Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[notimp]

@Cinisajoy:

Moderation actions should not be discussed publicly - is another one of those strange forum idiosyncrasies that have no equivalent in any modern western legal system and are just there to safeguard the public image of the wise judge, regardless of action.

The only equivalent in western law systems, where parties are bared to talk about how they see a specific decision process from their point of view, is when both sides reach an agreement outside of a court decision and the part preventing both parties to speak about the decision actually is often the reason for the party that has something to loose in the public eye to reach that. Or if they think, you are misrepresenting their actions and this could be considered libel.

So that forum mods and admins get this "for free" in online communities, without any way to have your case brought in front of a different deciding entity - is just, part of private house law, that states "if you don't behave like we think you should, we are a private site, so we can ban you from publicly voicing your opinion - on probably the most important online community in this field, simply on grounds of not liking you". (Or thinking it will produce dissent, or lessen our authority.) Private law rulez.

I notice that this is a common rule in most forums, its just not in the spirit of the open internet, or western law systems, that tend to defend free speech and are based on a principle of power distribution. A forum is not.
-

Before I answer Cinisajoy's questions, I have to address the hackling attempt of @darryl - if you wan't to tell participents in this forum that it has a negative cachée to even talk to me - say so directly, don't try to discredit the "patience" other people show in here to engage on the issue. And preferably try to act like you are making the point to my face - and not to the "community" behind my back - as If I'm not likely to read what you are trying to do here.

Thats another form of politics - btw, called "beating on people without much public support" - or populism, a term thats just become more important to talk about in the last year alone.

Now to the questions. And thank you for reading the long post.

1. Who's pricing policy? Amazon does not set the prices, the publisher does.

You are correct, its the publishers pricing policy. I addressed it, because people are kept under the impression that with eBooks they are still buying books. With music and "digital downloads" (mostly as mp3s and not in a proprietary Amazon format, funny how that works - ) most people at least gage, that there is a difference. And they should pay less - for less. This has another angle from the german perspective as well, as in our case ebooks still fall under whats called "Buchpreisbindung" which is a regulation that maintains, that all books have to be sold for the same price (- to give smaller independent book distributers an economic advantage - funny, I wonder why that had to be regulated in the past (*hint**hint*centralization of public knowledge in private entities)). So our ebook prices are actually the same as the print book equivalent, so the contrast of the public being shortsold, by getting an unreadable binary for execution on a registered Amazon ereader instead of a Book is especially harsh. Also - I know that Amazon was maybe THE driver in n attempt to get ebook prices down, simply because to them they cost nothing. Distribution is basically free. And users pay for their internet. (edit: Remember they also had a internal strategy paper leak on establishing a "used eBook" market at one point? It basically stated, that - yes, we'd like to do that for a fee as well, because to us it costs absolutely nothing.)

2. On public domain books, Amazon is not the only place to get them.

The example there was made to underline the difference between closing down the main eBook format and making it proprietary - and DRM. Because for some reason its easy to sell to people that DRM is bad (it isn't entirely) - but if you start talking about the importance of keeping the file format open so other people besides the Amazon company can understand and even sell it - people space out. As far as the argument goes, yes you are right - but if the "most easy" way for people to get a public domain book is to "order" it in a proprietary file format - chances are that they will do that. Fast forward 10 years and look what people have in their "possession" and we are falling straight into the problem again. Its not like open formats can "compete" on the Kindle platform in nearly the same fashion.

3. You say you want a discussion but you have not said what we are supposed to do about this format.

I can tell you the recommendation I have given in the german web forum I am "originating from" and where my word counts at least a little, and that is to stop buying Amazons eReaders and eBooks, and laugh into the faces of people that are boasting with having bought one, because "if we dont" (I'm citing myself) the ebook as a "public good" (as part of the properties of a book) will probably be gone in five to ten years.

"But look there are still alternatives -" (Making the counter argument here.. ) Yes, part of why I can make the statement above in Germany is, that it is a much easier sell, to tell people to buy eBooks in an open format, with hard DRM on it, or with watermarks and no DRM at all, if there is that perspective.

In english speaking countries, Amazon has aquired much more market share and therefore dominance (you can "afford it" to release only on Amazon), and there is no immediate upshot like "you don't have to deal with hard DRM if you don't want to" you can motivate them with. Because of that "ease of use ("softlock to the ecosystem") wins every time - we even see it in here.

