When you are locked out of your $1000 worth Amazon library.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by rhadin

One other thing. I don't know how easy it is to remove DRM from Amazon ebooks as I have never tried, but it is very easy to make an ebook with B&N's version of Adobe DRM compatible with what my Sonys can read as well as what a Kobo device can read.

Seems to me to be a big difference, even if not a perfect world.

It's just as easy, so no difference there.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

From what understand, someone hack the amazon account, so amazon lock it to prevent disaster. Now the actual owner is having trouble to re-claim his account.

It's not an amazon only problem. Even adobe DRM can mess up.
That's why my books are on my hard drive, after i get rid of drm. And backuped on my NAS hard drive.

I also suspect a Hack attack.

I have had 3 friends get their e-mail/ISP account hacked (all the same type: My wallet and Passport were stolen and I am stuck in the UK... Please send money.)

The first thing the hackers did, was request password resets on all subscriptions (they can respond to the change request e-mail) they found references to, so Now you don't have access to fix your subscribed services.

(Learned) Rule 1: Keep an alternate account to be able to notify your friends if this happens.
Rule 2: Don't have any reference to that Alternate accounts in the Address book or stored documents.
Rule 3: Keep LOCAL a backup (thumb drive) of any online address book in case you lose access or it becomes (deliberately) corrupted.
Rule4: Don't store online, any list/mail showing what subscription you have (again use the ENCRYPTED thumb drive).

[JoeD]

I agree that it would be silly for a company to sue someone for stripping DRM on a product they've bought for the purpose of continued use of that product, but that doesn't mean it won't happen and be a costly affair to defend yourself, nor does it mean the person who has lost access to their account is an idiot for not doing so. Also, it doesn't mean the person who makes and distributes those tools everyone relies on to safe guard their purchases are any safer from prosecution. What would everyone say if AA stopped providing tools because of court threats and the existing tools become obsolete?

People in general don't know much if anything about DRM until it bites them, companies go out of their way to hide that it even exists or what its impact can have. There may very well be a lot of amazon customers now googling how to backup their purchases as a result of this story, who previously only stored a couple of books on their device and left the rest "backed up" in the archive. I don't think they're idiots for not having known to do so before hand.

I've always removed drm on my purchases for various reasons, initially because my device wasn't compatible with the drm but now I have one that is, I remove it incase I later buy a replacement that isn't or I lose access to my account. But I as many of you on here are fully aware of the implications of DRM. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who isn't (which is a lot of people) who are attracted to the kindle/amazon because it's trivial to use.

Yes there may be more to this story than has been reported, but based on what the article said, if amazon has refused to explain why the account is locked and if/when he would regain access, I see no reason for him not to dispute all the charges for the books he's lost access to.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by JoeD

Yes there may be more to this story than has been reported

I'd say that it is pretty certain we aren't getting the whole story.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Unlike Amazon DRM that is readable only by Amazon products, the Adobe DRM is readable by most, if not all, devices that handle DRMed ePub.

Amazon products like the iPad and any Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. Amazon products like Android tablets, Windows phones, and even rooted Nooks?

Also, it has been my experience that every Adobe DRMed ebook I have bought has been downloaded to my computer and thus locally stored, even those I bought at B&N and Sony. Although with Sony 950 I can redownload from Sony's cloud service, I can also sideload the ebook from my PC. And my wife, who uses my Sony 505, which doesn't have wireless capabilities, can access the same books I can except that I need to sideload them.

One other thing. I don't know how easy it is to remove DRM from Amazon ebooks as I have never tried, but it is very easy to make an ebook with B&N's version of Adobe DRM compatible with what my Sonys can read as well as what a Kobo device can read.

Seems to me to be a big difference, even if not a perfect world.

None of this has any relevance at all. If the guy's books were on his computer, or on his device, he wouldn't have any issues. The problem is that he (allegedly) kept all of his books on Amazon's cloud and can't access them since he is locked out of his account.

Originally Posted by rhadin

What could possibly be so "very, very bad" regarding ebooks as to warrant denial of access to already purchased and paid for ebooks? My imaginaion simply cannot come up with such a scenario.

