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"The far bigger danger is that the eBook reader is a device running on integrated circuits and battery, which will break in only a couple of years and those B&N

"The far bigger danger is that the eBook reader is a device running on integrated circuits and battery, which will break in only a couple of years and those B&N servers will not be online forever (I would be quite surprised if they are still online in 10 years), it's only a question of when that will happen." But you knew this when you bought the e-book. If companies were selling DRM-protected e-books but labeling them as DRM-free, that would be fraud. But (AFAIK) they're not.

Retric 14y ago
I don't know about B&N but you can easily go though the Amazon checkout process without any mention of DRM. Most people only learn about it when DRM prevents them from doing something they would otherwise assume they could do like read there book on a nook.
- clarky07 14y ago
  Who is buying a kindle book and expecting to read it on nook?
  - rprasad 14y ago
    I do. I use Calibre to remove DRM and convert. The Nook is a superior device for reading (though haven't compared it to the Paperwhite yet.)
    - clarky07 14y ago
      so why don't you just buy from b&n?
chc 14y ago
Not so. AFAIK none of the major ebook retailers go out of their way to mention this, and they target their marketing towards consumers who are not savvy enough to know to ask. They will only inform you of the DRM when you run into one of the limitations it imposes. EDIT: Actually, I should clarify. One ebook retailer does make this explicit — Google. But I wasn't counting them because they don't "own" a market segment and you'd probably be pretty savvy to be buying from them anyway.
- esrauch 14y ago
  Amazon used to have DRM-free mp3 advertisements.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    And cool t-shirts. Don't Restrict Me!
- progrock 14y ago
  Good point. Not sure if it's still applicable, but wasn't it such that you couldn't carry your iTunes library over international borders? If it's DRM'd then I'd expect to pay far less for it. I've got a Kindle, and I won't buy any books for it - because I feel so uneasy about where I stand on this. Which is a shame really. Add to that, that paper copies are somehow cheaper a lot of the time, and that I can pass /sell them on, after reading. Prevents me from becoming spineless.
bad_user 14y ago
I personally know about it, that's why I rarely buy DRM-protected content in general and I only do so for content I only want to watch / read / hear once or twice. Good movies, good books, good music - these are things for which I want to keep a personal library and so I stay away from DRM. Unfortunately from what I've seen, the public has no idea what DRM is, as the technical details are hard to understand. When buying a DRM-protected copy of something, that copy is not yours, you don't own your copy in any way, your only right is time-limited access to that copy, you know like renting with a public library subscription (it's actually even worse, since when renting something you usually have a contract that guarantees availability for a specific time period, whereas with DRM you never know for how long it will last). And I disagree with your point on advertising - because buying something DRM-protected is really renting, customers should be informed of this.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Jeff Bezos has said in interviews that he doesn't believe in books, only reading. Reading changes you, and you don't need to have an artifact. That was his argument for the Kindle.
  - progrock 14y ago
    Should charge by the word read perhaps? Though I'd get charged extra at night when I wrestle with the same paragraph repeatedly before passing out.
hmottestad 14y ago
But wouldn't it be so much nicer if there was no DRM on e-books. That's a law worth lobbying. And for the record. Norwegian law states that you can freely distribute anything you own to a few friends and also make backups of it. DRM is technically illegal in Norway, but no one has brought a case to court over it yet.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  IANAL but I would imagine that DRM per se isn't illegal but any anti-circumvention clause in the EULA would not be enforceable in a court provided that copies were made for the purposes of backup.
  - bad_user 14y ago
    Not so fast. Anti-circumvention laws are everywhere, we aren't talking about EULAs here. The DMCA act in the USA prohibits DRM removal, under all circumstances, even if we are talking about your own content for which you own the copyright. In Canada bill C-61 also made DRM circumvention illegal. In Europe too. It is unclear to me how these fare to the DMCA, because it might be that only providing the tools and information for doing that is illegal. But in Europe, even if we are talking only about the tools being illegal, if you end up removing the DRM protections from some content, it can be argued that's changing the format, which is a different thing but also illegal. It is worth pointing out that pieces of software, like CloneCD [1], are illegal even in Europe, even though this software only makes exact copies and does not change the format (it does not remove DRM). And the US, being the 800-pound gorilla that it is, is constantly pushing others for copyright reforms similar to the DMCA. Also, whenever you're talking about "fair use", you're always in a gray and dangerous area, as fair use clauses are intentionally ambiguous, so sentences are passed based on subjective reasoning based on context and in the US on precedents. If fair use is your defense, then more often than not you're screwed if you can't afford competent lawyers. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CloneCD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CloneCD
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      I meant specifically norway (though admittedly I don't know what the law actually is there) but the GP suggests that the law allows one to make backup copies of your files. Norway is not an EU member state, so normal european laws will not necessarily apply there. Here in the UK I'm not aware of any specific laws that would make owning software like CloneCD illegal, though it could be used in ways that might be considered illegal.
carlisle_ 14y ago
I don't think most consumers have really thought the whole thing through. Anecdotally I would say most people don't back up files without DRM, e.g. digital photos. I'm sure for everybody reading this comment it seems really obvious that you would want to back up your photos. If the average consumer doesn't understand the very real possibility of total data loss and losing all of those photos, why would they even consider the downsides of purchasing and downloading e-books onto a single device? Granted I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, but I think it's entirely silly to expect people to know things that are very firmly technical knowledge and not common sense. The person you replied to might have known that their eBook reader is prone to failure but what about the vast majority of consumers?
marcosdumay 14y ago
What? Do B&N tel you that you can't backup their ebooks on their marketing material?

