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A Leaked Contract Reveals that Amazon Insists on DRM

35 points by jamesbritt 13y ago

Amadou 13y ago
This contract echoes the story of Nina Palin's attempt to get her Free (creative-commons share-alike) movie "Sita Sings the Blues" on netflix streaming without DRM. Netflix refused. They even refused to let her put a title-card at the start of the movie telling viewers that the movie was free to download from other sources. http://blog.ninapaley.com/2010/04/23/turning-down-netflix/ http://blog.ninapaley.com/2010/04/23/turning-down-netflix/ Three years later she went full CC-0 (public domain) with the movie because the hassle of dealing with other entities who simply couldn't understand the share-alike license was too much. http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/01/18/ahimsa-sita-sings-the-blues-now-cc-0-public-domain/ http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/01/18/ahimsa-sita-sings-the-b... For anyone considering watching her movie - Roger Ebert rated it very highly. http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sita-sings-the-blues-2009 http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sita-sings-the-blues-2009
duaneb 13y ago
It's also trivially broken, IIRC, it's a drm of convenience.
devonbleak 13y ago
"Insists" seems very misleading here. Defaults to? Sure. But insists on? No. If they were insisting, there wouldn't be the "unless we mutually agree otherwise" clause.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Yes. It could be that Amazon insists, but this sure doesn't prove it. To demonstrate that I'd want to see a statement from a publisher.
RexRollman 13y ago
DRM is a funny thing, in that the publishers seem to want it without realizing that once a particular vendor finally gains a large marketshare, it actually makes give them less power. The music industry finally realized this when Apple got large in music sales. I wonder when the publishing industry will wake up.
jcampbell1 13y ago
This is just boilerplate. Boilerplate contracts get written to make doing deals easier. It is more accurate that "Amazon defaults to" rather than "Amazon Insists On". I don't think there is a conspiracy here.
- jfoster 13y ago
  I agree. Although I'd like to point out that it may not make sense from Amazon's perspective for them to be DRM-agnostic. It would completely suit their business interests for Kindle media to be a locked ecosystem. If Amazon just sells ebooks that work with any device, their business is less defensible.
tzs 13y ago
There is a new first paragraph on the article now: --------------------------------- Update: This post is now 10 hours old and in that time I have been told by at least 20 different people on 5 different websites that I am wrong in how I interpreted this contract. I think they are probably correct. If you are finding this post for the first time then I suggest that you don’t read it.

35 points by jamesbritt 13y ago

This contract echoes the story of Nina Palin's attempt to get her Free (creative-commons share-alike) movie "Sita Sings the Blues" on netflix streaming without DRM. Netflix refused. They even refused to let her put a title-card at the start of the movie telling viewers that the movie was free to download from other sources. http://blog.ninapaley.com/2010/04/23/turning-down-netflix/ http://blog.ninapaley.com/2010/04/23/turning-down-netflix/ Three years later she went full CC-0 (public domain) with the movie because the hassle of dealing with other entities who simply couldn't understand the share-alike license was too much. http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/01/18/ahimsa-sita-sings-the-blues-now-cc-0-public-domain/ http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/01/18/ahimsa-sita-sings-the-b... For anyone considering watching her movie - Roger Ebert rated it very highly. http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sita-sings-the-blues-2009 http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sita-sings-the-blues-2009

duaneb 13y ago

It's also trivially broken, IIRC, it's a drm of convenience.

devonbleak 13y ago

"Insists" seems very misleading here. Defaults to? Sure. But insists on? No. If they were insisting, there wouldn't be the "unless we mutually agree otherwise" clause.

wpietri 13y ago
Yes. It could be that Amazon insists, but this sure doesn't prove it. To demonstrate that I'd want to see a statement from a publisher.

RexRollman 13y ago

DRM is a funny thing, in that the publishers seem to want it without realizing that once a particular vendor finally gains a large marketshare, it actually makes give them less power. The music industry finally realized this when Apple got large in music sales. I wonder when the publishing industry will wake up.

jcampbell1 13y ago

This is just boilerplate. Boilerplate contracts get written to make doing deals easier. It is more accurate that "Amazon defaults to" rather than "Amazon Insists On". I don't think there is a conspiracy here.

jfoster 13y ago
I agree. Although I'd like to point out that it may not make sense from Amazon's perspective for them to be DRM-agnostic. It would completely suit their business interests for Kindle media to be a locked ecosystem. If Amazon just sells ebooks that work with any device, their business is less defensible.

tzs 13y ago

There is a new first paragraph on the article now: --------------------------------- Update: This post is now 10 hours old and in that time I have been told by at least 20 different people on 5 different websites that I am wrong in how I interpreted this contract. I think they are probably correct. If you are finding this post for the first time then I suggest that you don’t read it.