4. As to my comment about what formats one likes to read in was very relevant to the number of formats there are.

Interestingly, I had a similar discussion recently. The amount of "formats there are" account for nothing. Even the amount of formats "eReaders support" doesnt account for much. The reason being, that with .txt you have no layout standards that hold them to not use hard linebreaks - so .txt on eReaders might be rendered broken, in fact it is common that they are. With .docs - there is no standard that would hold Parsers to even "display the entire text". In .docs you got a comment function, a track correction function, textfields, and plenty of other stuff that almost never will be rendered on a "compatible eReader" - so there is a reasonable expectation of not "seeing the entire text" on an eReader.

The extended version of this argument concerns "ebook features" and that the manufacturer is only ever interested in further developing one format - and that this should be a format thats also publicly understood and usable without writing up a contract with Amazon. If you don't want to "rebuy" your books, because in future releases the have "better readability" - you have to make sure that the "most current" eBook format in an ecosystem stays open. (Either by design or by reverse engineering.) Probably the largest part of getting this to happen is, that you make sure that you have distributed stakes in the file format. Ie - that multiple instances and people have the means to produce it (publishers, authors, hobbyists, ...) Amazon has "turned that off" with .kfx and centralized the process entirely - as by now, we hopefully all understand.

5. I should really report your previous post for violating the rule on publicly discussing moderators decisions.

See the first paragraphs of this post.

6. Will you please in one or two sentences tell us what we should do about that format?

Not use it, not buy it - and not hold up Amazons charity "legacy format download portal for informed users" up as a valid solution. I know that it is hard to talk formats in a "service economy" - but no, you are not buying the right to an azw3 or a mobi, anywhere in the contract - those are breadcrumbs Amazon is giving out easing the transition.

You can identify it as a transition more easily if you look at azw3 and mobi as what they are - legacy formats (azw3 basically replaced mobi, and this community didn't even flinch, when they lost ixtabs hyphenation and border hacks - because .mobi was soooo out at the time - but now, while the entire (give me that rhetorical vice) Amazon economy runs on .kfx - people suddenly think that azw3 is this "special standard" that has almost ever lasting appeal -

as soon as people arent willing to buy azw3s anymore - because they miss ease of use, or "features", you already have lost without noticing (and Amazon decides both, when they stop legacy format support on Kindles and in the "hidden" distribution portal, that makes it so easy to get a "book" out of their ecosystem still, you just, log in - twice, that download a file to a computer, or a legacy Kindle, then you take out your USB cable -- and have your usage of that model protocoled until Amazon decides they can cut it, because it doesn't make any economical sense for them to keep it up. Like - tomorrow).

Thinking that a web portal from the nineties, and a process that involves a computer and a USB cable is "the way into the future", is pretty much - I don't wan't to say delusional again, but - well, you know my stance...

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by notimp

<snip>

I don't know about self-censoring threads or being kept silent by moderators, because I haven't read any other of your threads. Your complaint may be legitimate, or not. I don't know.

In many countries, removing DRM or providing tools to remove DRM is illegal. That is the reason why DRM is only discussed lightly here, and removal options are only hinted upon, such as "Search for Apprentice Alf". Nobody here wants to have complaints filed against the forum for providing a way to pirate e-books.

That will probably be the reason moderators don't let you say anything you want about DRM; not because they want to censor _you_ in particular, but because they want to keep this forum up and running.

If an organization such as BREIN (the Dutch anti-piracy organization, founded and funded by, mainly, big movie/book/music publishers) comes after you, you're history. MobileRead is not in the Netherlands; it's in Canada, IIRC, but they probably have anti-piracy organizations there too.

This forum is not the place to fight against DRM; it can only make people aware of it and the negatives of it, so people can go and research this. Then they can either learn how to remove DRM, or decide to buy DRM-free only.

But dude... with regard to DRM, you're preaching to the choir here.

God knows I've actually had some warnings because I go as far as forum rules allow with regard to DRM; and sometimes farther.

I for one, can tell you that I never buy anything that has unremovable DRM. I buy DRM-free stuff, or stuff where DRM can be easily removed (EPUB's at Kobo, social DRM). I don't buy books at Amazon, precisely because they refuse to use EPUB and keep changing formats from MOBI to AZW3 to KFX (and they even have others).

[Cinisajoy]

Read long post. Will answer tomorrow when I have more time.

Though I will say we do sort of agree on one point.
"If you don't like what a company does, don't buy from them."

