Brother can you spare some truth?

[PennyPie]

Connect to my Mac? Everyone says a resounding NO (including many reviewers). Bullsh*t. I took a chance on this one and forged ahead, believing that my Mac would see it as any other drive and I could copy my books on to it. Then I find Calibre, and I'm better off than PC folk who have to use that crappy Sony software to transfer books.

Huh-uh!!! Of COURSE one using a PC can use Calibre to transfer books!!! See...it's not sometimes even half truths...it's commonly held 'myths' that continue to be perpetrated...just cuz you see it in print don't make it necessarily so. We've all 'heard' (read) things, they just sorta sit there in your brain fermenting, and all of a sudden, you think it's truth.

Far as I'm concerned they're all great, no matter what brand, what features...just the ability to not have to carry pbooks around any more is just so marvelous....technology is wonderful. Remember when remote controls 1st came out & you finally didn't have to get up to change the TV station? It seemed a such a wonderful advance at the time. Now, there is hardly a TV alive that doesn't come with a remote control.
It's all good!!

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by poshm

I'm not really understanding why people want to remove the DRM from ebooks? I thought that you could have DRMed books on up to 6 devices at a time which is more than what the majority of people should require surely? Or am I (probably) missing something?

The very principle is extremely flawed. It's like buying a paper book and having to ask the store you bought it from permission to place it in a new set of hands. Then, someday that book store disappears or refuses to talk to you and suddenly you can't ever put that same book in another pair of hands.

The best part is that DRM does absolutely not one single solitary thing to stop piracy. Nothing. It fails 100% of the time. And even encourages piracy to some degree (for example, a hard-to-rip DVD because of non-standard copy protections may lead someone to just download it for their own use. That's still piracy.)

Nobody has made a completely unbroken DRM, even if it's a matter of inconvenience by way of the analog hole, and what's more, people have been pirating books by scanning paper copies THEM SELVES on release date. There are entire groups dedicated to being providers of pirated wares out there. They have been around for decades. I used to participate when I ran my BBS and didn't understand copyright at all.

So basically DRM does one, and only one thing: It stops legitimate customers from fair use of the thing they paid for. That's why it matters that DRM be strippable or not used at all. It's gullible morons that think it is somehow protecting their "property." If there is actually any business angle that is valid, it's the anti-consumer seedy angle of vendor lock-in for people who can't understand how to work around DRM.

Imagine someone who spent $500 on books for their Kindle and then a new reader comes out, like the Nook or Plastic Logic or whatever, that really entices them. Assuming they don't know about removing DRM, they're going to be afraid to even consider other options just because they can't move their media along. It's pretty ridiculous.

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention how DRM prevents you from freely shopping around, another aspect of vendor lock-in. You can't buy a "protected" book from BooksOnBoard, eReader.com, Fictionwise, BN, etc. and use it on your Kindle without, at the very least (in the case of BoB) some amount of hackery on the file, and in most cases, you can't do it at all without stripping DRM, which, at least in the USA is technically illegal (thanks, useless DMCA.)



Okay I'm ranting again. I apologize but it pains me to see someone somehow rationalizing a meaningless useless personal limit on usage of something they paid for. That's the last kind of thought process the movement for fair use and consumer protection needs.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Or, it may be because in many instances, Amazon has the best prices.

And the majority of titles have stripable DRM.

That is why I use Amazon, too. However, it seems to be quite easy to run into Topaz files, for me it is about 3 out of 20+ free and paid ebooks I have from them.

[poshm]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Okay I'm ranting again. I apologize but it pains me to see someone somehow rationalizing a meaningless useless personal limit on usage of something they paid for. That's the last kind of thought process the movement for fair use and consumer protection needs.

I get what you mean about the principle of it all and clearly you feel very strongly about it. I've been buying protected music for years so I guess I'm just used to it.

Naturally it would be better to have no limitations but I think the important point is that people should be made aware of what they are buying into and what exactly the limitations are. If they are still happy to buy them with this knowledge, fine.

I agree DRM does nothing to stop piracy. To stop piracy then prices of films, music, ebooks etc need to be lowered considerably. The majority of people wouldn't be bothered with piracy if they could get these items dirt cheap in the first place.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by poshm

I'm not really understanding why people want to remove the DRM from ebooks? I thought that you could have DRMed books on up to 6 devices at a time which is more than what the majority of people should require surely? Or am I (probably) missing something?

