Amazon's own ebook format

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Dear Lord, you must be practically 100 years old! Is that why your posts regarding piracy are so inaccurate?

1930 makes 83. Unless he started as an infant, yeah.. Close to 100.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It could have been something like undetectable low or high frequency tones at the beginning or ending of the book, or in the "silences" for example. You should have opened it up with an audio-editor, and run a high and low pass filter over it

I don't know anything about it either except what that developer told me, and since it was so long ago I don't recall much about that. What I do remember was that it was information embedded in the file in such a way that it looked like music but produced no effect on the sound and that any compressor would see as important. I have no idea how that might work. I've read some descriptions of how MP3 compressors do what they do but I didn't really see how this could fit in with that.

I do remember that developer was very impressed with this technique. It was developed by a 3rd party and Audible licensed it, as I recall, and he was amazed at how cleverly it was designed. I don't recall his giving me any descriptions of that design although as a retired programmer I probably asked.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

1930 makes 83. Unless he started as an infant, yeah.. Close to 100.

I also enjoy picking on old people and since I'm just a kid of 73 maybe I should be picking on Sirmaru as well.

Barry

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Dear Lord, you must be practically 100 years old! Is that why your posts regarding piracy are so inaccurate?

Just let's say my first experience with pirates were Chinese junks attacking the troop ships of the 133rd Combined Independent Brigade of the Kwangtung Army.

And. I can read and write English and still type.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by barryem

I also enjoy picking on old people and since I'm just a kid of 73 maybe I should be picking on Sirmaru as well.

Nah... Being self-righteous is ageless. If Sirmaru understood he doesn't know what he's talking about, he'd probably get less abuse.

And I more of a kid at 67, but I know when to keep my mouth shut.

[jgsmith]

I'm not sure why so many people are getting their panties in a bunch about what sirmaru, or anyone else, says. He's articulate, not making personal attacks and he's sharing his experience. Isn't that why we're here? If I responded to everything I disagreed with, or corrected everything I saw that was wrong, that's all I would do. Carry on...nothing to see here.

[FacebookVirus]

Grrr. Someone is *wrong* on the internet.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by jgsmith

I'm not sure why so many people are getting their panties in a bunch about what sirmaru, or anyone else, says. He's articulate, not making personal attacks and he's sharing his experience. Isn't that why we're here? If I responded to everything I disagreed with, or corrected everything I saw that was wrong, that's all I would do. Carry on...nothing to see here.

The only issue with sirmaru is that he continues to post the same kinds of comments over and over again oblivious to what other people say. I am constantly amazed at the seemingly endless supply of patience some people have to try and explain why other people might see things differently. I am sure all those folk who bought the Paperwhite when it was first released in 2012 loved having sirmaru tell them they were seeing things and that there were no colour blobs on their PW's, especially when he'd already stated he doesn't have the best eyesight and has cataracts, but still insisted they were seeing things....

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by jgsmith

I'm not sure why so many people are getting their panties in a bunch about what sirmaru, or anyone else, says. He's articulate, not making personal attacks and he's sharing his experience. Isn't that why we're here? If I responded to everything I disagreed with, or corrected everything I saw that was wrong, that's all I would do. Carry on...nothing to see here.

I'm not sure why so many people are turning opposition to sirmaru, or anyone else, into some sort of emotional outburst.

Why are you even judging people who wish to debate the topics at hand? Isn't that why we're on a forum? Constant agreement is boring and leads to stagnant conversation.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by l_macd

The only issue with sirmaru is that he continues to post the same kinds of comments over and over again oblivious to what other people say. I am constantly amazed at the seemingly endless supply of patience some people have to try and explain why other people might see things differently. I am sure all those folk who bought the Paperwhite when it was first released in 2012 loved having sirmaru tell them they were seeing things and that there were no colour blobs on their PW's, especially when he'd already stated he doesn't have the best eyesight and has cataracts, but still insisted they were seeing things....

Exactly. It's not about being articulate, or polite, or even wrong/right. It's about a pattern of behavior over a long period of time. Politely and articulately ignoring technological facts that have (long ago) become common knowledge (or can be very easily looked up) while making statements that feign comprehension of said topic becomes tiring (and a bit silly) when repeated ad nauseum.

Most people at least briefly consult their Funk & Wagnalls about a topic before publicly pretending they have enough of a grasp of the basics to converse somewhat intelligently about it. You ask questions if you don't know, rather than tossing out nonsense (however articulate and polite) in the hope that you sound knowledgeable.

Originally Posted by barryem

It is a fundamental difference to a lawyer or publisher. A congressman making new law probably considers it fundamental. I'm not sure why a reader should care.