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by notimp

Thats another form of politics - btw, called "beating on people without much public support" - or populism, a term thats just become more important to talk about in the last year alone.

I don't know that populism necessarily equates with "beating on people without much public support." What exactly do you mean by populism in this case?

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

That will probably be the reason moderators don't let you say anything you want about DRM; not because they want to censor _you_ in particular, but because they want to keep this forum up and running.

There are far more in-depth discussions of DRM on these forums than on this thread. That is not why noimp was suspended.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

But dude... with regard to DRM, you're preaching to the choir here.

The issue is noimp is "preaching" an anti-Amazon message to a very pro-Amazon choir.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

There are far more in-depth discussions of DRM on these forums than on this thread. That is not why noimp was suspended.



The issue is noimp is "preaching" an anti-Amazon message to a very pro-Amazon choir.

None of us know why he was suspended but I suspect it was more behind the scenes than out front.



I know when I have screwed up here, a moderator has always messaged me to let me know either what action they took or needed me to take.
There was once I would have gotten suspended if I had taken an attitude with the mods in pm.

And before you ask, yes I was suspended once over something I said.
I got a lot done that week. I didn't whine or complain and I dang sure didn't feel it was unfair.
The mods were doing what they thought was in everyone's best interest including mine.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by notimp

@Cinisajoy:
Before I answer Cinisajoy's questions, I have to address the hackling attempt of @darryl - if you wan't to tell participents in this forum that it has a negative cachée to even talk to me - say so directly, don't try to discredit the "patience" other people show in here to engage on the issue. And preferably try to act like you are making the point to my face - and not to the "community" behind my back - as If I'm not likely to read what you are trying to do here.

A public post is hardly behind your back. Simple manners not to mention forum rules do limit what I should say publicly. I hope what I am about to say now does not overstep the boundaries. If so, I shall respect the decision of the moderators whether or not I agree with it. In the past I have made my opinions about your posts very clear. I grew frustrated by your continual failure to engage. By your tactic of allowing the thread to die and then coming back after weeks or months preaching the same old line, as if in the hope that members had forgotten the unanswered criticisms. Others have criticised the rambling long-winded manner in which you write. I personally find some of your posts almost incomprehensible and sometimes find myself guessing at your meaning. I gave up trying to get you to engage and have a reasonable discussion with you, and was quite frankly hoping that members would ignore your posts and allow this thread to die quietly. Cinisajoy persists in trying to get you to engage, and I am genuinely in awe of her patience. You seem to see yourself as some sort of visionary in this whole area and quite frankly I just don't see it. I would be delighted if she managed to drag from you a concise and comprehensible statement of your position and a worthwhile discussion was to ensue. Even at this late stage and all that has passed. But I'm not holding my breath.

[pdurrant]

I believe that notimp's position is that Amazon are working to completely control the retail ebook format, so that when Kindles become the only ebook device available, Amazon'll be the only ones able to supply content for the devices, and all publishers and authors will need to go through Amazon to sell ebooks to the public.

As a consequence, notimp believes that all MobileRead members should stop buying devices and content from Amazon immediately, and that all MobileRead members should encourage everyone else to boycott Amazon for ebooks as well.

It's possible I have mis-stated his position. This is just my interpretation, based on what he's posted. I'd be happy for notimp to post a (concise!) correction if I have misunderstood.

[darryl]

@pdurrant. Not a bad summary of what seems to have emerged as his position. Though I seem to recall also an Authors United type position that Amazon is a threat to culture and freedom of expression which seems to be missing from later posts. With the normal accompanying position that regulatory intervention is required urgently. I too would be happy for him to confirm or correct this provided it is done in a coherent and concise fashion.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've seen a report at Alf's blog that there's a new version of Kindle for PC/MAC — 1.19 — which is incompatible with the current tools. I only have 1.17, which works fine. I wondered if anyone here had seen/has version 1.19 and what their experience was with it.

You can download Kindle for PC 1.19 using a link from this page. I haven't had time to play around with it much, but I did notice that it now downloads books in KFX format.

(I'll post more about this in the "news" section.)

