B&N removed download option on all books in "My Nook" library

[GreenMonkey]

Well this is the end of me buying books from B&N. I always preferred buying epub, I liked the Nooks better than the Kindles, and so when I bought I preferred to buy in epub that way I wouldn't have any conversion errors in my books.

It's obvious though the direction they are heading. There's no telling how long Nook for PC will allow you to download epubs.

This is the same reason I bailed on Microsoft this gen in video game consoles. Pretty obvious where they were going with DRM (even though they backpeddled).

I'm glad I have a "DRM strip before download" rule for myself, my books are backed up in Calibre with a copy of my library made intermittently to both my OneDrive and an external HDD.

Looks like it's time to start buying Amazon again. I don't like the market power they have here, but Kobo already is pushing towards kepubs, B&N is obviously pushing away from allowing you to download epubs, so that doesn't leave anyone besides Google Books (which I do buy from sometimes).

It's the path of least resistance anyway, I'm normally wallowing in Amazon GCs.

[JSWolf]

One thing I can easily see at Amazon is losing access to any eBooks sold by Hatchette because of this feud they are having especially once the DoJ gets involved when the author's united whines to the DoJ about how Amazon is costing them money.

No matter where your eBooks were purchased, download them right away, strip the DRM, back them up. Then you'll be safe.

Every so often, I redownload because some eBooks do get updated and we do not get notified, but if we download our purchased eBooks, we do get the updated copies. This happened at Amazon, B&N, & Kobo. The other shops I have eBooks purchased from are out of business. This includes eBooks from Sony & Fictionwise. There are some from BooksOnBoard that I cannot redownload and some other shops that are not out of business.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Froide

The current count (as of this morning) is 73 books. This number includes the types eschwartz described as well as books that include audio features, such as those labeled, "A Sing 'N Count Book" or "Free Audio Book Inside".

Didn't think of those, thanks for the correction.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by crane3

If I had to reformat the C: drive (boot drive) in windows as a reinstall of win7 or install of "win 9" next year, will I need to re-download the kindle books again? I don't see any way to have the books downloaded to a different & "safer" place as in another drive; no configuration of the Kindle app that I can see.

I will be doing the DeDRM for Calibre to reformat to epub then to my Nook HD+ & Nexus 7 where I will do the reading using the Aldiko reader. At this point, I will still have the ebooks & hopefully won't need to reference the books that may no longer be on the reformatted drive.

Never liked the way B&N handled their books in the Nook 1st edition in separate places for B&N books & books from other vendors. Amazon looks to be doing the same thing!

But the biggest problem is to have everything stupidly installed on the boot drive which will be reformatted when doing a "clean" install of a new OS (or reinstall of an old OS).

As you saw, there is a way to switch the My Kindle Content folder... but if you are reformatting your drive, I would recommend in general that you backup everything you can first, regardless.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by taustin

Two weeks ago, that was true of Barnes & Noble, too.

Things can change. Without notice. For reasons that have nothing to do with giving a damn about the customer.

You're missing the point, Blossom was saying that keeping the books downloaded through K4PC is not necessary -- if all your books are in calibre, then calibre is your backup (possibly multiply redundant backup, depending on how many places it is synced to) and there is no need to keep additional copies in K4PC.

K4PC should be used solely as a pipeline to move books into calibre. My ideal setup (if I didn't have a Kindle Touch) would have them automatically sent to K4PC when bought, which is the default if you don't have another Kindle, and whenever K4PC is opened, it will sync and download any books which the Amazon servers have queued for delivery; then calibre will auto-add from the My Kindle Content folder, and delete them from K4PC in order to prevent duplication, because K4PC is nothing to me but a 3rd-party pseudo-plugin to calibre for downloading from Kindle Cloud.

