[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Here is the typical scenario:

1. The "collector" buys 10 eBooks from Amazon.
2. The "collector" uses the Alf Plugin for Calibre to strip the DRM from those 10 eBooks.
3. The "collector" then goes to a bit Torrent site and uses those 10 stripped eBooks as his starter upload contribution and ends up with 40,000 eBooks.
4. Then Calibre is used to organize that "Collection" since it is too large to control manually.

It is more typical that the pirate doesn't bother to strip DRM, but simply downloads books from pirate sites.

The legitimate buyer relies on Amazon to maintain a large collection of millions of eBooks and just buys one or two at a time to actually read those eBooks. Since the legitimate buyer rarely has collections that large, no Collecting software other than the one supplied by Amazon is really necessary.

I find Amazon's cloud storage rather clumsy.

Instead of using the courts, there is one more way Amazon could stop all this. They already are allowed access to a customer's eBooks whenever they are synced to their servers. That sync could allow Amazon to determine if any DRM stripped eBooks are on the customer's disks. If they find any, they could simply block that particular customer's account rendering all readers purchased from them as useless. Apple and Kobo probably have the same ability and, if the three sellers coordinated, copyright theft could be severely impeded.

Or the pirates simply turn off WiFi, and Amazon would never know about their pirated books. Or they make simple alterations to the book so that Amazon can't identify the book. If they can't identify the book, they can't determine if it ever had DRM in the first place. Or they don't use Amazon at all, just an e-book app on a tablet. If someone isn't buying books, what do they need Amazon for anyway? Your proposal wouldn't hinder pirates at all.

There was a case several years ago whereby one eBook being sold by Amazon was determined to be not available since the publisher never authorized Amazon to sell it. Amazon then deleted that eBook from ALL their customer devices without notice to the customers. That event demonstrates their level of control if required to use it.

Amazon can do that if they want to have a going out of business sale. The resulting firestorm was huge - Amazon had to placate its customers by promising not to do it again. Perhaps Amazon is dominant enough to withstand the firestorm if they try it again, but they would certainly lose some customers.