7 ms·

The fact that Amazon can do this is obviously scary, particularly for those with extensive Kindle libraries. Personally I love the idea of ebooks but the publis

by cletus 14y ago

The fact that Amazon can do this is obviously scary, particularly for those with extensive Kindle libraries. Personally I love the idea of ebooks but the publishers are doing their best to kill this market (eg Surface Detail in paperback is $6, as an ebook its $10 WTF?). Now I can't speak to the truth of these claims. I have no inside knowledge but I will say this: be skeptical of such stories. I have seen other stories like this on HN where I have had some inside knowledge and I can tell you that there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies. It's a common theme to have a post of "[BigCo] shut down my account for no reason". I describe such stories as "unverifiable stories in which the poster is a victim". Like I said, this could all be exactly as the poster claims but it might not be as well. It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US. Who knows? Amazon needs to be extremely careful to be right in situations like this or they risk undermining the ecosystem they've spent so long to create. I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase. But when it comes to technical books--books I'll often refer back to and that can cost much more--I'll have to make sure I either only buy the PDF version or I buy the PDF+mobi+epub upgrade from the publisher after buying the Kindle book (2 thumbs up to publishers who do this BTW).

pnathan 14y ago
Well, I figure when I get home, I'll rsync the kindle over to a local directory. :-)
- mayneack 14y ago
  Get rid of the DRM first. They'd be useless without an amazon account otherwise.
- jb55 14y ago
  I do this, but not with rsync. I put PDFs and books that I want to read into my Dropbox during the day. When I get home I bidirectionally sync to my kindle dx with Unison (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/). I wouldn't trust my books with Amazon, ever.
maratd 14y ago
> be skeptical of such stories Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point. Microsoft, Google, eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Facebook, etc. handle millions of accounts. They have automated filters that trigger based on specified criteria that kill your account. Their default response when this happens? Talk to legal. Well, more like write to legal. They don't want to talk to you. The problem? Microsoft has your operating system, Google has your email, eBay has your stuff, PayPal has your money, Amazon has your books, Facebook has your social life, etc. And they can yank all of that away. They don't even press any button. It's triggered automatically by criteria they never disclose beyond a vague TOS. We need to push for a universal option for arbitration by a 3rd party regarding these sorts of unilateral actions. If anything, it will probably reduce the support and legal costs for all of these companies.
- jobu 14y ago
  Arbitration sounds like a really good idea, but the problem is those arbitration systems are typically paid for by industry, run by industry appointees, and they don't have any incentive to see issues from a consumer point-of-view. I think the solution for books will come from lawsuits and consumer backlash - the same as it did for music. There are still many problems with the Music industry (and RIAA), but they really are leading the curve for the other content industries. Right now you can purchase DRM-free music for relatively cheap from a number of sources. (Apple, Google, Amazon, as well as many independent publishers and artists)
- shocks 14y ago
  Facebook most certainly does not have my social life. D:
- edanm 14y ago
  "Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point." Most? That is a pretty serious statement, and I really doubt you can back it up. I don't have statistics on this and don't know where to look for them, but I would guess that the numbers of HN'ers that have had an account closed by a BigCo is actually much less than 1%, never mind more than 50%. Am I grossly underestimating here? Keep in mind that these stories tend to be very popular, so there could definitely be a lot more of these stories around than is statistically correct. P.s. As for one of cletus' point above, I've also noticed a few of these kinds of points eventually bring out more details which tend not to confirm the events, as told in the original posts. Nothing specific to this case of course, I've just caught myself a few times thinking "hmmm, looks like it wasn't such a crystal-clear case of the company being wrong".
