Amazon uses DMCA to restrict where you can buy e-books

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by NatCh

That's very close, but slightly off. What kindlePID.py does is generate a PID that can be used to purchase DRM'd mobipocket files that are encrypted for the device in question. To actually get the Kindle to read the file, KindleFix.py (which doesn't seem to bother Amazon) is necessary to "flip the switch" on the file (more or less toggling a bit, if I understand correctly) so that the Kindle will read it -- without that switch flipping, the Kindle won't even try to read a file.

The reason to target kindlepid is because without the PID, you cannot strip the DRM or even shift it to the Kindle. The eBooks are locked in to whatever they are locked into when they are purchased. So no PID, no DRM removal or shifting. It means Amazon is trying to lock you in to buying DRMed eBooks from them and them only.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Not just in the e-book reader business, in the e-book business too -- Sony hasn't ever cut customers off from downloading books they'd already payed for. Of course, this is Sony's first foray into the e-book realm, to Amazon's second ... so I suppose that Sony does still have the option of ending their first pass the same way that Amazon did theirs, but Amazon has already exercised that option.

And when Amazon ended their first foray into eBooks, they pissed off a LOT of people.

[larisa0001]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

But even if Kindlefix is a circumvention of DRM the company that would have a legitimate beef is the company that the eBook was purchased from -- BooksonBoard or whoever, or the publisher. Not Amazon, it isn't their DRM being circumvented. It doesn't touch any file that was purchased from Amazon. Amazon has no more business in what's in that file than they do my work documents I converted from .doc or .rtf.

I like that. I think this would be a great argument to make in any reply this community makes to Amazon (though I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice). Amazon just doesn't have an interest in this. The copyright owner is the publishing company. The DRM being circumvented is someone else's. If the e-book publisher wanted to go after you for DRM circumvention, that's another story - but even if Amazon wanted to sue you, it wouldn't have standing to do so (or so I think, in my unlawyerly way...) What is the wrong being done to them? There isn't one.

Note that 17 U.S.C. 1203 requires the plaintiff to be "injured" by the violation in order to bring suit - and while the "injury" may be quite far-fetched, it's not enough to say "They used a circumvention measure to infringe someone else's copyright!"

Again - I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, please don't take your legal advice from online forums, go talk to EFF.

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by tompe

But they can implement a DRM-scheme that makes it impossible to service the car in other places and circumventing the DRM might then not be legal to do.

True, and that is one of the many reasons to fight DRM...

-MJ

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by epiphany

They are shooting themselves in the foot because this decision will upset many current and potential customers who will then buy other ebook devices. If you think Amazon is in such a powerful position with trapped customers, why are Kindle ebooks always cheaper than the competition? My view is that Amazon made a blunder here but in general they are trying to offer the best product for their customers (to make money, of course; that's how capitalism works). Unfortunately this requires they impose a restrictive DRM scheme to appease publishers and hence guarantee the widest selection of books (although I do think it is wrong how they force DRM on authors and publishers that don't want it).

Here is my take on this... Amazon says to the publisher... "We can sell for less because we'll sell more since Amazon.com is the only place the Kindle owners will be able to get your eBook."

Along comes kindlepid and kindlefix. Another eBook shop has a sale and the price drops to slightly less then what Amazon has the eBook for. So people go shop elsewhere, shift or remove the DRM and read said eBook on the Kindle. Or they see that it is available from their local library and get it that way.

Sure it's a popular eBook. But the problem is that Amazon cannot go back to the publisher and then say... "We sold lots of copies. Here is your nice profit."

Amazon can look at all your Kindles and see this eBook on there, but knowing full well it was never purchased from Amazon.com.

Now the real issue here is this... Since we know Amazon can see what's on your Kindle via Whispernet, will they someday decide to take action if they see content that they know should have DRM and is on your Kindle but was not purchased via Amazon.com?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

If what they want is secrecy, then they have already lost. Nothing is secret anymore, not on the internet. They're battling a tide that is only surging higher, and with more velocity every day. The culture is changing, rapidly. These dinosaur ideas about business will either have to adapt or face extinction.

Doesn't matter if kindlepid and kindlefix are out there and the customers know about them. Because Amazon can see what's on your Kindle via Whispernet, they could in theory get you in trouble for unauthorized content.