(I have a Kindle Touch though so I use that instead, together with a complex backup regimen which encompasses annotations and other weird stuff.)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by taustin

I don't. Until B&N did this, they have always been far friendlier to the consumer who wants to stroll outside the walled garden than Amazon. Far, far friendlier. Amazon wants to be the only source of everything for everyone, and they want that to be because there is no other place to buy anything. They're smarter than B&N, though, so they don't do stuff that produces the exact opposite result of what they want.

True, true. After all, B&N lets you put whatever you want on your Kindle, whereas last I checked, Amazon partitioned your Kindle to reserve most of the storage exclusively for Amazon-downloaded books.

And only a fool would think that the only restrictions on putting whatever you want on any ereader you want -- barring partitioned userstores -- is the DRM, something which, incidentally, is all Amazon's fault too, because it is Amazon forcing the publishers to use DRM in order to lock people into the Amazon closed garden*.

Oh, wait.

And that is the only real difference, all of a sudden, between Amazon and B&N: Amazon is a lot smarter. But both have their own financial interests at heart, far more than yours or mine. And the moment that Amazon feels they can make more money by turning off downloads, they'll turn off downloads. And their ecosystem is set up to make that easier for them to do, where B&N's was designed from the start to be more friendly to hacking.

Let's not focus on which device is designed to be more hackable. Let's focus on which device has been hacked more.

* please ignore the lowness of those walls, thankyouverymuch.

[GtrsRGr8]

My 2 cents' (it may not be worth that much) worth about Barnes & Noble's recent actions. I am assuming that what has happened is not some temporary glitch (I don't think that it is) but is something intentional on their part . . . .

Yes, it is infuriating. I am really ticked off.

I have to wonder about the legality of it. We have bought these books with them having certain features, download-ability being one of them. B&N has taken away from us something that we have purchased. IMHO what they've done is tantamount to theft. If it's not illegal, it should be.

If it is illegal, I hope that someone will bring a class-action lawsuit against them.

Unfortunately, digital things are still relatively new, and the laws still have not caught up to the realities of the digital experience. They're in a state of flux. Maybe what they've done is not illegal--yet.

But then there is this little matter of the "terms and conditions" that I'm sure that all of us had to agree to for the privilege of giving B&N our money. I don't remember there being an agreement, but I'm sure that there was one. Can you remember a piece of software that you downloaded/installed, an account on a website that you established, et al. where there wasn't one to which you had to agree? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Did anyone in here actually read what you were agreeing to? Has anyone gone back and read the terms and conditions since then? Yeah, I thought not. I haven't either. I bet you dollars to donuts that there is something in the terms and conditions that allows B&N to jolly-well do about anything that they want to do. Taking away our download option on the books is bound to be one of them.

I'm not a lawyer, and I haven't even played one on TV (you might have to be pretty old to understand the reference there). But, I'm sure that even if the law(s) give us the right to keep the download-ability, we may be giving up our rights by virtue of something that we agreed to with B&N at the outset of our relationship with them.

The dust needs to settle a bit--maybe quite a bit--before there is clarity on this matter. What we can do in the meantime is to pester B&N to no end. That has caused companies to change their minds many times before! I hope that everyone in here will write emails (real letters if they can bring themselves to do it. ack!) and call B&N's customer service, at least. As soon as I'm finished with this post, I'm planning to see if their customer service is open (it's late where I'm at in the U.S.) and, if it is, let them know what I think.

Thank you for reading.

[GtrsRGr8]

A webpage with Barnes & Noble's "terms and conditions of use":

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/include/terms_of_use.asp


A webpage giving information about how to contact their customer service. It looks like there is no phone number, but there is chat (unavailable right now because of the lateness of the hour):

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/customerservice/contactus

I'll try to see if I can't dig up a customer service phone number for them somewhere. Does anyone happen to have one?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I'll try to see if I can't dig up a customer service phone number for them somewhere. Does anyone happen to have one?