Barry

I agree with HarryT's analogy. It is okay IMO to loan or give a physical book, or a CD of bought music et cetera, because there is only one copy (the original) that you are loaning or giving to someone. But with digital eBook (or music) it becomes a sticky point of contention because you are basically only buying the right to read/view/listen to your digital media. You are not buying a physical copy and technically don't own the digital media.

I wish there was a way to actually own the digital media in a format that was secure enough to allow the consumer to pass it along (loan or give) it to someone else without the publisher/author having to worry about pirating. In other words a secure DRM that would allow the digital file to be passed along but where only one copy could exist and therefore only one person's authorized devices could play it at any given time. I doubt such a DRM can or will exist though. At least not in a secure enough state to convince publishers to allow actual ownership of the digital file.

Perhaps a scheme similar to what software companies use wherein we have to not only enter the proper serial number, but we also have to phone home via the internet and get the software company's permission to activate it on our device(s). But I don't see that happening either because consumers nor publishers would likely want to go through that process.

At any rate I'm not going to lose anymore eBooks due to a book store changing formats or going out of business. I lost some of my Fictionwise books recently because I could not remember the magic codes for some of the devices I owned a decade ago. I did salvage most of those eBooks, but I still lost too many. So though I don't give or share my liberated eBooks with anyone, I have no guilt feeling about liberating them to preserve my library which I paid for with hard earned money.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Perhaps a scheme similar to what software companies use wherein we have to not only enter the proper serial number, but we also have to phone home via the internet and get the software company's permission to activate it on our device(s). But I don't see that happening either because consumers nor publishers would likely want to go through that process.

I don't see what is so unreasonable about this. The same way you must buy it from them, and download it from them, you are already having to ask permission to download it. It could be handled the same way library loans are deactivated, and the only time you are going through the distributor is to authorize new books -- you can still read offline as always.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I don't see what is so unreasonable about this. The same way you must buy it from them, and download it from them, you are already having to ask permission to download it. It could be handled the same way library loans are deactivated, and the only time you are going through the distributor is to authorize new books -- you can still read offline as always.

It won't happen IMO. Haven't you ever decided you wanted to transfer a software title from an old computer to a new one? You can do it, but it requires phoning the company and spending at least 15 minutes on the phone with a CS rep while s/he deactivates your old computer and activates the new one. I'm sure this could be handled without CS if the companies so desired, but they rarely so desire. Currently they don't have to track a digital file once you download it. But to authorize an activation scheme means they would have to keep track of all the digital files for years. They won't be doing that as it would cost too much.

ETA: Keep in mind that it would be up to the publishing houses to keep track of which eBooks are allowed to be read on which devices. The book stores could not care less.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by jswinden

It won't happen IMO. Haven't you ever decided you wanted to transfer a software title from an old computer to a new one? You can do it, but it requires phoning the company and spending at least 15 minutes on the phone with a CS rep while s/he deactivates your old computer and activates the new one. I'm sure this could be handled without CS if the companies so desired, but they rarely so desire. Currently they don't have to track a digital file once you download it. But to authorize an activation scheme means they would have to keep track of all the digital files for years. They won't be doing that as it would cost too much.

There is already support for owning a book on multiple computers, and deactivating a book that is a library loan. The whole thing is already automated.

You hold access to the book for as long as your account details say you should, and it phones home every time you have internet access.

If it were handled exactly the same as the CURRENT library loan mechanism, then I think we are already there. We just need the law to catch up with our right to the First Sale Doctrine.


Although I totally agree the companies don't want this at all -- they LIKE it when we have to repay for the same old product, it makes them more money. Litigation will be required.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by jswinden

It won't happen IMO. Haven't you ever decided you wanted to transfer a software title from an old computer to a new one? You can do it, but it requires phoning the company and spending at least 15 minutes on the phone with a CS rep while s/he deactivates your old computer and activates the new one. I'm sure this could be handled without CS if the companies so desired, but they rarely so desire.

With some you can deactivate and activate yourself (Adobe, Phase One, Chessbase and quite some others), but if your hard disk crashes or you reinstall the computer, forgetting to deactivate first, you could still be in trouble. Not every seller has the option to go into an account and remove activation using their website (Phase One does), so you'd still need to contact the seller.

What if the seller is out of businesss? You won't be able to get the software running ever again without resorting to cracks om some such.

Therefore I adamantly refuse to buy software that needs to be activated, except:

1. If I don't care about losing the program (often that's the case if it's very cheap, and/or there are a gazillion alternatives)
2. If I have to have the program to get something done, and there is no alternative (Windows)