Expiration Rate Removal Request

[Susan in Houston]

I am a long time ebook buyer and am having a great deal of trouble with opening some of my older book purchases because the credit card with which I purchased the books expired. I have had to delete the books from my Nook, delete from Calibre, download and then reload to the device. This is time consuming and a real nuisance. Nor do I agree with the idea that something that I have purchased and paid for should have an expiration date just because the credit card I used has expired.

Is anyone else frustrated about this?

I'd like to suggest that Calibre developers might want to remove the expiration date from the files that are sent to devices. Since I'm not a developer, I don't know if this is feasible or not.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Susan in Houston

I'd like to suggest that Calibre developers might want to remove the expiration date from the files that are sent to devices. Since I'm not a developer, I don't know if this is feasible or not.

Books with an expiration date on them will be DRM protected. Calibre cannot do much with such books. You may find other sites that provide ways to allow DRM to be removed, but not on MobileRead.

[adun]

Originally Posted by Susan in Houston

...
This is time consuming and a real nuisance. Nor do I agree with the idea that something that I have purchased and paid for should have an expiration date just because the credit card I used has expired.

Where have you being living?
If I may, I'd suggest you paid a bit of more attention to the world around you. In that way you´d know what DRM was, how its current implementation affects all of us, consumers, and why many so vehemently oppose or fight it.
I say only that your request is illegal and that people could end up in jail not only if they honor it, but just for pointing you to resources to accomplish it.

Originally Posted by Susan in Houston

Is anyone else frustrated about this?

[raynedrop]

Originally Posted by adun

Where have you being living?
If I may, I'd suggest you paid a bit of more attention to the world around you. In that way you´d know what DRM was, how its current implementation affects all of us, consumers, and why many so vehemently oppose or fight it.
I say only that your request is illegal and that people could end up in jail not only if they honor it, but just for pointing you to resources to accomplish it.

Well I for another would not have thought that the credit card expiration date would have something to do with the DRM. Interesting to know! Guess some us just buy them to READ same as we would a regular book and assume it works the same. Hope I never run into that as am sure it is a royal pain to have to redownload them all ugh. Maybe if you contact where you bought them they would have an easier solution? Just my two cents(which isn't worth much these days lol)!

[theducks]

I don't know why they need to use the expiration date as long as additional charges do not need to be processed.
People do change card issuers (the numbers) .

So this begs the question: "If I change cards associated with my accunt (if I had one), Do all the OLD purchases permanently 'Expire'?

[Man Eating Duck]

Originally Posted by theducks

I don't know why they need to use the expiration date as long as additional charges do not need to be processed.
People do change card issuers (the numbers) .

So this begs the question: "If I change cards associated with my accunt (if I had one), Do all the OLD purchases permanently 'Expire'?

One reason only: It's a scheme to make your books expire reliably. Nothing random about it, vendors would love to have absolutely all content expire and make you re-buy it. Seriously, what are the odds that they *didn't* consider this when adding the expired-CC-check? That's why I never buy books I can't de-DRM and store in a reasonably future-proof zip+xhtml format (thanks, Apprentice Alf & Co).

Oh, and it *raises* the question, "begging the question" is a specific logical fallacy. Ok, I'll crawl back to my cave now...

Edit: Back from the cave. Re-reading the first post, it seems you can re-download without paying additional fees. In that case it makes no sense at all, other than being a **** you to paying customers, who will also be left up the creek without a DRM server when (not if) they are taken off-line. See above, there is every reason for them not to keep a particular DRM-scheme alive forever.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Susan in Houston

I'd like to suggest that Calibre developers might want to remove the expiration date from the files that are sent to devices. Since I'm not a developer, I don't know if this is feasible or not.

Calibre doesn't remove DRM (the CC expiration date is part of that DRM), but there are solutions available from other sources that allow you to remove that DRM as you import the book into Calibre, and thus free up your books from restrictions. We can't discuss the specifics of DRM removal here, but we can suggest that you Google Apprentice Alf.

[Susan in Houston]

Thanks to all who commented. I didn't realize the expiration date was part of the DRM and thus illegal to remove. I am frustrated with this. In the best case I consider this harrassment and in the worst case it's an invasion of privacy!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Susan in Houston

Thanks to all who commented. I didn't realize the expiration date was part of the DRM and thus illegal to remove. I am frustrated with this. In the best case I consider this harrassment and in the worst case it's an invasion of privacy!

Complain to the vender.
IMHO Making use of the expiration date of your credit card AFTER the transaction has been processed is a questionable (MC/Visa merchant bank card acceptance) terms of allowed use violation.

[Man Eating Duck]

Originally Posted by Susan in Houston

Thanks to all who commented. I didn't realize the expiration date was part of the DRM and thus illegal to remove. I am frustrated with this. In the best case I consider this harrassment and in the worst case it's an invasion of privacy!

Undoubtedly. If you live in the US it's probably technically illegal to remove DRM even for your own use. In Norway it is legal* to remove DRM for your own use, but I think I would have removed DRM as a matter of course in any case.

* It has not been tested in court for ebooks, but similar cases for DVD and CD media has been. Big content deliberately backed out before those cases ended in our supreme court, so sadly we have no "proper" legal precedence.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by theducks

Complain to the vender.
IMHO Making use of the expiration date of your credit card AFTER the transaction has been processed is a questionable (MC/Visa merchant bank card acceptance) terms of allowed use violation.

it's probably a violation for the vendor to even store your card data, without your explicit permission. ...

moving on - Amazon does not apply any of this card date nonsense to their protected books. the book is linked only to your amazon account, so unless you forget how to log into that your books will always be available on their servers. if you delete the book from your reader you can download a fresh copy, as many times as you like., & if you buy a different amazon reader you can link that to your account and access all your old books on your new device.

And your amazon account still works even if you delete all of your cards details ( you just can't buy anything new)

but then again Amazon don't sell epub & probably never will... Alf will teach you how to buy mobi & convert though.

otherwise you will face this expired card DRM hassle every 3 years; no one issues cards with a longer than 3 year life & the trend is for that length to shorten, not lengthen, as card issuers like to bring out new cards with new features - like Visa's silly contactless payments "feature" thats just been added to mine.

so - you want to own a legal ebook for 30 years ( not unreasonable, as I'm sure we have 30 year old paper books in the house somewhere) - that's 10 pointless iterations of delete, download, upload... to have to go thru.