Thread: Amazon and DRM changes
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Old 01-15-2023, 07:35 PM   #473
hleo12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hyegeek View Post
It surprises me that I'm not seeing anyone mentioning the censorship issue with all of this. If you, as an author, put your book out through Amazon and add DRM to the book, you are allowing Amazon at their sole discretion to unilaterally pull you book not only from the store but from all devices that already purchased them.

If you run afoul of any of their policies, rules, or just annoy them (yes in that case, they'd have to make an excuse) they can just cancel you and what you have already achieved.

If you think that Amazon would never do such a thing, then I'd suggest you haven't been paying much attention the last few years.

Every author that I've enjoyed who has used DRM has recieved an email from me about it. Most are quite receptive and actually don't really want the DRM on their books, but their publisher insists or their publisher takes care of all of that and they don't have much input in the matter.

I'd encourage all of you to email the authors you read and express (politely) your opionon on DRM. It might not hurt to mention the censorship angle if you think it has any merit. You might be surprised at how things start to change. At least one the authors (published through a publisher) that I contacted no longer puts DRM on her books. They can and do listen.
Indie authors who chose to publish directly through Amazon won't really have a choice. Even big-name authors have a hard time getting their publishers breaking ties with Amazon.

The issue with DRM and Amazon's "censorship" aren't really related. Amazon can remove their DRM policy, but authors are still subject to Amazon's publishing rules.

Amazon deleting books from Kindle devices only happened due to someone putting the books for sale when they didn't have the rights to it. The article mentioned Amazon doing this a few times, but all of those were due to other people listing books they had no rights to. Amazon has given refunds to those who bought them.

A lot of "problematic" authors are still being sold through Amazon. I just don't see the relation between DRM and censorship.
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