DRM and Purchasing?

[Doonge]

I don't agree to disagree because that's not my point. You just pretend it is.

I said I trusted you that what we buy is a license, not the "ebook" itself. Additionally, I would agree that the Amazon document you linked to was relatively clear (I think in general Amazon is quite praised in its service quality and user satisfaction).

Your point, and Cinisajoy's aswell, is that users should read it or it's their fault.
I'm not trying to find who's guilty. I'm stating that for users who DON'T read the various TOS on the web or everything for every petty purchase they make, the process is less transparent that could easily be.

In other words, you try to attribute guilt (to user A, or company B) again and again in discussions, while I don't care, and yet you act as if you discuss with me.

My initial point was that I would be ready to buy DRM books, even if I could not unDRM them, but as such thing would make them DEFINITIVELY with some form of obsolescence (see how I pointed to discussions I've read here without intervening about publishers going bust and transferring their clients to another house with less than ideal arrangement), I would only purchase specific books, and only for cheap. This obsolescence induces me to behave as if I was renting ebooks, not buying them.

Why you allow yourself to nitpick so much is beyond me, and why you are systematically unable to enter other's frame of discussion and always balling in your cage is frustrating for me. If you were in some spectrum of autism (not a bad thing), knowing it would be easier for me, but are you?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

If the user can't be bothered to read the T&C, that is all on the user and not Amazon.

Actually, under some consumer laws (in New Zealand at least), any limitations on a sale should be shown in a bold, clear and compelling way which cannot be easily overlooked.

If the message the consumer gets when making the purchase is that they are buying the ebook, then it is not enough for the seller to simply point to the terms and conditions where it says that they are actually only buying a licence to read the book.

[HarryT]

Doonge, I'd really appreciate it if you'd drop the personal attacks. We can discuss matters that we disagree about without making it personal. I have not personally attacked you in this thread: I've just disagreed with some of your points. Please extend the same courtesy to me.

Thank you.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Doonge

I don't agree to disagree because that's not my point. You just pretend it is.

I said I trusted you that what we buy is a license, not the "ebook" itself. Additionally, I would agree that the Amazon document you linked to was relatively clear (I think in general Amazon is quite praised in its service quality and user satisfaction).

Your point, and Cinisajoy's aswell, is that users should read it or it's their fault.
I'm not trying to find who's guilty. I'm stating that for users who DON'T read the various TOS on the web or everything for every petty purchase they make, the process is less transparent that could easily be.

In other words, you try to attribute guilt (to user A, or company B) again and again in discussions, while I don't care, and yet you act as if you discuss with me.

My initial point was that I would be ready to buy DRM books, even if I could not unDRM them, but as such thing would make them DEFINITIVELY with some form of obsolescence (see how I pointed to discussions I've read here without intervening about publishers going bust and transferring their clients to another house with less than ideal arrangement), I would only purchase specific books, and only for cheap. This obsolescence induces me to behave as if I was renting ebooks, not buying them.

Why you allow yourself to nitpick so much is beyond me, and why you are systematically unable to enter other's frame of discussion and always balling in your cage is frustrating for me. If you were in some spectrum of autism (not a bad thing), knowing it would be easier for me, but are you?

Well now, yes it is entirely up to the user to read the contract.
If one fails to read the important document, yes the fault lies with them.
In a court the first question would be "did you read before agreeing or signing."
If the answer is NO. Then 99.9% of the time, the judge who has read said document says "Case Dismissed."

Now if Amazon hid their T&C, it would be a different argument.

Note: this is in the US.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Actually, under some consumer laws (in New Zealand at least), any limitations on a sale should be shown in a bold, clear and compelling way which cannot be easily overlooked.

If the message the consumer gets when making the purchase is that they are buying the ebook, then it is not enough for the seller to simply point to the terms and conditions where it says that they are actually only buying a licence to read the book.

Trouble is, Geoff, that you then get into all sorts of almost philosophical questions about what it is that you actually are buying. An ebook is intangible, so what does it mean to say that you're "buying an ebook"? What specifically are you buying? The only reasonable answer, it seems to me, is that you're buying a set of rights that define what you can do with a file on your reading device. Isn't that just what a licence is?

[Doonge]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Doonge, I'd really appreciate it if you'd drop the personal attacks. We can discuss matters that we disagree about without making it personal. I have not personally attacked you in this thread: I've just disagreed with some of your points. Please extend the same courtesy to me.

Thank you.

