Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader Locked Up: Why Your Books Are No Longer Yours

[JSWolf]

I really should read the first book in the series and then if it's good check out the Gazette.

[igorsk]

1632 is in Free Library, Jon.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by igorsk

1632 is in Free Library, Jon.

Interesting that we are talking about 1632. It was the book I used to have a look at how the LRF edition actually looks. Looks good too BTW. I might still download the LIT and convert as I prefer no margins.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

And they're not alone... Adobe DRM has become more restricted than ever in recent years. In both cases, they went with soft DRM while they built market share... then tightened the noose when everyone was committed to using them, guaranteeing the fewest drop-outs.

And still, THIS DRM DOES NOT WORK! No matter what they do, I am not a digital computer. For ME to consume the content, it must be presented to me in an analog format. Therefore, all a pirate has to do is take pictures of the screen, send the jpgs to an OCR program, and assemble an unencrypted copy (which, btw, looks exactly like the same process carried out using a paper copy). All the evidence I've ever seen says the darknet versions mostly show errors typical of an OCR process, not the versions reached by copying an version sold unencrypted. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but they tend to be in the noise level, see other posts about looking for Steve Jordan's books.

And please, do NOT accuse me of being a thief. I have NEVER downloaded ANYTHING from the darknet. Even worse, I have NEVER BROKEN the DRM on an ebook. So far, I've just resisted buying anything with drm, with very limited exceptions. I have ONE book for my Rocket with drm that I have not subsequently found LEGALLY available without encryption (thank you BAEN for releasing Miller & Lee's Liaden books after their previous epublisher went down). I know I can, I think I probably will some day, but I haven't. Yet. (And EOS Books are a pain - I paid a hardback price for an encrypted ebook. I won't again.)

[mazzeltjes]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

ob. discl. I am not a lawyer.

AIUI, copying a song off the radio onto a cassette tape is considered fair use, especially since there's a blank media tax imposed on the sale of audio cassettes intended for music --- this is also why CD-Rs which are marketed for music are more expensive, they have a ``private copying levy'' tax built into the price.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1004.html

MP3 players (and presumably ebook readers) are considered computer peripherals, so don't have such pricing regulation built into them.

Rather than seeing everyone presumed guilty and fined in advance, I'd liefer people behaved honestly and only licensed things properly --- boycott authors / companies whose DRM policies you don't agree with.

William

The drawback with a "private copying levy"
is that people or companies that use cd's
to copy their documents for private storage
or in-office use
are paying a tax
on their own work
that's not really fair
is it?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mazzeltjes

The drawback with a "private copying levy" is that people or companies that use cd's to copy their documents for private storage or in-office use are paying a tax on their own work that's not really fair is it?

It's not supposed to be "fair"... it's supposed to be a compromise. As such, it gets the job done (without it, we wouldn't have CD's).

I see nothing wrong with such "compromises," as long as it is so minor (a few cents per medium) as to be effectively invisible to the consumer. In fact, if such a thing could be applied to digital files themselves, it might solve some problems.

Imagine if your ISP could detect every instance that you e-mailed an e-book or music file to someone else (legal or not), and charged you a few cents per item (like your phone company charging you per text message). If the charge is small enough, no one is going to scream about a few cents extra on their bill. (Well, okay... a few of you surely will.) But anyone who disseminates large volumes of illegal e-books or music files won't stomach the huge ISP bills, and most will stop (or lose their account due to non-payment). Look, Ma... I just cut back on illegal file sharing!

There will surely be some who will try to find ISPs that will not charge that extra file, and ISPs who will decide not to charge the "upload tax." Publishers will know those ISP's, too, and will keep an eye on them, making file sharers easier to detect and isolate.

It's not what I'd call "fair"... but I would call it a good "compromise" to rein in illegal file sharing.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's like saying "it's OK to ride on a train without buying a ticket" on the grounds that nobody is losing out as a result of you doing so. The train is going to run anyway, so where's the harm?

The fallacy in the argument (and in the analogous eBook argument too) is that if everyone took the same attitude, the train WOULDN'T run, and the book WOULDN'T be published. In both cases, by being a "freeloader" the person concerned is preying on the honest people; the ones one whose behalf the train runs and the books is published.

It's an attitude which cannot be ethically justified, IMHO.

First, riding a train is not the same is reading a book or listening to music. IP versus service.

Second and most important, IMO most people are honest and honorable if given a chance. The assumption of draconian DRM, which is what is used on ebooks, is that everyone is dishonest and will steal the IP and give it away to the world. I would like to be able to legally share some of my ebooks with close friends and relatives but I'm not legally allowed because I've supposedly purchased a license not a piece of property.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I've never accepted the contention that illegal sharers are non-buyers. They are just buyers who've found a free ride. If they want a product (be it music, e-books, or anything else), and they find they cannot steal it, they generally will buy it. They rarely just go without. If what you said was true, there would be no industry for anything, because all goods would be stolen, or they wouldn't be bought at all. Therefore they really are costing producers revenue.

