there was an antitrust against the publishers and Apple where they did collude and force changes to the agreement onto Amazon, right? This isn't even hypothetical. Literally happened. Amazon absolutely cannot live without publishers right now.
  - thomastjeffery 3y ago
    But can publishers live without Amazon? My point is that that question was never asked: practically all of the publishers that sell on Amazon's marketplace - including Amazon Publishing - agree that they want DRM incorporated into Amazon's digital marketplace platform.
    - taeric 3y ago
      Almost certainly they would be fine, given some time. Is why they were willing to strong arm Amazon into changing terms on how they sell ebooks. And you seem to be dodging my point? My assertion/wager/whatever is that the publishers actively want it so that Amazon has to have DRM on their devices and sales. Just as they want it on libraries lending. Do I /know/ this? No. That is why I worded it as something that would shock me. I agree that my willingness to wager on this would go down as I extend it to my larger guess, that they also have terms covering things that Amazon publishes. That said, it lowers my willingness, but it does not seem beyond the pale.