Maybe the card used to open the account was reported stolen. Maybe the account was hacked. There are any number of possibilities.

And, again, he is not being denied access to books he has downloaded or books he has on his device. Only books he kept in the cloud and nowhere else.

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Do you know of anyone who has ever been charged or sued for removing DRM for his or her own personal use?

Removing DRM from a file that one has bought and spent money on for ones own personal use cannot be shown to have done any harm to the vendor. So if one was charged or sued the case would be laughed out of court.

Please remember, the DMCA is a CRIMINAL statute, not a Civil one. They don't have to show damages in a Criminal case, merely that you broke the law. The law also calls for penalties of restitution, so yes, that might be low or zero, but that doesn't change the fact that the DMCA is criminal law, not civil.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by bwaldron

I'd say that it is pretty certain we aren't getting the whole story.

Agreed.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Originally Posted by JoeD

...nor does it mean the person who has lost access to their account is an idiot for not doing so.

*snip*

People in general don't know much if anything about DRM until it bites them, companies go out of their way to hide that it even exists or what its impact can have. There may very well be a lot of amazon customers now googling how to backup their purchases as a result of this story, who previously only stored a couple of books on their device and left the rest "backed up" in the archive. I don't think they're idiots for not having known to do so before hand.

Exactly. I think it's pretty rich that people are calling the customer an idiot. Most people who adopt ereaders are older. They're used to a far more honest system: you pay for it, it's yours.

My generation's system goes a little more like this: you pay for it, and we allow you to touch it, but only until we want it back or decide we need more money and devise a way to make you buy it all over again.

You're calling the customer an idiot for getting screwed by a business? This is sort of like the consumer version of "well, with that top she was wearing, she was asking for it."

Amazon, their competition, and the publishers are loving the fact that the first ebook adopters are older and less tech-savvy than the first mp3 adopters were. It means they can get away with screwing customers for a little bit longer, while older users figure out how to protect themselves like the youngsters and the geeks already have. In the mean time, they've got plenty of time to lobby the government to make the act of users protecting themselves illegal.

And they're supposed to just magically know this how? How did you find out about it? It's not like companies have ever been particularly forthcoming about the fact that they DRM, or what their DRM's can actually do to you and your content.

I learned by getting bitten. Like most people did. And, probably, like most of you did.

I think it's really odd that you're reading about someone who has basically been suckered out of a fairly large sum of money by a company, and your first reaction is to blame the customer for not breaking the law in order to protect themselves from said company. A company, no less, that is well-known to be untrustworthy even by the people who rave about how awesome they are.

Do you not see what's wrong with that?

1. Why are you blaming the paying customer for the company's actions?
2. Why are you acting like it's normal and acceptable for companies to be this bad to their customers, and customers should compensate for that?
3. Why are you encouraging illegal behavior over, oh, I dunno, maybe pushing the company to be better to its customers?
4. How do some of you not see how your attitude of "blame the victim" relates to increased piracy?

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by SmokeAndMirrors

rant

Why do you take this story at full face value? While I'm not condoning Amazon's actions, but neither am I condemning them. I can guarantee you that there is more to this story than what was relayed in the story.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

Why do you take this story at full face value? While I'm not condoning Amazon's actions, but neither am I condemning them. I can guarantee you that there is more to this story than what was relayed in the story.

What the details of it are don't really matter to what my post was about - I'm responding to other people's reactions, who are taking it at face value. I'm not responding to the situation itself.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Exactly the same is true on the Kindle, Jon. You will either have a copy of the file on your PC (if you're reading it on Kindle for PC) or on your Kindle reader. In either case, the file is trivially accessible (in the "My Documents/My Kindle Content" folder in the first case, in the "documents" folder on the Kindle in the 2nd case). The only situation in which you may not have easy access to the book is if you're reading on an Apple device.

You can delete the eBooks from the computer and let Amazon archive them for you.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by rhadin

What could possibly be so "very, very bad" regarding ebooks as to warrant denial of access to already purchased and paid for ebooks? My imaginaion simply cannot come up with such a scenario.

My imagination can come up with lots. Let's start with buying said books with a stolen credit card.

Not sayin' that's what happened, but it is an example.