(This obviously doesn't cover the people who collect illegal material by the terabyte, just because they can. I'm talking about someone who likes and wants a certain product.)

Again, my contention is that the vast majority of people are honest and want to fairly compensate the author. There will always be people who want everything for nothing and no DRM, no law will stop them until they get caught. Even then the hardcore pirates will not be deterred by that. Meanwhile, the rest of us are severely penalized by being locked into one hardware device or not being able to read an ebook because that particular DRM is not supported on our device. Or worse being forced to repurchase the same content because the format is not supported. (Mobi DRM on Kindle, AZW on anything but a Kindle, LRF on non-Sony, etc...)

For myself, I will not purchase an ebook that cannot be converted for use on any of my platforms. That means no DRM PDFs... period.

Look at this from the proper perspective: It's the pirates that are penalizing you, by taking things for free that you had to pay for, and thereby causing protective laws to be written.

You can legislate morality... social morality. And you have to demonstrate to the majority of society, i.e. individuals, that the social morality must take precedence over individual morality. The laws are put in place, not because someone wants to make your life harder, but because someone wants an artist to be paid for their work. That is pro-social, and any individual who wants to deny another individual due compensation for their work is anti-social.

Think about it this way... if the existence of pirates means tough laws to control them, then it's not the laws that are "penalizing" you... it's the pirates. If it weren't for the activities of pirates, there would be no need for laws that "penalize" anybody.

Yes, the laws penalize me by having to deal with DRM that's locked into a device or DRM that isn't supported by many devices. Or DRM that limits the number of devices and/or personal copies (iTunes etc...)

Once again there will always be pirates, until the pirates can be targeted without seriously inconveniencing me or impinging upon my rights, an honest lawbiding consumer, then DRM is wrong. Especially since most of the ebooks on the Darknet aren't copies of ebooks but scanned and OCRed copies of pbooks that aren't available as ebooks! How the heck does adding DRM to ebooks stop that?

All I want to do is read my legally acquired books, not have to spend hours upon hours searching for tools, learning to use the tools, and then using the tools to make my ebooks portable on my devices.

Harry T and Steve - I admire and respect both of you but this is a subject we'll have to agree to disagree.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It's not supposed to be "fair"... it's supposed to be a compromise. As such, it gets the job done (without it, we wouldn't have CD's).

I see nothing wrong with such "compromises," as long as it is so minor (a few cents per medium) as to be effectively invisible to the consumer. In fact, if such a thing could be applied to digital files themselves, it might solve some problems.

Imagine if your ISP could detect every instance that you e-mailed an e-book or music file to someone else (legal or not), and charged you a few cents per item (like your phone company charging you per text message). If the charge is small enough, no one is going to scream about a few cents extra on their bill. (Well, okay... a few of you surely will.) But anyone who disseminates large volumes of illegal e-books or music files won't stomach the huge ISP bills, and most will stop (or lose their account due to non-payment). Look, Ma... I just cut back on illegal file sharing!

There will surely be some who will try to find ISPs that will not charge that extra file, and ISPs who will decide not to charge the "upload tax." Publishers will know those ISP's, too, and will keep an eye on them, making file sharers easier to detect and isolate.

It's not what I'd call "fair"... but I would call it a good "compromise" to rein in illegal file sharing.

As long as the proceeds go to the artists/authors I have no problem with that. Personally, I'm not comfortable with the idea of having ISPs monitor the types of files I send. Big Brother and all that.

I've also read that some ISPs are going after their heavy users by charging them more instead of the flat rate. The heavy users aren't necessarily illegal file sharers but I'm sure that more than a few are. DH and I work at home and heavily use our ISP account. Power pig ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ... I mean Power Point creates huge files that aren't readily compressed and consume large amounts of bandwidth.

I don't mind DRM as long as it doesn't lock me into a device or platform.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

IMO most people are honest and honorable if given a chance. The assumption of draconian DRM, which is what is used on ebooks, is that everyone is dishonest and will steal the IP and give it away to the world. I would like to be able to legally share some of my ebooks with close friends and relatives but I'm not legally allowed because I've supposedly purchased a license not a piece of property.

Human nature (there's that phrase again) generally dictates that people will take the path of least resistance. When they see things that they believe they can take, without directly hurting someone and without reprisal... like an apple hanging on a farmer's tree... they tend to take it. When they know there's a mean hound in that orchard that will bite them if they try, or a nearby farmer with a shotgun, they generally won't.

