Amazon has opened a hornets nest!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Sooooo, the gist of what is being said is that Amazon was totally in the right by going to people's kindles and removing this book that they LEGALLY purchased?

No, the gist of what's being said is that there's no point in people endlessly whining about a mistake which Amazon made, admitted to, and put right, years ago. What does it achieve?

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, the gist of what's being said is that there's no point in people endlessly whining about a mistake which Amazon made, admitted to, and put right, years ago. What does it achieve?

I may be in the minority, but I find it interesting. I knew about the "delete from device" thing, but I hadn't really followed that through to "they can see what's on your device".

Is that true for the Nook Classic? I only sideload that baby, but I leave the connections active because of maintenance updates. Now I'm thinking maybe I should put 'er in Airplane Mode. Not because I have anything I don't want B&N to see -- BREAKING NEWS! ANA READS THE HUNGER GAMES! RED ALERT! -- but more because... I value my privacy in certain oddly-defined ways.

What about the Sony 350/950 line? I keep Wi-Fi on the 950 so I can do the Wikipedia lookup. Can Sony see the contents of my reader any time they want?

One interesting thing is that it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone somewhere thought it'd be a good idea to look for "unpublished" books to find pre-release pirate copies. Except, whoooooops, Ana has a crapload of ARCs from NetGalley on her device waiting to be read. I wouldn't expect Bob McEagertostoppiracy to necessarily think about that.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I may be in the minority, but I find it interesting. I knew about the "delete from device" thing, but I hadn't really followed that through to "they can see what's on your device".

No, they can't see what's what's on your device. They knew who'd bought this book, and they instructed their servers to delete that particular book from those devices. It's the same thing that happens if you order an Amazon book, and then cancel your order. The next time the Amazon servers talk to your Kindle, they will delete the book. Each book has a unique ID number which identifies it.

People have endlessly analysed the traffic that flows between the Kindle and Amazon's servers, and the Kindle absolutely does not tell Amazon what's on your Kindle.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, they can't see what's what's on your device. They knew who'd bought this book, and they instructed their servers to delete that particular book from those devices. It's the same thing that happens if you order an Amazon book, and then cancel your order. The next time the Amazon servers talk to your Kindle, they will delete the book. Each book has a unique ID number which identifies it.

People have endlessly analysed the traffic that flows between the Kindle and Amazon's servers, and the Kindle absolutely does not tell Amazon what's on your Kindle.

OK, that's kind of how I'd thought it would be programmed if I'd been in charge and the suits had wanted "delete stuff remotely" options, but it was worth checking. Thanks.

[ProfCrash]

No, the gist of what's being said is that there's no point in people endlessly whining about a mistake which Amazon made, admitted to, and put right, years ago. What does it achieve?

Good question.

To the best of my knowledge, and I have been wrong before, they only know what is in your account when you buy from them. Items that are sideloaded are not listed in you account, at least for Amazon, so they would not know that they are there.

I know that there were people with the Orwell mess who had removed the DRM from the book in question and that book stayed on their device. I also know that there were people who had saved the book with DRM on their computers who reloaded it to their device and had no problems keeping it on their device. There were many posts discussing that at the time. This tells me that Amazon cannot see what you sideloaded and hence cannot remove it and that Amazon did not have a recurring script to remove the book if it reappeared unaltered on peoples Kindles.

I assume that this is the same for BN, Sony, and Kobo. They know what you have bought from them and can touch something that you bought from them that is on your device but they cannot touch sideloaded objects. The only way to avoid the possibility that one of the big four, Amazon, BN, Sony, and Kobo might one day be stupid enough to reach in and remove something again is to buy an e-reader that is not tied to one of the major book stores. The next alternative is to store your books on your computer so that if someone has a massive brain fart you have a copy of the book in question. A third alternative is to not use the WiFi on your system so you don't have to worry about a company being stupid and removing something from your device.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, the gist of what's being said is that there's no point in people endlessly whining about a mistake which Amazon made, admitted to, and put right, years ago. What does it achieve?

A long thread

[taustin]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Sooooo, the gist of what is being said is that Amazon was totally in the right by going to people's kindles and removing this book that they LEGALLY purchased?

No. No one said that. It was not, in fact, legally purchased. That it was illegally purchases was a mistake, not intentional infringement, but it was not legally purchased.

What has been said, by me, is that Amazon was entirely wrong to inentionally lie ab out being able to delete books remotely. That they included such a capability is not at all surprising, but they shouldn't have lied about it.

Try again.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by bigtext

My experience is limited, but I've gotten a few books of the B&N website (mostly Free Friday items). I purchase the item (even if it $0) and it appears in the "My Nook" web page.

Yep.

Originally Posted by bigtext

From there I can click on Download and my browser gives me an option if I want to save to a location or open with an application. I choose to have it open in Calibre.

Didn't realize you could do that.

Originally Posted by bigtext

At that point I can side-load the book onto the drive that appears when you plug the Nook in or via SD card. When I'm done with the book I can delete it from the location I side loaded it too.

But there's no way to delete it from the device from within the device interface. And for books you bought through the device, that it downloads automatically, you can't delete it from your computer, either. You can only delete it from the device by doing so on their web page.

(I've heard rumors that the latest updated on the color, which I have, addresses this, but I don't have the update yet so I'm not sure.)

Originally Posted by bigtext

Now part of the reason this works for me is I use my Nook unplugged. The wireless is never on. One time I did turn my wireless on it did sync everything in the My Nook page onto the device. I don't like having a ton of books on the device that I'm not reading so I ended up having to go back to the My Nook web page and choosing archive. That causes it to disappear from the device and I still have it in the "cloud". Not that it matters since I now have the file saved on my PC anyway. In any case, I don't turn wireless on anymore. It's more convenient to shop via PC anyway and I don't have to worry about Big Brother, so to speak, deleting or messing with setting on my device.

At the risk of sounding snarky (and I don't intend to), to each his own. I normally buy through the device, mostly because I'm too damned lazy to get off the couch sometimes, to go to the computer. But I do always download everything to archive it. Not being a very trusting soul.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

You could e-mail them the file or perhaps FTP the file. I am not sure what the return process is, only that the contents on the device are private property.

That only proves you have it. And that you can make copies of it. That is not, in any way, shape or form, erturning it. Quite the opposite, it is making another copy of it.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

The issue is not what conditions or circumstances they might remove a book from your device, the issue is that the ability to do this exists at all. It should simply be unlawful for them to have any access to content on the device at all. They should not be able to even view what is on the device, period.

You agreed to allow that when you bought the device. If you don't like it, don't do business with them.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I, too, love ellipses, but I hope that doesn't mean I said something wrong/stupid.

Nope, I deleted something and then found out that I have to have at least 5 characters. O_o

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Nope, I deleted something and then found out that I have to have at least 5 characters. O_o

Ha, awesome. I understand.

[pidgeon92]

If people would just back up their purchases, they wouldn't have to worry about someone snatching an ebook back from their device.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

If people would just back up their purchases, they wouldn't have to worry about someone snatching an ebook back from their device.

If companies like Amazon would stop advertising their goods and services on the basis of "you don't need to make backups, it's all in our cloud," maybe people would.

[banjobama]

Originally Posted by taustin

If companies like Amazon would stop advertising their goods and services on the basis of "you don't need to make backups, it's all in our cloud," maybe people would.

A person doesn't need to believe every single thing in an advertisement, either.