It's been a while since I visited this website. You were on my ignore list, but as it was long ago I removed it. You will be on it again, so that should settle any future problem. Of course, it's not a big deal since our discussion do not seem to be productive, and I don't pretend I'm that interesting anyway.

I agree you were, in form, respectful. But your way of discussing is very frustrating, and I think most people can be insulting without using insulting words. Which is why I'm not bothered by insults personally (in fact as they are so much obvious, it facilitates me ignoring the person).

I do not feel you disagreed with my points. Perhaps I phrased them badly. The points you seem to think we disagree, I don't. The points I was raising, you ignored.

If you say that me asking you if you are some kind of autist is a personal attack, I suppose you aren't autist then (if there's any people in the autism spectrum reading this: I don't really think it's a term that is always derogatory, as I know some highly functional ones).

Best.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Doonge

It's been a while since I visited this website. You were on my ignore list, but as it was long ago I removed it. You will be on it again, so that should settle any future problem. Of course, it's not a big deal since our discussion do not seem to be productive, and I don't pretend I'm that interesting anyway.

I agree you were, in form, respectful. But your way of discussing is very frustrating, and I think most people can be insulting without using insulting words. Which is why I'm not bothered by insults personally (in fact as they are so much obvious, it facilitates me ignoring the person).

I do not feel you disagreed with my points. Perhaps I phrased them badly. The points you seem to think we disagree, I don't. The points I was raising, you ignored.

If you say that me asking you if you are some kind of autist is a personal attack, I suppose you aren't autist then (if there's any people in the autism spectrum reading this: I don't really think it's a term that is always derogatory, as I know some highly functional ones).

Best.

I'm not HarryT, but I personally found the autistic comment insulting. Not just as a personal attack but to anyone who might be autistic.
Ps: I find your explanation as insulting too. Yes, it came across as very derogatory and condescending.
If HarryT wasn't a moderator, I would have hit the report button.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A book is intellectual property (or, to be more specific, its contents are). Only concrete expressions of ideas, such as books, chemical formulas, industrial processes, logos, etc, are protected by intellectual property laws. There's no protection for ideas in the abstract.

Ideas are never concrete. Copyright is the ability to copy a work, no more, no less. A physical book, either paper or digital, is not intellectual property. If I buy a paper book, few are going to claim that physical book is intellectual property and thus the author controls what I can do with that specific physical book. I can do whatever I want to with that book, except make a copy of it. I can make a copy of it or some portion of it in the United States as long as I stay within the bounds of fair use. I can make copies of digital content for my personal use because the Supreme Court decided that was covered under fair use. Obviously, copyright law is different elsewhere.

One thing that the idea of Intellectual Property has done is confuse people by trying to bring the various forms of government granted monopolies under one concept. Patents, trade marks and copyright, three different concepts which are currently under the Intellectual Properties umbrella are treated very differently under the law. When you talk about concrete expressions of ideas, you are talking about patents.

With copyright, you aren't protecting the idea or the concrete expression of an idea, you are protecting a specific work and works that might be derived from that original work. Thus, you can't copyright the idea of a wizard's school, but you can copyright the Harry Potter series and sue someone who writes or performs a work that you can convince a jury is derived from the Harry Potter series.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Well now, yes it is entirely up to the user to read the contract.
If one fails to read the important document, yes the fault lies with them.
In a court the first question would be "did you read before agreeing or signing."
If the answer is NO. Then 99.9% of the time, the judge who has read said document says "Case Dismissed."

Now if Amazon hid their T&C, it would be a different argument.

Note: this is in the US.

I wish reading and understanding the contract was actually enforced before a purchase could be made. I think a lot of the crap contracts and the purchases made ignoring them would go away. Purchasers would be better off then.

[Doonge]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I'm not HarryT, but I personally found the autistic comment insulting. Not just as a personal attack but to anyone who might be autistic.
Ps: I find your explanation as insulting too. Yes, it came across as very derogatory and condescending.
If HarryT wasn't a moderator, I would have hit the report button.

If you read my posts on this thread, do you feel they are increasingly condescending or is my style consistently condescending? I wonder if it's just because I phrase things like my native language, or if it's just me acting increasingly annoyed at some point.

Also, in one (or several?) of my post in this very thread, I said that ebook had a physical presence in our computers. Yet I think the latest HarryT post (close to yours) says that ebooks are intangibles, but hasn't reacted when I said the opposite then. Am I that hard to understand or did he miss it (or was this kind of direct opposition secondary at the time?)?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Doonge

If you read my posts on this thread, do you feel they are increasingly condescending or is my style consistently condescending? I wonder if it's just because I phrase things like my native language, or if it's just me acting increasingly annoyed at some point.