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by darryl

A public post is hardly behind your back. Simple manners not to mention forum rules do limit what I should say publicly. I hope what I am about to say now does not overstep the boundaries. If so, I shall respect the decision of the moderators whether or not I agree with it. In the past I have made my opinions about your posts very clear. I grew frustrated by your continual failure to engage. By your tactic of allowing the thread to die and then coming back after weeks or months preaching the same old line, as if in the hope that members had forgotten the unanswered criticisms. Others have criticised the rambling long-winded manner in which you write. I personally find some of your posts almost incomprehensible and sometimes find myself guessing at your meaning. I gave up trying to get you to engage and have a reasonable discussion with you, and was quite frankly hoping that members would ignore your posts and allow this thread to die quietly. Cinisajoy persists in trying to get you to engage, and I am genuinely in awe of her patience. You seem to see yourself as some sort of visionary in this whole area and quite frankly I just don't see it. I would be delighted if she managed to drag from you a concise and comprehensible statement of your position and a worthwhile discussion was to ensue. Even at this late stage and all that has passed. But I'm not holding my breath.

After much persistence and way too much verbiage, he did finally say that people should quit buying from Amazon so I got my answer.
And totally agreeing with Paul on his thinking.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I believe that notimp's position is that Amazon are working to completely control the retail ebook format, so that when Kindles become the only ebook device available, Amazon'll be the only ones able to supply content for the devices, and all publishers and authors will need to go through Amazon to sell ebooks to the public.

I don't think that is a particularly controversial assertion. Companies like to dominate, and Amazon stated that from their inception by their choice of name: Amazon, the biggest river.

But I'm not sure that noimp is stating _exactly_ that. I'm sure he'll respond. But for my part, I don't think Amazon wants to _totally_ dominate the market-place as that may lead them open to accusations of monopoly and resulting legal action and breakup. For example, Windows invested in Apple when it was down on its luck to keep a token competitor in the market. Amazon don't want to totally dominate the market, but they want to effectively dominate it by having a massive (but not quite monopoly share) of the market. It seems to me that kfx and a proprietary private format are a natural strategy with that goal in mind.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Amazon don't want to totally dominate the market, but they want to effectively dominate it by having a massive (but not quite monopoly share) of the market. It seems to me that kfx and a proprietary private format are a natural strategy with that goal in mind.

With the ineptness some of their competitors exhibit I doubt they need KFX for that.

[darryl]

Of course Amazon wants to dominate and wants as many transactions as possible to go through them. This is the nature of a commercial enterprise. Amazon's sin seems to be that they are actually on track to achieve this, whilst their opposition wallows in their wake. The walled-garden model seems to give the overwhelming majority what they want. Convenience, but convenience that comes at a price. Were notimp calling for a boycott of all drm infected material it would at least be logically consistent, though neither practical or effective even if implemented by those few who care. EFF, amongst others, has been loudly and publicly protesting DRM for years. Their "Defective by Design" campaign is fabulous. The problem is that all but a very few of us don't care. Even if DRM becomes fully effective and cannot be broken, still people will not care. Personally I'm not into harming myself for the sake of making futile gestures.

So why has notimp directed his misguided fury only at Amazon. His earlier posts seem to indicate, at least to me, an Authors United type view of Amazon as a threat to culture, narrowing diversity. This argument has been done to death so I will answer it here with the simple statement that it has no merit whatsoever. If you want more information on this I can recommend no better place than Joe Konrath's blog where he fisks the Authors United letters and discusses so-called Zombie Memes.

And then, of course, we have the .kfx format. Another reason for notimp's call to boycott Amazon. Personally I see little difference between a kfx file and an epub encrypted with Adobe's new drm for these purposes. But, like Adobe's new drm, kfx was and still is a great cause for concern. It was considered in detail by many of us, not just notimp. Including people with much greater knowledge of this area and the format than myself. The sensible view which emerged was that reverse engineering or cracking the format if it was to happen would happen when Amazon stopped allowing the download of other formats. A boycott was simply not a serious option for the reasons I have stated above. It is still not a serious option, unless you are in to self-deprivation and futile gestures.

Today jhowell tells us that the latest verision of K4PC downloads kfx. As I understand things this could be a blessing or a curse. On the one hand one more source of kf8 and older files is gone or almost gone. We are one stiep closer to Amazon, if they choose to do so, restricting downloads to only kfx files, which as of the time of posting cannot be read on non-Amazon products, cannot be converted and cannot have drm removed. On the other hand, those who are able to legally reverse engineer the system have gained another invaluable resource to assist them in doing so.

[Pajamaman]

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...263902&page=32

Starting with version 1.19, Kindle for PC will download books in KFX format and display them with enhanced typesetting.

Now you can only download a kfx via K4PC. We knew it was coming, and some of what noimp said has come to pass. I will be interested to see if this changes buying habits among mobileread users.