[notimp]

(Off topic comments deleted. - Editor)

I see you guys - struggling at the -

"I hate trying to read books in txt, doc or docx."

- level (no kidding, makes you ponder why ePub was invented as an open standard in the first place - how about you conceptualize, what role it plays on the eBook sector? (Open standard, Open format, html markup, limited complexity - user accesible, non proprietary, author designable...)) -

and

"Given how much they've already held back ebook sales with their pricing policy, I can't see all the the big publishers allowing DRM-free sales if Amazon forced the issue now, even if one or two might."

- when here in Germany Amazon is the ONLY major distributer that still uses hard DRM, and ALL the other major labels already resorted to no DRM layer and instead selling watermarked epubs.

While you dream of Amazon "forcing the major publishers into the DRM free future" - we here experience Amazon as the sole proprietor of hard DRM doubling down and closing the file format, so even if the DRM layer gets removed by crackers, no one is able to access it - while cutting all the public distribution and production out of all public or private sector and becoming the sole proprietor of the new eBook. (There are no stakes that are distributed anymore - they all have been retracted and centralized.)

I hope this serves as some form of reality check to you - and I really urge you to think hard about if you wan't to ban the only progressive voice that thought more than two minutes about what the current changes mean, and why they are implemented - just so your reverse engineer guy can claim in five years from now - that he never said, that .kfx was "unfit for archival purposes" - and you made me not only retract the claim, that he ever just as much as hinted at it, but then edit the initial posting where I made it, and then banned me for not editing a second one - because - thats fair.

If thats your vision on what standpoints are important to hold up in the digitalization process ("digital revolution") in the coming years, I can tell you that your engineers will sport the whitest of vests all year round, because all interpretations of their statements will have been individually censored - but with none of you having any idea - what a change like "switching to a proprietary book format" means at the societal level -

-- and with none of you willing to discuss it openly besides the "there are still alternatives, arent there?" angle - this will become a veritable horrorshow.

I need the freedom to develop arguments, and that includes not being hazed by moderators that would like to force me to self censor three threads in a row (not even kidding), because the reverse engineers hands havent been washed clean from any political ambition enough, and someone could still mistakingly...

I can't fulfill the role of the "instigator" and "person that thinks about stuff like this on the societal level as well" - when the moderation squad of this community would only allow me to exist if I selfcensor, ever so often - three times in a row, with my hands forced and my mouth shut.

I still maintain, that very few people in here have grasped the issues (as Amazon cuts degrees of freedom, slowly but surely) - and that perhaps its more valuable to have a free voice talk about that, than to clean the name of the reverse engineer, beyond any reasonable doubt from ever having said anything of substance - when it comes to weighing the public properties of Amazons new publication format.

Also - seriously, - not knowing who wants the walled garden to be established and why (Amazon or publishers) can be simply solved by broadening your horizon and looking at whats happening in other countries.

Or by asking the question how publishers probably would react to Amazons "only we can create the main format for our walled garden" project. It was a damn near miracle, that they didn't react earlier. They get cut out of the occasion entirely - they don't produce their own final product anymore - only Amazon does. They can't sell (.kfx) books anymore, only Amazon can. They can't know what the final product looks like, only Amazon can. They can't decide when the final product is ready for release, but Amazon will do that for them. Gladly. Welcome to .kfx. Welcome to Kindle.

Also - if you would be so kind to not mistake DRM with Amazons move to close down the file format - i've seen it confused in this topic a few times too often already.

Here is your difference - when you are Amazon and just have locked away a public domain book in a .kfx container - just so it's got hyphens and ligatures - and you can sell it with a markup, but made it proprietary again, just doing that, guess what - you didn't need a DRM layer to impose a metric s-ton of rights restrictions, just over the format. Not over the DRM layer.

I'm fine with keeping a DRM layer - publishers might actually need it. But don't make "the book" proprietary again - and then count on a community that just comes to grips right about now - that .txt and .doc, might not be adequate eBook formats going forward.

Seriously - start using your little grey cells now.

I don't wan't to live in a "service future", where books have become proprietary licensable goods again you can "check out" if you are in good standings with a fortune 50 company - in exchange for the same amount of money as in the olden days, and them having access to your reading history, reading speed, bookmarks, annotations, ...

I understand that some of you already have embodied this future and are now pointing at the cornerstore - saying - what do you want, there are still SOME alternatives - but this might not be enough.

Apart from that you made sure to whitewash your devs from having made any statement that could be seen as containing any controversial (although factual) meaning, and banned the guy that talked about it for three days for not selfcensoring his topics "good enough" - after the fact. (#totalcomplience)

Also - please start thinking about who is trying to establish a walled garden ecosystem, and who will be benefiting from that in mid to long term. Don't use DRM to signify "all the bad things", and at the same time ignore that the Kindle main file format has gone proprietary, is being scrambled, and more than arguably, no - factually, is already unfit for archival purposes - while being auto delivered to millions of eReaders.