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Scary-looking guy with tire iron and Barnes & Noble-embroidered balaclava, when caught breaking into your house at 3 AM: "I'm sorry, but we sold you a book whos

Scary-looking guy with tire iron and Barnes & Noble-embroidered balaclava, when caught breaking into your house at 3 AM: "I'm sorry, but we sold you a book whose North American rights the publisher failed to secure in time for publication. I'll just take it back now, and be on my way. Thank you for shopping at Barnes & Noble, here's your $6.95 back." What's unacceptable in meatspace is unacceptable in DRM-space. Stay out of my computer.

zimbabwe 17y ago
I couldn't disagree more with that. With the greater freedom of the electronic world comes a greater ability for people working within the law to do their jobs. We should firmly be on the lookout for abuses of this power, but in this case: * Amazon found out that they were accidentally distributing something illegal * Amazon happened to have the power to fix their problem entirely, without missing a single copy of the illegally-published book * This happened near-instantaneously, without anybody's time being wasted * Amazon refunded every single person their money back, so they lost no money whatsoever Amazon doesn't look scary, they didn't come in armed with weapons, they didn't illegally access anything. If I was in Barnes & Noble and bought a book, then was approached by an employee saying "We weren't actually allowed to sell you that copy of the book, here's your money back," I might be disappointed at not having the book, but Barnes & Noble retains the right to take that book back from me if they're also returning my money. You know how we like to loudly trumpet that PIRACY IS NOT STEALING! because there's no physical copy and therefore no cost to how many times a file can be replicated? Well, that works both ways. When you're dealing with a thin sliver of data which can be modified without even a chance of damage to any other data, and when you have a moral imperative to remove that data and can do it without harm to anybody, then you have every right to jump back in and edit that data, precisely because it isn't meatspace.
CamperBob 17y ago
If I was in Barnes & Noble and bought a book, then was approached by an employee saying "We weren't actually allowed to sell you that copy of the book, here's your money back," I might be disappointed at not having the book, but Barnes & Noble retains the right to take that book back from me if they're also returning my money. That argument would make more sense if Barnes & Noble owned my computer, or if I were still physically present on their store's property.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  But why should you have to be? With my Kindle, I am always in Amazon's store, as close to physically as matters. I can buy a book from anywhere. Why, then, shouldn't they feel free to approach me, so long as I'm still on Amazon's property? (I'll also clear up, since I figure it'll be brought up in a moment anyway, that if Amazon had targeted copies of 1984 that weren't from their Whispernet store then I'd be more offended.)

zimbabwe 17y ago

I couldn't disagree more with that. With the greater freedom of the electronic world comes a greater ability for people working within the law to do their jobs. We should firmly be on the lookout for abuses of this power, but in this case: * Amazon found out that they were accidentally distributing something illegal * Amazon happened to have the power to fix their problem entirely, without missing a single copy of the illegally-published book * This happened near-instantaneously, without anybody's time being wasted * Amazon refunded every single person their money back, so they lost no money whatsoever Amazon doesn't look scary, they didn't come in armed with weapons, they didn't illegally access anything. If I was in Barnes & Noble and bought a book, then was approached by an employee saying "We weren't actually allowed to sell you that copy of the book, here's your money back," I might be disappointed at not having the book, but Barnes & Noble retains the right to take that book back from me if they're also returning my money. You know how we like to loudly trumpet that PIRACY IS NOT STEALING! because there's no physical copy and therefore no cost to how many times a file can be replicated? Well, that works both ways. When you're dealing with a thin sliver of data which can be modified without even a chance of damage to any other data, and when you have a moral imperative to remove that data and can do it without harm to anybody, then you have every right to jump back in and edit that data, precisely because it isn't meatspace.

CamperBob 17y ago

If I was in Barnes & Noble and bought a book, then was approached by an employee saying "We weren't actually allowed to sell you that copy of the book, here's your money back," I might be disappointed at not having the book, but Barnes & Noble retains the right to take that book back from me if they're also returning my money. That argument would make more sense if Barnes & Noble owned my computer, or if I were still physically present on their store's property.

zimbabwe 17y ago
But why should you have to be? With my Kindle, I am always in Amazon's store, as close to physically as matters. I can buy a book from anywhere. Why, then, shouldn't they feel free to approach me, so long as I'm still on Amazon's property? (I'll also clear up, since I figure it'll be brought up in a moment anyway, that if Amazon had targeted copies of 1984 that weren't from their Whispernet store then I'd be more offended.)