Also, in one (or several?) of my post in this very thread, I said that ebook had a physical presence in our computers. Yet I think the latest HarryT post (close to yours) says that ebooks are intangibles, but hasn't reacted when I said the opposite then. Am I that hard to understand or did he miss it (or was this kind of direct opposition secondary at the time?)?

Your explanation of your autistic comment was what I found insulting, derogatory and condescending. It sounded like you were saying most autistics can't function.

The rest of your post was ok.
Curiousity, what is your native language?
I thought your English is very good.

Intangible as in you physically cannot touch an ebook.
It has a presence but it is not physical like a pbook or a pan.

[Doonge]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Your explanation of your autistic comment was what I found insulting, derogatory and condescending. It sounded like you were saying most autistics can't function.

The rest of your post was ok.

Perhaps it sounded condescending to you because you're not familiar with the matter?

Highly functionning autists are usually very valuable as it's oftentimes paired with high IQ.
But on the side, there might be communication problems.

There's a very broad spectrum, and I wasn't making two groups: one with functionning and another with non functionning (I gave no indication of the amount). I was saying that there exist HIGHLY functionning autists that are very very valuable, so I don't think autist is ALWAYS a net bad.

Sometimes, autist is thrown off as an insult, and it's because some autists are very handicapped.

edit:
my native language is french.

About intangible, I have troubles understanding, I think it's wrong in that case. Your "ebook" is stored on somepart of a hard drive, and you could see those parts if you wanted. Interpreting the ebook into something readable is another matter, but it's not intangible I believe? If you don't know braille for instance, you couldn't read a braille book either, but you could see it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Ideas are never concrete. Copyright is the ability to copy a work, no more, no less. A physical book, either paper or digital, is not intellectual property.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (arbiters of the various international IP treaties) disagrees with you. From their website:

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.

Note the "literary works" bit. A book is most assuredly IP, and the laws that govern IP, such as copyright law, define what you are and are not allowed to do with it. It's a lot more than just copy it. You can't, for example, give a public performance of it (eg stand on a street corner and read it out loud). You own the paper, ink, and glue and, as you say, you can do pretty much what you want with those. You have extremely limited rights when it comes to the actual contents of the book (that is, the "intellectual property"). With an ebook, there is no tangible object - no paper, ink, or glue - so intellectual property is all that you have. IP laws are therefore central to discussions of what can or can't be done with ebooks.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Doonge

Perhaps it sounded condescending to you because you're not familiar with the matter?

Highly functionning autists are usually very valuable as it's oftentimes paired with high IQ.
But on the side, there might be communication problems.

There's a very broad spectrum, and I wasn't making two groups: one with functionning and another with non functionning (I gave no indication of the amount). I was saying that there exist HIGHLY functionning autists that are very very valuable, so I don't think autist is ALWAYS a net bad.

Sometimes, autist is thrown off as an insult, and it's because some autists are very handicapped.

edit:
my native language is french.

About intangible, I have troubles understanding, I think it's wrong in that case. Your "ebook" is stored on somepart of a hard drive, and you could see those parts if you wanted. Interpreting the ebook into something readable is another matter, but it's not intangible I believe? If you don't know braille for instance, you couldn't read a braille book either, but you could see it.

On the autism part, it was your phrasing. You implied there was something wrong with HarryT. Therefore I read it as insulting to both HarryT and anyone who might be autistic or any form of a handicap.
I am pretty sure if I asked if your IQ was below 60, I would get heavily moderated if not suspended.

I could hold a book in braille and yes some people could read it. Now I couldn't read it because I don't know braille.
You cannot physically hold an ebook.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Trouble is, Geoff, that you then get into all sorts of almost philosophical questions about what it is that you actually are buying. An ebook is intangible, so what does it mean to say that you're "buying an ebook"? What specifically are you buying? The only reasonable answer, it seems to me, is that you're buying a set of rights that define what you can do with a file on your reading device. Isn't that just what a licence is?

Well my view is that as a buyer I can use the ebook in any way I like consistent with the laws of the land, but as a licensee I am additionally subject to the conditions of the licence (provided those conditions are themselves lawful.)

Obviously the ebook retailers themselves see a difference, otherwise why would they put something like this in their terms and conditions?

Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.