You want to be able to strip the DRM from your ebooks, so that when your ebook retailer fails or moves to a different format, or stops selling ebooks, you're still able to read your ebooks on any new devices you buy.

Not to mention the on-going hassle of DRM in ordinary use.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by poshm

I've been buying protected music for years so I guess I'm just used to it.

Goodness - where are you still managing to buy protected music these days? All the big music labels gave up on DRM on music early this year.

[poshm]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Goodness - where are you still managing to buy protected music these days? All the big music labels gave up on DRM on music early this year.

Didn't know that (!) but then I haven't bought any music online for at least a year as I find I'm listening to audiobooks more than actual music these days.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by poshm

IThe majority of people wouldn't be bothered with piracy if they could get these items dirt cheap in the first place.

I used to think this was true. But, I've got so many pirate friends, and just a small amount of time talking to them about it and observing them... I really seriously doubt that they would buy any of what they pirate. In fact, I don't think they value what they have much at all and this is the root of their justification of the piracy. They don't see it as having value and thus can't possibly be theft in taking it.

Sure they enjoy their illicit movies when they watch them, but I kid you not, most of these guys clearly get more joy out of having things to help others pirate than they get from consumption of that same media.

No, at this point I'm fairly sure that a large portion of (internet/download-based) pirates would still pirate things, even if they only costed $2 or something otherwise impossibly cheap.

And on the same token, if somehow DRM really stopped them from pirating these "things," then I also firmly stand by the opinion that the majority of them would never purchase the items instead. I think this is especially true of movies and music. Movies and music, for most people represent a fleeting moment of entertainment that they could have just as easily lived without, with the occasional exception of something that really turns them on. So for these people, the radio (free), pirated music (free), the theatre (not free but a social occasion), and broadcast/cable tv (free/kinda free, like anyone thinks of the price of an individual program on cable) would be enough for them. If they couldn't get "free" access to this same media, it just wouldn't be part of their life.

If these same types of people can't get free access to their books/movies/music/games/etc. online, then they would just spent their time on something else.

Clearly i'm not referring to professional piracy for monetary gain here, but, honestly, the premise that somehow the fairness of price plays into the decision to steal vs. buy is preposterous in my opinion. It is the same line of flawed thinking that leads to ridiculous reports of "Lost revenue" from piracy, as if every download represented what otherwise would have been a sale. Hah! That's as bad as suggesting that everyone who sees a billboard for a soda but doesn't buy one is somehow lost money.

That said, I do agree that when DRM is in use it should be mandatory that it's very clearly explained and any limits that might apply should be boldly presented to the purchaser at every single purchase. I'm especially bitter about the term "buy" associated with what is really licensing. You can't go showing people a storefront where the term buy, 90% of the time, means to initiate the exchange of money for the ownership of an item then suddenly have it also mean the exchange of money for the right to access some data in a limited manner. That's just disingenuous. Amazon, or any other digital media seller should be barred from using the same terms for sales and licensing.

Then don't get me started on arbitrary limits. At least back when Apple iTunes used DRM on music it was clear what the limits would be, if only because they were always the same. Five "machines." Unlimited iPods. Simple, though still DRM. On Amazon it's all kinds of restrictions, about tts, number of copies, etc. And to have the gall to suggest one buy another "copy" so they can go beyond the potentially very strict device limit is pure hubris. If it is only ME reading/accessing the data, then I should be able to do it wherever and whenever I want without worries about how many "copies" are made and how many devices are involved.



Ranting again! Sorry. I do feel strongly about this topic, though I don't necessarily take the hard line on it. I *DO* buy DRM'd things. For example, I own almost 500 DVDs. I have about 20 Blu-ray discs, and I can't even rip those currently. I paid for about 100 protected songs from iTunes but only because I could strip the DRM without ruining the audio quality. I buy from Amazon, to get books for a decent price, but only if I think I can rip the DRM. Sadly I have a few books I can't rip properly either because they are topaz or because the ripping tools are just failing to produce valid results.

But over time, I am being pushed more and more to that almost activist level of refusing any DRM at all. I just don't like to be so limited by an idealism. But still, I don't read so much that I would be entirely starved by going DRM-free. I could subsist for a few months on Doctorow and Watts alone I imagine. I have a Steve Jordan book to read still... I don't mind paying. In fact, I feel eBooks in particular are too cheap.

But man, do I ever hate artificial limits that solve no problems.

[poshm]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Ranting again! Sorry. I do feel strongly about this topic, though I don't necessarily take the hard line on it.