[Patricia]

Amazon has made quite a few bad decisions this month:

1. The Kindle 2 text-to-speech fiasco.
2. There have been a number os complaints about the screen looking washed-out on some Kindle 2 devices.
3. The DMCA notice. People are not going to be happy when they find that they are criminalised for reading library books; or books legally purchased from sources other than Amazon. "Buy a Kindle: Be a Criminal" is not an alluring selling point. And I would have thought that they'd be looking for good publicity in the wake of the Kindle 2 launch.

I wonder whether they are getting so big that they are throwing their weight around; or whether their organisation is sloppily run, so that they are making very public mistakes; or whether they just don't care.

[JSWolf]

Because of Whispernet, Amazon can change your firmware so your Kindle now uses a completely different DRM scheme. And they could update all the eBooks to use this new DRM. And there's nothing you can do about it.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Amazon has made quite a few bad decisions this month:

1. The Kindle 2 text-to-speech fiasco.
2. There have been a number os complaints about the screen looking washed-out on some Kindle 2 devices.
3. The DMCA notice. People are not going to be happy when they find that they are criminalised for reading library books; or books legally purchased from sources other than Amazon. "Buy a Kindle: Be a Criminal" is not an alluring selling point. And I would have thought that they'd be looking for good publicity in the wake of the Kindle 2 launch.

I wonder whether they are getting so big that they are throwing their weight around; or whether their organisation is sloppily run, so that they are making very public mistakes; or whether they just don't care.

you pose some good questions. let's hope they will rethink their approach and a take a different attitude.

[JSWolf]

New Amazon.com advertising....

When you buy a Kindle, you get Big Brother for free.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The sad thing is that these are just more of the same fights we've watched e-books suffer through for years, but ramped up by bigger players, and it's not getting us anywhere. How long will we have to put up with such myopic thinking and monopolistic shenanigans before we all wise up to common formats and pro-consumer business practices?

I pulled my e-books out of the Kindle store at the end of the year, because I wasn't happy with the way they treated me as an author. If you can't make authors happy, and you can't make consumers happy... how happy do you think the middlemen are going to be? Amazon, you're cruisin' for a bruisin'...

[JSWolf]

Steve, how did Amazon treat you as an author?

[danegeld]

I just bought a PRS-700 last week precisely because, in the end, I didn't trust Amazon enough to buy a Kindle. While Sony certainly isn't without sin, Amazon has made a system that's closed from end to end and I don't want anything to do with it. Mr. Bezos reminds me a little more every day of a mafioso: "Fer a small monthly fee, nothin' unpleasant will happen to yer Kindle. And don't even think about goin' anywhere else fer yer books, if yez knows what I means."

The fact that the PRS-700 doesn't have network support and that it can handle so many different formats are the main reasons I chose it. I'm more convinced than ever that I made the right choice.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Because of Whispernet, Amazon can change your firmware so your Kindle now uses a completely different DRM scheme. And they could update all the eBooks to use this new DRM. And there's nothing you can do about it.

This is actually something that is worrying. Will the concept of a specific edition of a book survive? Suppose a book is published and you buy it and it contains some words that leads to protests. Can then a new release be made and Amazon just silently replacing the book? I suppose there is an interest with certain organizations to be able to do these kind of things.

To me it seems that we need some sort of checksum so we can check that our books are the editions we expect them to be.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by mjh215

Many people have compared this to software on a specific platform and rightly so but another analogy I'd like to make is if you were to buy a GM vehicle, GM wouldn't have the right to tell you where you can or can not take it for servicing. You have the right to take it to a Ford service center if you choose.

Actually, many years ago, if you bought a GM car you had to take it to a GM dealer for servicing, including routine oil changes, or you voided the car's warranty -- or at least so GM claimed when you tried to get warranty repairs. (GM would say things like the problem was caused by poor quality oil, or the wrong oil weight. It was never explicit that you had to have GM do all the servicing.) It took major action by the Federal Trade Commission to end this practice. Today you can take it anywhere as long as you retain proof of having timely and correct service. But I can still remember GM telling owners of the Chevy Vega (aluminum block engines) that when the engines failed because of cracks in the block it was the owners fault for having changed the oil themselves and for having used non-GM oil which didn't meet GM's specifications.