tinco 14y ago
You make it sound like releasing an ebook is somehow cheaper than releasing a paperback. I think in many cases this does not hold true. As long as ebooks represent a minority of all book sales producing paperbacks will be cheaper to produce than ebooks, just by law of mass production.
- kbutler 14y ago
  giggle Mass production has no beneficial effect when the incremental cost of each unit is indistinguishable from zero.
  - talaketu 14y ago
    Volume drives the incremental cost towards marginal cost.
    - chris_wot 14y ago
      Yes, it might approach zero, but it never gets there. There aren't infinite trees to turn into infinite numbers of books.
- varikin 14y ago
  I don't understand how ebooks can cost more than a mass production paper book. If you are familiar with the industry of producing paper and ebooks for books that are best sellers then I would really love hear about the cost difference in producing both.
  - talaketu 14y ago
    I have no idea about this.. but I can speculate that maintaining the DRM system indefinitely after the initial sale represents an ongoing cost whose net present value needs to be considered in contrast with a DRM-free book.
    - tjoff 14y ago
tjoff 14y ago
Is there any conceivable scenario where this is in any way excusable? Deny continued service? Sure (though hardly in the way that is portrayed in the post, you must be able to know why and contest it). Remotely brick hardware and deletion of user data? Never, ever, ever. No - don't even think about thinking about it. NO.
- protomyth 14y ago
  The only thing I can think of would be something wrong with the credit card (fake, chargeback each book), but that would be a new account thing. For a legitimate purchase, I can think of nothing.
ianstormtaylor 14y ago
"It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US." And?! That would be a horrible reason for deleting all of a user's purchased items. More reason for these types of posts to exist. The situation itself doesn't really matter, but bringing attention to the possible dangers of DRM is important. The fact that we don't own these DRMed items is incredibly scary. "there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies." Okay.. but without data this is just a vague anecdote. If all you're trying to say is "be careful", well alright. But honestly I don't care. The story itself isn't that important in these cases as long as people are thinking about what the possible dangers of DRM are. And they are really big dangers. These types of posts are the only action an individual can take when pitted against a big company.
abhaga 14y ago
Here is a story from the other side. My wife writes and publishes business book summaries. She submitted about ten of those to be published on Kindle. Amazon happily published some of them in US market but decided that the content was "public domain" is other regions. Now I would have understood if they would have said "copyright violation" but "public domain"? Our email correspondence with them was very similar to the one reported in the original post. They will repeat the original mail 2-3 times and will walk away after that leaving you with no answers.
tripzilch 14y ago
> I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase. Hmmm, just because a $6 paperback may seem like a throwaway price to you doesn't mean they are single-use products. That's consumerism gone crazy. I have to admit, I too have a real hard time keeping a cheap paperback presentable after its 2nd or 3rd read (or in subsequent reads, readable, for that matter). I don't know how people do it, so I just make a point to warn my friends about this habit whenever they let me lend one of theirs (and they invariably say "oh I like it when a book looks like it's been read."--sure thing, that'll be no problem!). Still, that doesn't mean I see them as throwaways, rather I see them as fragile, and IMO the ebook form should lessen this attribute when possible, instead of mimicking (in some sense) it with DRM.