Rant away Actually it's very educational to me and I'm sure other people. I can't say I've ever spent too much time thinking about it, just always accepted that that's the way it is. Not that I'm a pushover because if there was an issue say that involved family or close friends then I wouldn't just accept it. But then I feel very strongly about family and friends.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by poshm

Rant away Actually it's very educational to me and I'm sure other people. I can't say I've ever spent too much time thinking about it, just always accepted that that's the way it is. Not that I'm a pushover because if there was an issue say that involved family or close friends then I wouldn't just accept it. But then I feel very strongly about family and friends.

Well the realities are conveniently arranged in the favor of DRM advocates. For example, I'm an Apple fan. Seriously. I really like what Apple produces. So of course, every media device I own is an Apple device. I have 3 iPhones, one is my wife's one is inactive and one is mine. Then I have several iPods of various generations/sizes. I have an Apple TV (Which I love, btw) and then of course, I am one of those rare people who actually like organizing their media collection with iTunes (I have 920GB of media). So I use iTunes on my PC's that I have to use on occasion as well as all my Macs.

What does this have to do with DRM? Well I could go off buying all my music and movies with iTunes DRM on them, and never run into any trouble consuming said media in every place a person would normally expect to do so. But I still hate the DRM. And it's partly because I also own a Sony PlayStation 3 which plays all the same formats that apple sells but doesn't support the DRM. It's little things like that which break the facade of acceptability.

I mean really, what valid reason is there that I shouldn't be able to buy a movie on iTunes and play it on my PS3? Or hey, how about the opposite? I can't buy a movie on the Playstation network and play it on my iPhone either.

But my iPhones, PSPgo, PS3's, Sony Vaios, MacBook Pros, my *KINDLE 2* and even the Nintendo DSi can all play DRM-free m4a files (AAC) without issue. I have these things so I like having the choice of using whichever suits my scenario the best at any given time. DRM uselessly restricts that choice and that's what grinds my gears about it.

Another good example is DVD. I don't know for sure, but I seriously doubt that any normal consumer has the slightest clue that DVD's are encrypted and that they can't be decrypted by any random DVD drive out there. Your PC drive can't even decrypt the data (though it is a participant in that process) without software that does it. And that software, well it has to include code that is licensed by the DVDCA and the same thing goes for every DVD player out there that is legitimate. This is why the Wii doesn't play DVD's. It would reduce profits.

But, because DVD is such a ubiquitous format, and the exact same DRM scheme is used across 99.9% of DVD's ever made, nobody notices. So sometimes DRM doesn't produce that same kind of mass inconvenience for most people. It inconveniences me, because I like having all my media on a hard drive so I can stream it and search it and stuff. I ripped my DVD's but I think that's legally dubious under the DMCA (but I stand by fair use doctrine as I never share my ripped copies or even my original DVD's with anyone, they are all boxed up and serve as back-ups only.) It's totally legal to rip a CD though. No problems there, because there is no copy protection on a CD. CD ripping is popular enough (or was, anyway) that I think you might have really had a highly visible public backlash at copy protections there. Actually, to some degree this has happened in the rare cases that companies tried to inflict copy protection onto a CD (like Sony's rootkit, which is a kind of malware or virus, that degraded audio quality of a cd ripped on a windows computer.)

So.... I guess my point is that I completely understand why the general public doesn't get up in arms about these things. In fact, the most logical reaction to the limitations set by say... the Kindle, is to just not buy a kindle or any eBooks. I only care because I really like eBooks. I can't stand reading paper books because I'm born into the era of increasing convenience and it's shocking to me that one of the simplest forms of media to digitize–the written word–is only now becoming a big commercial concern. I, plain and simple, will not willfully read anything on paper. There's far too much content out there for me to feel like I'm missing out on anything truly fantastic. All the important works are public domain anyway, in one country at least, heheh. And for modern works, they're coming along... eventually. I have The Lord of the Rings! I mean... what else in the fantasy genre even matters? Wheel of Time? That's coming along and is enough to keep me busy for approximately 27 years...

So since I'm a big fan of eBooks, I can't help but constantly run into the DRM frustration. That frustration I recently found freedom from in the music world. The same frustration that controls the video world. 1 out of three... ain't... good... I just hope these other fearful "Intellectual Property" owners will see the light the way record companies finally did.

Wow, that was another long one. I think I'll try to make this my last iteration on the tired old DRM hate-parade. There is one last comment I wanted to bring up though.

