04-11-2009, 04:47 AM | #1 |
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My Run-In With Topaz
The other day I decided to purchase a book I had been holding out on for my Kindle. While I do plan on reading the book eventually, what got me to buy it was that I knew it would be helpful for an assignment I was working on. I wanted to search through it quickly and and find snippets I could use.
The book is Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by Thomas E. Woods Jr. and I didn't check to see if the file size was listed. I only purchase ebooks with DRM if the DRM can be stripped. This is my personal rule. Some of you might not agree with it but it's the only logical course of action from my standpoint. After purchasing and downloading the book I realized it wasn't mobipocket format. I went to the page and saw that the file size wasn't listed. "Damn it!" I thought to myself. An ebook I can't open on my computer is almost useless to me. Reading on the Kindle is great but I only buy ebooks to get full functionality out of them. If I wanted the same limitations as a paper book, I'd buy the paper book! I never got a topaz book from Amazon before. It didn't make sense to me. Usually when I see topaz referenced on these boards the format is being used for graphic intensive books. This book is just text, mostly. I looked up another book I had been looking at, The Reasons of Love by Harry G. Frankfurt. This ebook had no file size listed either. I own a paper copy of this book (purchased from Amazon a few years ago, actually) and know that the book is all text. I don't recall any different fonts so I don't know that there was any need for embedded fonts. I promptly looked up several other ebooks and they all had file sizes listed. It's odd that the first two books I looked up happened to be topaz. It still makes me curious, though: is Amazon increasing its topaz titles to combat the stripping of DRM? After realizing I purchased something that was virtually useless to me, I looked into Amazon's return policy. I knew I had heard something about it. I didn't know at the time they had a 7 day return policy on all ebooks. I was excited to find out about it. About ten minutes after buying and downloading the book, I sent Amazon's customer service a message saying that I wanted to return it. When I woke up the next morning I had an email message saying the $9.99 had been returned to my card and that the book was removed from my library. It's the only thing I've ever returned to Amazon and I'm very happy that it went smoothly. I don't want people to end up like the guy on here currently talking about getting his account banned (this mostly seems to happen with big ticket items, though) but I think if you unwittingly buy a topaz book and you can do without it or find it somewhere else, return it to Amazon. Amazon knows mobipocket DRM can be removed. If they get an increase in returns of topaz books or notice sales of those books declining, they might be able to make an intelligent assumption about people preferring not to have restrictions on their ebooks. They might see DRM as bad for business. Who can tell, though? Hopefully Amazon never removes the file size thing. I don't want my file format to be a surprise when I buy a Kindle book. If Amazon is, in fact, stepping up their topaz quantity, they can expect fewer sales to me. I don't mind DRM when I can remove it but I do not buy books I can't strip. It's something I will never compromise on. Amazon should hope topaz is cracked. |
04-11-2009, 05:46 AM | #2 |
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Sorry, Matt, but in what way does a Topaz book not give you "full functionality"? What can you not do with it that you can do with a MobiPocket book?
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04-11-2009, 05:59 AM | #3 |
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04-11-2009, 06:07 AM | #4 |
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Would you really consider that to be something that affects the functionality of the book? Kindle books are sold to be read on the Kindle, not other devices. Is there anything on the Kindle that you can do with a MobiPocket book, but not with a Topaz book?
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04-11-2009, 07:25 AM | #5 | |
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To the OP: The free sample will also tell you whether a title is Topaz or not, so that you don't have to make a return after purchasing one. |
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04-11-2009, 07:49 AM | #6 | |
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I don't know what ratio of returned TOPAZ ebooks are for readability vs DRM, but I'm sure Amazon sees higher returns in TOPAZ than AZW. |
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04-11-2009, 07:55 AM | #7 |
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Thanks, wallcraft.
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04-11-2009, 07:58 AM | #8 | |
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04-11-2009, 12:09 PM | #9 | |
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04-11-2009, 12:17 PM | #10 |
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I said I buy ebooks for full functionality. Not functionality on a single device. As I pointed out, there's not much of an advantage to an ebook that can only be read on the the Kindle over a paper book. I can search it but that's about the only thing different that I can do. What I like most about ebooks is being able to open them on my computer. I like copying and pasting excerpts and quotes. I like format shifting for various devices and programs. I have no interest in buying an ebook multiple times. I refuse to do it. If you buy content once, you should own it for life. That's really what I meant. A couple people above pointed out limitations on the Kindle itself, which I wasn't even aware of. That makes me even happier about returning the book.
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04-11-2009, 01:31 PM | #11 | ||
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04-11-2009, 02:08 PM | #12 | |
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04-11-2009, 02:40 PM | #13 |
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While I'm as anti-DRM as anybody (probably more than most), I feel that if you own a Kindle there is no point in complaining. Its limitations are well known. Just because you cannot skirt the rules any longer because of Topaz is besides the point.
I know all this, I'm a Kindle owner. I bought it used knowing the limitations so I'm not going to complain, it's my own fault for supporting them I suppose. The real answer here is to not buy a Kindle or ANY DRMed book if you disagree with their licensing scheme. Personally I have never bought an ebook from Amazon for more than $2 and I doubt I ever will. But if I do I won't complain about their DRM policy because I will have implicitly agreed to it by purchasing from them. |
04-11-2009, 02:56 PM | #14 | |
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I find Topaz books harder to adapt to and takes away from my ereading experience. If Topaz were more prevalent, I would likely switch to a reader that supported another format. |
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04-11-2009, 03:33 PM | #15 |
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I agree. I did end up finishing my last Topaz book but I was tempted to return it and buy a paper copy. It was about 1000 pages so I ended up deciding to tough it out and read it on the Kindle. I figured even though it was more to read, I hate holding books that big. It was slow. There were big scanning errors and I absolutely hate the fuzzy look of the scan.
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