by cletus 14y ago

pnathan 14y ago

Well, I figure when I get home, I'll rsync the kindle over to a local directory. :-)

mayneack 14y ago
Get rid of the DRM first. They'd be useless without an amazon account otherwise.
jb55 14y ago
I do this, but not with rsync. I put PDFs and books that I want to read into my Dropbox during the day. When I get home I bidirectionally sync to my kindle dx with Unison (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/). I wouldn't trust my books with Amazon, ever.

maratd 14y ago

> be skeptical of such stories Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point. Microsoft, Google, eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Facebook, etc. handle millions of accounts. They have automated filters that trigger based on specified criteria that kill your account. Their default response when this happens? Talk to legal. Well, more like write to legal. They don't want to talk to you. The problem? Microsoft has your operating system, Google has your email, eBay has your stuff, PayPal has your money, Amazon has your books, Facebook has your social life, etc. And they can yank all of that away. They don't even press any button. It's triggered automatically by criteria they never disclose beyond a vague TOS. We need to push for a universal option for arbitration by a 3rd party regarding these sorts of unilateral actions. If anything, it will probably reduce the support and legal costs for all of these companies.

jobu 14y ago
Arbitration sounds like a really good idea, but the problem is those arbitration systems are typically paid for by industry, run by industry appointees, and they don't have any incentive to see issues from a consumer point-of-view. I think the solution for books will come from lawsuits and consumer backlash - the same as it did for music. There are still many problems with the Music industry (and RIAA), but they really are leading the curve for the other content industries. Right now you can purchase DRM-free music for relatively cheap from a number of sources. (Apple, Google, Amazon, as well as many independent publishers and artists)
shocks 14y ago
Facebook most certainly does not have my social life. D:
edanm 14y ago
"Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point." Most? That is a pretty serious statement, and I really doubt you can back it up. I don't have statistics on this and don't know where to look for them, but I would guess that the numbers of HN'ers that have had an account closed by a BigCo is actually much less than 1%, never mind more than 50%. Am I grossly underestimating here? Keep in mind that these stories tend to be very popular, so there could definitely be a lot more of these stories around than is statistically correct. P.s. As for one of cletus' point above, I've also noticed a few of these kinds of points eventually bring out more details which tend not to confirm the events, as told in the original posts. Nothing specific to this case of course, I've just caught myself a few times thinking "hmmm, looks like it wasn't such a crystal-clear case of the company being wrong".

tinco 14y ago

You make it sound like releasing an ebook is somehow cheaper than releasing a paperback. I think in many cases this does not hold true. As long as ebooks represent a minority of all book sales producing paperbacks will be cheaper to produce than ebooks, just by law of mass production.

kbutler 14y ago
giggle Mass production has no beneficial effect when the incremental cost of each unit is indistinguishable from zero.
- talaketu 14y ago
  Volume drives the incremental cost towards marginal cost.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Yes, it might approach zero, but it never gets there. There aren't infinite trees to turn into infinite numbers of books.
varikin 14y ago
I don't understand how ebooks can cost more than a mass production paper book. If you are familiar with the industry of producing paper and ebooks for books that are best sellers then I would really love hear about the cost difference in producing both.
- talaketu 14y ago
  I have no idea about this.. but I can speculate that maintaining the DRM system indefinitely after the initial sale represents an ongoing cost whose net present value needs to be considered in contrast with a DRM-free book.
  - tjoff 14y ago

tjoff 14y ago

Is there any conceivable scenario where this is in any way excusable? Deny continued service? Sure (though hardly in the way that is portrayed in the post, you must be able to know why and contest it). Remotely brick hardware and deletion of user data? Never, ever, ever. No - don't even think about thinking about it. NO.

protomyth 14y ago
The only thing I can think of would be something wrong with the credit card (fake, chargeback each book), but that would be a new account thing. For a legitimate purchase, I can think of nothing.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago

"It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US." And?! That would be a horrible reason for deleting all of a user's purchased items. More reason for these types of posts to exist. The situation itself doesn't really matter, but bringing attention to the possible dangers of DRM is important. The fact that we don't own these DRMed items is incredibly scary. "there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies." Okay.. but without data this is just a vague anecdote. If all you're trying to say is "be careful", well alright. But honestly I don't care. The story itself isn't that important in these cases as long as people are thinking about what the possible dangers of DRM are. And they are really big dangers. These types of posts are the only action an individual can take when pitted against a big company.

abhaga 14y ago

Here is a story from the other side. My wife writes and publishes business book summaries. She submitted about ten of those to be published on Kindle. Amazon happily published some of them in US market but decided that the content was "public domain" is other regions. Now I would have understood if they would have said "copyright violation" but "public domain"? Our email correspondence with them was very similar to the one reported in the original post. They will repeat the original mail 2-3 times and will walk away after that leaving you with no answers.

tripzilch 14y ago

> I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase. Hmmm, just because a $6 paperback may seem like a throwaway price to you doesn't mean they are single-use products. That's consumerism gone crazy. I have to admit, I too have a real hard time keeping a cheap paperback presentable after its 2nd or 3rd read (or in subsequent reads, readable, for that matter). I don't know how people do it, so I just make a point to warn my friends about this habit whenever they let me lend one of theirs (and they invariably say "oh I like it when a book looks like it's been read."--sure thing, that'll be no problem!). Still, that doesn't mean I see them as throwaways, rather I see them as fragile, and IMO the ebook form should lessen this attribute when possible, instead of mimicking (in some sense) it with DRM.