It is obvious from the sad lack of detail that there is much more to the story.

In fact, it could all be a bunch of b.s.

Whose word do we have that it isn't?

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by SmokeAndMirrors

I think it's really odd that you're reading about someone who has basically been suckered out of a fairly large sum of money by a company, and your first reaction is to blame the customer for not breaking the law in order to protect themselves from said company, who are well-known to be untrustworthy even by the people who rave about how awesome they are.

Do you not see what's wrong with that?

1. Why are you blaming the paying customer for the company's actions?

Because companies don't piss of their paying customers without good reason. That would be bad for business.

Anyone who has ever worked in Customer Service for a company that does business online has been in a situation where an order or account has been blocked due to account activity that looks exactly like identity theft or credit card fraud. The customer then calls in to Customer Service, and SCREAMS. They cuss, they swear, they threaten chargebacks and legal action, in short, they are furious. 95% of the time, the fraud is real, and since we can't check photo ID over the phone, there is absolutely no way that we are going to lift a security hold off of the account just because a stranger tells us he is honest and we should believe him because he's honest. Screams and threats doesn't change that, neither does threats of lawsuits or of going to the press. Unfortunately, a furious customer refuses to realize this, and these support phone calls hardly ever end well.

In this case, we don't have the whole story. We never will. But it takes two to tango, and two to fight and to keep a fight going, and Amazon, like any other vendor, would not have cut off a consumer who spends $1,000 a year in their store, unless they thought (correctly or incorrectly) they had a good reason for it.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

Because companies don't piss of their paying customers without good reason. That would be bad for business.

Anyone who has ever worked in Customer Service for a company that does business online has been in a situation where an order or account has been blocked due to account activity that looks exactly like identity theft or credit card fraud. The customer then calls in to Customer Service, and SCREAMS. They cuss, they swear, they threaten chargebacks and legal action, in short, they are furious. 95% of the time, the fraud is real, and since we can't check photo ID over the phone, there is absolutely no way that we are going to lift a security hold off of the account just because a stranger tells us he is honest and we should believe him because he's honest. Screams and threats doesn't change that, neither does threats of lawsuits or of going to the press. Unfortunately, a furious customer refuses to realize this, and these support phone calls hardly ever end well.

In this case, we don't have the whole story. We never will. But it takes two to tango, and two to fight and to keep a fight going, and Amazon, like any other vendor, would not have cut off a consumer who spends $1,000 a year in their store, unless they thought (correctly or incorrectly) they had a good reason for it.

Well, two things.

First, that line of reasoning was not evident in the posters I was responding to. They were taking the article for what it says and decided the customer is to blame for the company's portrayed bad behavior. Whether it really is bad behavior? Sure, that's an open discussion. But not really pertinent to the mindset I was responding to.

Second, I don't think that's strictly true. Big companies who know their users are either far too loyal or far too locked in to leave can and do take actions that may anger their customers without really caring about it. The company itself doesn't care about the customer service rep who will get yelled at by people who don't understand it's not their fault. They don't care if they make their customers angry - because they know most of them won't leave. Look at Facebook, Windows, and, well... Amazon.

Regardless of if the customer was indeed commiting fraud or some other violation, a couple things strike me as strange.

1. Why no one told her why there was a hold, or got back to her. I've had my bank account locked for suspected fraud before (I withdrew a couple hundred bucks after I landed abroad). But when I called them and asked why my card wasn't working, they told me immediately what the hold was for and why. And it took a few hours to get it removed. Why can't Amazon do the same?

2. If someone is committing fraud and the account they're doing it through is suddenly locked I don't think they'd be shocked. And I certainly don't think they'd post it on the internet, because when the truth came out, they would obviously be the bad guy. Why would someone do that?

Not saying it's not possible - just that this whole situation is screwed up.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by SmokeAndMirrors

Not saying it's not possible - just that this whole situation is screwed up.

Very much so.

And admittedly, my opinion is somewhat tainted by spending nearly an hour yesterday on the receiving end of a rant about how my company has no right to make additional security checks before charging a credit card for nearly $2,000 and shipping it to an address the issuing credit card company had never heard of...