This is why there are pirates, in a nutshell. They see it as easy to take a book, so they do. If they believe they will be caught and fined, they'll stop.

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

Once again there will always be pirates, until the pirates can be targeted without seriously inconveniencing me or impinging upon my rights, an honest lawbiding consumer, then DRM is wrong. Especially since most of the ebooks on the Darknet aren't copies of ebooks but scanned and OCRed copies of pbooks that aren't available as ebooks! How the heck does adding DRM to ebooks stop that?

I'm inconvenienced by the stoplight at my neighborhood's intersection, but I understand and appreciate why it is there, and have no problem tolerating it (and not running the red light).

DRM application, despite how it may seem to the individual, is not assuming that everyone is dishonest. It is a tool that is designed to deter the bulk of the dishonest people, while still giving honest people access to what they want (when the alternative would be not releasing the digital files to anyone at all). It may not work well--or even at all--but when it's the only tool at their disposal, it's what they use. Hopefully they'll come up with better tools soon. And if we can help by coming up with a better idea, we should do that as fast as we can, to make us all happier.

In the meantime, if, as you say, DRM is too much of an inconvenience, you are exactly right to not buy those e-books (I generally don't, either)... and just as important, to get in touch with the publisher and tell them why. If the publisher knows their DRM system only serves to tick you off, they will be more inclined to try and find a better way to do it. (You could pass on to them a few ideas, and even links to this forum... we've come up with a few good ideas to try around here.)

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Human nature (there's that phrase again) generally dictates that people will take the path of least resistance.

Then make it easy for them to purchase ebooks at reasonable prices -- and to use continue to use them when they change/upgrade devices.

Human nature is not to to be a thief...in my view.

IMHO, DRM loses/alienates more customers than it "protects" in lost revenue.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Human nature (there's that phrase again) generally dictates that people will take the path of least resistance.

I completely agree; since for e-books the path of least resistance is to ignore them by and large unless they are free (and even then to a large extent) it boggles my mind why anyone would put more roadblocks. There is already a big uphill fight to get people to look even at free e-books...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by bwaldron

IMHO, DRM loses/alienates more customers than it "protects" in lost revenue.

Don't forget: In the absence of DRM (workable or not), many publishers will not produce e-books at all. If some customers will buy DRM-set e-books, that's more than no one buying an e-book at all. So from the publishers' perspective, they're coming out ahead. That's why there is still DRM.

Publishers need to be introduced to better ways of doing it, methods that will get them more customers and make them more money. Otherwise, they can't see a good reason to abandon DRM. (And listening to people on these forums yell "Make those books FREE! Or I'll just steal them" isn't giving them a good reason to give it up...)

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Human nature (there's that phrase again) generally dictates that people will take the path of least resistance. When they see things that they believe they can take, without directly hurting someone and without reprisal... like an apple hanging on a farmer's tree... they tend to take it.

Whoa. Have you ever actually tried looking for anything on the darknet? It is far from the path of least resistance. I would be willing to wager that most people would rather go to a well-organized commercial site (Amazon is actually pretty good in this respect) and pay a reasonable price to simply download a nicely formatted book-- especially if it has no DRM (there's that "least resistance" thing again). I know I would. Keep the price for older content around $2, and I'd start working on replacing all my paper books with legal ebooks, rather than hanging around in the dark corners of the internet.

People who really have just about no money and don't get paid much per hour may be able to afford spending hours sifting through the darknet looking for stuff, but for most people, their time is worth more than what they're going to get back.

Except in the case of content that simply isn't available otherwise, of course, like out-of-print books. I count those as "abandonware."

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Whoa. Have you ever actually tried looking for anything on the darknet?

Who... me? I take it on everyone else's word that there actually IS a Darknet!...

Originally Posted by nekokami

People who really have just about no money and don't get paid much per hour may be able to afford spending hours sifting through the darknet looking for stuff, but for most people, their time is worth more than what they're going to get back.

Good point: Saving time and trouble is very high on my path of least resistance, too.

And funny you should mention the $2 point... I was recently researching the possibility of some price changes of my material, and that number keeps coming up...

[carandol]

I'm surprised there aren't more people advocating watermarked ebooks as a good compromise between DRM and complete copying freedom. I've bought quite a few role-playing game books from DrivethruRPG over the years. The earlier ones were all DRMd PDFs, and some of those I've forgotten the passwords of and can no longer access, which is a pain. But DriveThruRPG moved to watermarking a few years ago, and those are great. They're standard PDFs, but they have my name and a serial number very tiny at the bottom of every page. I can still lend them to friends, if I want them to read a section before I run a game, for instance, but I know, and they know, that if I give away copies to anyone, or release them onto the net, it will be extremely obvious who did it. The law is still there as a deterrent to illegal mass copying, but the inconvenience to the purchaser is non-existent.