Retric 14y ago

I don't know about B&N but you can easily go though the Amazon checkout process without any mention of DRM. Most people only learn about it when DRM prevents them from doing something they would otherwise assume they could do like read there book on a nook.

clarky07 14y ago
Who is buying a kindle book and expecting to read it on nook?
- rprasad 14y ago
  I do. I use Calibre to remove DRM and convert. The Nook is a superior device for reading (though haven't compared it to the Paperwhite yet.)
  - clarky07 14y ago
    so why don't you just buy from b&n?

chc 14y ago

Not so. AFAIK none of the major ebook retailers go out of their way to mention this, and they target their marketing towards consumers who are not savvy enough to know to ask. They will only inform you of the DRM when you run into one of the limitations it imposes. EDIT: Actually, I should clarify. One ebook retailer does make this explicit — Google. But I wasn't counting them because they don't "own" a market segment and you'd probably be pretty savvy to be buying from them anyway.

esrauch 14y ago
Amazon used to have DRM-free mp3 advertisements.
- Evbn 14y ago
  And cool t-shirts. Don't Restrict Me!
progrock 14y ago
Good point. Not sure if it's still applicable, but wasn't it such that you couldn't carry your iTunes library over international borders? If it's DRM'd then I'd expect to pay far less for it. I've got a Kindle, and I won't buy any books for it - because I feel so uneasy about where I stand on this. Which is a shame really. Add to that, that paper copies are somehow cheaper a lot of the time, and that I can pass /sell them on, after reading. Prevents me from becoming spineless.

bad_user 14y ago

I personally know about it, that's why I rarely buy DRM-protected content in general and I only do so for content I only want to watch / read / hear once or twice. Good movies, good books, good music - these are things for which I want to keep a personal library and so I stay away from DRM. Unfortunately from what I've seen, the public has no idea what DRM is, as the technical details are hard to understand. When buying a DRM-protected copy of something, that copy is not yours, you don't own your copy in any way, your only right is time-limited access to that copy, you know like renting with a public library subscription (it's actually even worse, since when renting something you usually have a contract that guarantees availability for a specific time period, whereas with DRM you never know for how long it will last). And I disagree with your point on advertising - because buying something DRM-protected is really renting, customers should be informed of this.

Evbn 14y ago
Jeff Bezos has said in interviews that he doesn't believe in books, only reading. Reading changes you, and you don't need to have an artifact. That was his argument for the Kindle.
- progrock 14y ago
  Should charge by the word read perhaps? Though I'd get charged extra at night when I wrestle with the same paragraph repeatedly before passing out.

hmottestad 14y ago

But wouldn't it be so much nicer if there was no DRM on e-books. That's a law worth lobbying. And for the record. Norwegian law states that you can freely distribute anything you own to a few friends and also make backups of it. DRM is technically illegal in Norway, but no one has brought a case to court over it yet.

jiggy2011 14y ago
IANAL but I would imagine that DRM per se isn't illegal but any anti-circumvention clause in the EULA would not be enforceable in a court provided that copies were made for the purposes of backup.
- bad_user 14y ago
  Not so fast. Anti-circumvention laws are everywhere, we aren't talking about EULAs here. The DMCA act in the USA prohibits DRM removal, under all circumstances, even if we are talking about your own content for which you own the copyright. In Canada bill C-61 also made DRM circumvention illegal. In Europe too. It is unclear to me how these fare to the DMCA, because it might be that only providing the tools and information for doing that is illegal. But in Europe, even if we are talking only about the tools being illegal, if you end up removing the DRM protections from some content, it can be argued that's changing the format, which is a different thing but also illegal. It is worth pointing out that pieces of software, like CloneCD [1], are illegal even in Europe, even though this software only makes exact copies and does not change the format (it does not remove DRM). And the US, being the 800-pound gorilla that it is, is constantly pushing others for copyright reforms similar to the DMCA. Also, whenever you're talking about "fair use", you're always in a gray and dangerous area, as fair use clauses are intentionally ambiguous, so sentences are passed based on subjective reasoning based on context and in the US on precedents. If fair use is your defense, then more often than not you're screwed if you can't afford competent lawyers. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CloneCD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CloneCD
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    I meant specifically norway (though admittedly I don't know what the law actually is there) but the GP suggests that the law allows one to make backup copies of your files. Norway is not an EU member state, so normal european laws will not necessarily apply there. Here in the UK I'm not aware of any specific laws that would make owning software like CloneCD illegal, though it could be used in ways that might be considered illegal.

carlisle_ 14y ago

I don't think most consumers have really thought the whole thing through. Anecdotally I would say most people don't back up files without DRM, e.g. digital photos. I'm sure for everybody reading this comment it seems really obvious that you would want to back up your photos. If the average consumer doesn't understand the very real possibility of total data loss and losing all of those photos, why would they even consider the downsides of purchasing and downloading e-books onto a single device? Granted I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, but I think it's entirely silly to expect people to know things that are very firmly technical knowledge and not common sense. The person you replied to might have known that their eBook reader is prone to failure but what about the vast majority of consumers?

marcosdumay 14y ago

What? Do B&N tel you that you can't backup their ebooks on their marketing material?