DRM, Kindle and Calibre

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

If they give it away online, perhaps.

If I give a copy of an ebook to my mother-in-law, I don't think anyone will notice.

True, that's what I meant. Giving something like that away online would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Though I imagine they might have some way of telling a given copy from another even with DRM stripped (and who can say they don't?) it would be more likely not to be noticed if it's just one copy rather than several 100 or more like it would be online. I like to keep a backup copy of books I download (like from MR) on either CD or DVD so that I have one just as a precaution. I love the convenience of ebooks. I have always loved to read but it isn't always convenient to have pbooks around (they take up too much room) and aside from the DRM problem ebooks allow a way to solve that.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Removing DRM is strictly prohibitted by Amazon's terms of use.

Perhaps, but that isn't going to stop people from doing it. And as long as it's just for the original purchaser's own use who is going to be hurt by it? I remember similar battles over VCR's in the late 70's early 80's. The movie studios wanted it ruled illegal for people to tape programs off of TV with the new home VCR's. The government found in favor of the people in that case. Of course station logo's starting appearing in the bottom corner of the screen more often after that too. lol. Anyway as long as a person is the original purchaser and isn't distributing copies I don't think they can do much to a person. How can you claim theft when you were paid for the product and there is no sign that the person has been distributing illegal copies to others?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Have any of those other companies removed books from people's devices?

I don't know. Have any of those other companies ever accidentally sold ebooks that they found out they didn't actually have the rights to sell, and then had to make a split second decision about how to handle the situation—a decision that was apparently so heinous and unforgiveable that it will be talked about in paranoid circles until the final electron in the universe decays?

I've never given it much thought really. Because I don't leave my wireless on and my purchases are safely backed up immediately.

[emalvick]

Frankly, if I owned any other company's ereader and purchased any other companies ebooks to go with it, I'd remove the DRM for my own backup purchases no matter what. I don't trust any company long term. My biggest fear is change of format or a company going under. i.e. what good when a .amz file do you if Amazon were to stop business? What good will that amz file do you if you ever went for an epub based reader?

Those are more likely scenarios that can affect your long-term use of a purchased ebook. And, the reality is that it is something we are always going to face be it ebooks, music, video, etc in this computer based world.

Albeit that these types of issues are still unlikely to happen without any sneaky moves by Amazon or anywhere else or without the option to even prepare for the possible occurrence.

[ProfCrash]

I love when people point to the rare event and base their decisions on them.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't know. Have any of those other companies ever accidentally sold ebooks that they found out they didn't actually have the rights to sell, and then had to make a split second decision about how to handle the situation—a decision that was apparently so heinous and unforgiveable that it will be talked about in paranoid circles until the final electron in the universe decays?

Didn't Amazon remove gay porn from people's Kindle archives too a few months ago? Those weren't sold by people who didn't have the right to sell them, they were all self published before Amazon decided it didn't want people to read them.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by emalvick

Frankly, if I owned any other company's ereader and purchased any other companies ebooks to go with it, I'd remove the DRM for my own backup purchases no matter what.

Yep, I download, liberate and backup my ebooks as soon as I purchase them now. I learned a good lesson from Fictionwise, when they removed all of the Random House books from their servers, and there were several that I had purchased and had failed to download in a timely manner. Neither Fictionwise nor Random House were willing to allow me to download those books, despite the fact that I had paid for them, and the titles still appear on my Fictionwise bookshelf.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Didn't Amazon remove gay porn from people's Kindle archives too a few months ago? Those weren't sold by people who didn't have the right to sell them, they were all self published before Amazon decided it didn't want people to read them.

You're confusing your perceived atrocities. And anyway, even if they did remove something from someone's online account archive... that means that they did not reach their oogly-boogly, big brother mitts into anyone's kindle and delete content from it. Just like they promised they wouldn't do after the rather unprecedented 1984 fiasco that they admittedly handled the wrong way. The content is still on the Kindle. Delete it without having a backup at you're own peril.

Fictionwise removed lots of my purchases from my online account that I'll never be able to download from them ever again. Take a wild guess at how many ebooks I lost because of it.

[rogue_red]

Originally Posted by Leep

Like others, I have chosen to remove the DRM from ebooks I have collected to facilitate cataloging my ebooks as well as to convert them for use on both my Kindle and iTouch.

I recently went through a long investigative process on my K3 wifi because the battery seemed to be failing. Although I had several discussions with Amazon over the large amount of 'personal documents' on my Kindle, (as all books from sources other Amazon are pegged) Amazon freely offered a replacement for my K3. This leads me to believe that at least for the present, they are complacent about un-DRm'd books being loaded on a Kindle, as I obviously even had books on my Kindle purchased from Amazon that were suddenly DRM free.

Obviously, no one knows how long Amazon will be tolerant of this action, but since they are still losing market share to ereaders able to access public library books, I suspect they are realistic about how users are using their Kindles.

cheers

I think you are quite right that Amazon plays a balancing act between protecting/controlling their Kindle content and keeping their customers. At the moment they are willing to tolerate some indiscretions but whether folk think its paranoia or not, I still think its naive to assume they will always do so or that they will be kind enough to inform you before they terminate your kindle for breaching their t.o.u.

[rogue_red]

Originally Posted by crich70

I might be wrong, but I don't think that Amazon cares if someone strips the DRM from their own copies of books as long as they don't re-upload them as a part of a torrent file or something. If someone was to strip the DRM from a book they bought from Amazon and then either give it away free or try to sell it illegally to a third party though I imagine that person would be in deep trouble very soon after.

I'm pretty sure they do care because they are very quick to update their Kindle for PC software to block the latest python scripts used to strip DRM from their ebooks.

[DiapDealer]

I still think its naive to assume they will always do so or that they will be kind enough to inform you before they terminate your kindle for breaching their t.o.u.

I think you'll find that very few participants in this thread are naive enough to take that chance. Contingencies have been planned for.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by rogue_red

I think you are quite right that Amazon plays a balancing act between protecting/controlling their Kindle content and keeping their customers. At the moment they are willing to tolerate some indiscretions but whether folk think its paranoia or not, I still think its naive to assume they will always do so or that they will be kind enough to inform you before they terminate your kindle for breaching their t.o.u.

The worst they could do would be block the kindle from buying new kindle content online. Anyone worried about DRM wouldn't be buying that content through a kindle anyway. You can buy blocked kindles on Ebay, everything else about them works perfectly.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by rogue_red

I don't own a Kindle although I do have Kindle for PC and I backup my content by simply copying everything in 'My Kindle Content' folder to my chosen backup location.

If you don't strip the DRM first, I'm not convinced that those backups will be a lot of use. My understanding is that they'll only work on that copy of Kindle for PC, not on any other Kindle or Kindle app.

Originally Posted by rogue_red

Personally I wouldn't own a Kindle. I value my privacy and rights too much.

Surely all the things you've pointed to in the Amazon terms of service apply to the Kindle apps as well?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Surely all the things you've pointed to in the Amazon terms of service apply to the Kindle apps as well?

I would be surprised if the K4PC didn't log at least as much as a real Kindle logs, and you would have less control over whether it gets transmitted to Amazon.