Call Us
Monday - Friday, 8 am to 11 pm ET. Saturday & Sunday, 9 am to 11 pm ET.
Customer Service Center: 1-800-THE-BOOK (1-800-843-2665)
International Customers: 201-559-3882

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

My 2 cents' (it may not be worth that much) worth about Barnes & Noble's recent actions. I am assuming that what has happened is not some temporary glitch (I don't think that it is) but is something intentional on their part . . . .

Yes, it is infuriating. I am really ticked off.

I have to wonder about the legality of it. We have bought these books with them having certain features, download-ability being one of them. B&N has taken away from us something that we have purchased. IMHO what they've done is tantamount to theft. If it's not illegal, it should be.

If it is illegal, I hope that someone will bring a class-action lawsuit against them.

Unfortunately, digital things are still relatively new, and the laws still have not caught up to the realities of the digital experience. They're in a state of flux. Maybe what they've done is not illegal--yet.

There was no Terms when I bought 95% of my books from Fictionwise. I could have them in as many formats or download them at any time. For them to take away my books like that yes it feels illegal but as you say unless we all do a class action against them they will get away with it.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

A webpage with Barnes & Noble's "terms and conditions of use":

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/include/terms_of_use.asp


A webpage giving information about how to contact their customer service. It looks like there is no phone number, but there is chat (unavailable right now because of the lateness of the hour):

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/customerservice/contactus

I'll try to see if I can't dig up a customer service phone number for them somewhere. Does anyone happen to have one?

That's the website terms of use - here's the Nook terms of use http://www.barnesandnoble.com/includ...of_service.asp

[robko]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

We have bought these books with them having certain features, download-ability being one of them. B&N has taken away from us something that we have purchased. IMHO what they've done is tantamount to theft. If it's not illegal, it should be.

I totally agree with the sentiment of your post, the problem is that you DIDN'T PURCHASE the book (even though you might think you did) you only LICENSED it (which means you technically don't own it). That means they can likely change the terms and conditions (and there is likely something in the original T+C that says they can change them at will) and there is nothing you can do about it. It really sucks, but that is the current reality.

[darryl]

I don't think most people are looking at or expect a legal solution. Most people just click through without reading terms and conditions. Most of the time they are bound by them. However, in most Western Countries at least these contracts are subject to various consumer laws and laws re unconscionable conduct and the like. I'm not saying that those laws will necessarily apply here, but it is certainly open for people to complain to their local consumer authorities if they get no satisfaction from Barnes and Noble.

At the end of the day there should be few people seriously affected in relation to past purchases as there is even now time to download these books and back them up. If it is a problem with future purchases then there are alternatives.

[crane3]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

.........

No matter where your eBooks were purchased, download them right away, strip the DRM, back them up. Then you'll be safe.

.................

Actually, the DRM is for an "application" rather than a "device". I had stopped using Calibre at one point as a "bother" but found that a book on my tablet that was readable under Aldiko (DRM registered) was unreadable using my paid Moon Plus Pro.

Now the ebook was on the SAME device (tablet) in the SAME PLACE int the directory; if as claimed, DRM was for a device, tablet/ereader, then it shouldn't matter which ereader app one chooses to use or check out how another ereader behaves. Another problem was I had to redo my public library ID to be the same as the tablet in order to get the library ebook.

Adobe claims one can have multiple IDs but that didn't work on the tablet for me. At one point I was able to have both IDs displayed on the tablet but still could not get the library book.......

Anyway, decided then that I will run the strip DRM process no matter what, even if not DRM'ed as in the BAEN books and some others.

[crane3]

Originally Posted by robko

I totally agree with the sentiment of your post, the problem is that you DIDN'T PURCHASE the book (even though you might think you did) you only LICENSED it (which means you technically don't own it). That means they can likely change the terms and conditions (and there is likely something in the original T+C that says they can change them at will) and there is nothing you can do about it. It really sucks, but that is the current reality.

Guess that's why I don't see any reference on how to get the book from the "cloud" as replacement for the ones on a dead reader/tablet.