I am fascinated by how little people care about DRM in certain specific areas. The main one is on video games. Video games have used copy protection mechanisms ranging everywhere from basic obfuscation all the way to literally intentionally damaged media (like cd's that are damaged in such a way that can be detected by copy protection software and prevent their use when the data comes from an image). And these days, all console games are encrypted one way or another. Nobody seems to care about that. And I suppose it's because those games won't work on another console anyway so there is little consumer value to having unfettered access. I think I'd like the ability to buy a nintendo DS game at the story then copy it onto an SD card and carry only that one card around with me, for example, but short of that... it doesn't affect me (the DRM that is).

Another area with a middle range of concern is video. Streaming video is becoming very popular with services like Netflix streaming or so on. It has DRM. Nobody cares. I've never read any complaints about DRM on these services. But I do see complaints about downloads. So perhaps it's a matter of the sense of ownership. If you don't feel like you own something you're less concerned with your freedom of usage of it maybe? Surely ubiquity plays into it as well. I used to subscribe to Rhapsody for music but I gave up because of the restricted number of ways I could access it.

Okay, enough novel-writing for tonight. I've got an obscure book by a little known author to read, um what is it called... Patriot Games by some Tom Clancy or something? I dunno ... He's sure no Ian Fleming though!

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

But, because DVD is such a ubiquitous format, and the exact same DRM scheme is used across 99.9% of DVD's ever made, nobody notices.

They do, they just tend to notice one aspect of it - region coding.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

That is what Amazon hopes Kindle buyers will do, and -- except for those that are reading up on Mobileread -- my guess is that the vast majority of Kindle users rely on Amazon exclusively.

And that's probably why reviewers get the idea that Sony readers are limited to the Sony store-because that's what Sony wants buyers to think.

That type of short-sighted marketing always loses, long-term, except in a monopoly market. I wish the government would stop listening to economists-and I wish that businesses would start.

[jabberwock_11]

I do not own a Kindle, obviously, so I was unaware of the fact that the Kindle is able to use sources other than Amazon. Part of this is due to the reviews that I read on the Kindle which strongly implied that the device was unable to go outside of Amazon for content. Rereading those reviews I now realize that there was no overt statement of this, just some serious implication. Which, as a previous poster points out, may very well be what the manufacturers would like us to believe.

The point is that if someone out of ignorance (such as myself with regards to the Kindle) or misunderstanding manages take reviews (which do not tell the whole story) as fact then some seriously flawed information can be used to make decisions or even be passed on to others.

I just want to be able to look at reviews and specs for ereaders (or any device) and be able to trust what I am being told. When I go to an independent site for a review I expect it to be impartial and honest, I do not expect a commercial disguised as truthful information. It is possible that some reviewers are simply misinformed; however, it is unlikely seeing as most of them have extensive backgrounds in consumer electronics and are given plenty of time to monkey with the devices before writing their reviews.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by jabberwock_11

I just want to be able to look at reviews and specs for ereaders (or any device) and be able to trust what I am being told. When I go to an independent site for a review I expect it to be impartial and honest, I do not expect a commercial disguised as truthful information. It is possible that some reviewers are simply misinformed; however, it is unlikely seeing as most of them have extensive backgrounds in consumer electronics and are given plenty of time to monkey with the devices before writing their reviews.

It's a right wish but I'm afraid you never can be sure. What you call "independent site", perhaps it isn't. That's one of the big problems of Internet. You have to be careful with the "info" you read, not only about devices.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by jabberwock_11

I just want to be able to look at reviews and specs for ereaders (or any device) and be able to trust what I am being told. When I go to an independent site for a review I expect it to be impartial and honest, I do not expect a commercial disguised as truthful information. It is possible that some reviewers are simply misinformed; however, it is unlikely seeing as most of them have extensive backgrounds in consumer electronics and are given plenty of time to monkey with the devices before writing their reviews.

I'm not too sure about that last. I've seen an awful lot of 'reviews' that use direct quotes from the manufacturer's press release. That qualifies, IMO, as "a commercial disguised as truthful information". These even show up in reputable consumer electronics publications. The only defense I've found (other than interpreting the review itself, i.e. does it sound like a review or like an advertisement?) is to look at who wrote the review. Not who published it, but the actual reviewer. There are a few, very few, reviewers I trust to have actually used the devices before they write their reviews. Others might, but I'm just not sure.