Google Books Mysterious Deletions

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Edward_R

What does Amazon have to do with Google Books?

Similar (but not exactly)
Amazon deleted books that it discovered it had no right to distribute (and they refunded $)

This sounds like an over zealous georestriction enforcement. 'You have no right to even have the book outside the purchase zone'

Deleting for this reason proves false advertising: 'Read anywhere'

[Katsunami]

And here, my dear gentlemen and lovely ladies, you have another perfect example why I will never ever trust any company, cloud, or other online service to manage my media. If it can't be side-loaded and used without the internet, you shouldn't want it.

If THE APP (or the company that created it) decides you shouldn't own stuff you bought, for whatever reason, then it just disappears.

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world..."

[Klim Chugunkin]

And that is one of the many reasons I will never ever touch anything DRM infested. Vote with your wallets, folks! That's about the only power we have as consumers.

[jersysman]

If these books were PD, what DRM would they have had on them? Also, I didn't read the story, did they "purchase" the books or just download the free PD books. Something still doesn't sound right here.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Edward_R

What does Amazon have to do with Google Books?

it used to have lots of complaints about disappearing books in the past

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

it used to have lots of complaints about disappearing books in the past

In all fairness, wasn't it lots of complaints about one disappearing book?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

In all fairness, wasn't it lots of complaints about one disappearing book?

One disappearing book, one case when Amazon unknowingly sold a book they were not authorized to sell in the first place. So nobody ever even really "bought" that book, legally. And all those who had the book removed got their money back and were even rewarded with something extra. Not a bad deal for those involved, but we will hear about it again and again until the end of times.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

The books deleted are in the public domain.

I can not think of a good reason for a software update to delete data that has not changed.

That's even worse!!

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

And all those who had the book removed got their money back and were even rewarded with something extra. Not a bad deal for those involved, but we will hear about it again and again until the end of times.

I don't find it a good deal, and we should keep hearing about it.

To be honest, I find it repulsing that people can lose stuff they paid for so easily.

If I buy a paper book at a store somewhere, and later it is discovered that this store should not have been selling this book, then they'll just stop selling it. Nobody is going to get into my home to take the book off the shelf, put some money in its place and give me a coupon to buy a bag of fries as an extra.

If an ebook-store goes broke, one loses access to any book that was not backupped and de-DRM-ed. What would you think of a DRM-ed sofa (to make sure no more than 3 different people are using it), with built-in internet connection? The store where you bought it goes broke, and you lose access to the sofa; in other words, it sprouts pins on the seating or something.

These examples sound ridiculous, but it's exactly the way I see DRM and dependency on an internet connection to be able to use your media. In th non-digital world, everybody would say that such a dependency is idiotic, but in the digital world, people seem not to care. I find that astounding.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I don't find it a good deal, and we should keep hearing about it.

To be honest, I find it repulsing that people can lose stuff they paid for so easily

Again--in all fairness--i think he was talking about that one specific incident long ago with Amazon. They handled it badly, and they apologized for it. It was uncharted territory. They promised never to handle that sort of situation in that manner again ... and so far they've kept that promise.

So while I agree that no one should rely on online retailers to maintain copies of their purchases indefinitely (and should make the effort to safeguard their purchases if they're concerned about them), I do think it's time to stop throwing up that same, long ago, 1984 incident as a poster-child for the evilness of Amazon every time something of this nature comes up. It's not really very relevant anymore.

[soulfuldog]

Spot on DiapDealer. Fair enough it is a good reminder about why should remove DRM if required and back up your books, but those that keep wanting to bring it up never seem to acknowledge that fact about Amazon admitting they were wrong and stating they wouldn't handle a similar incident in the same way.

Besides, the comment that Amazon "used to have lots of complaints about disappearing books in the past" is more than a little misleading. No doubt a perfectly innocent remark by Namekuseijin, but it makes it sound like it was possibly a common occurrence and not a single instance.

[Katsunami]

Please don't misunderstand me. This should not be brought up to point an accusing finger at Amazon; they've said they were wrong to handle it the way they did, all right. It should be brought up to drive home the problem of being dependent on DRM and an internet connection to be able to use the stuff you bought. Now we cannot only use Amazon, but Google too (and Wal-Mart, with regard to DRM-ed music).

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I don't find it a good deal, and we should keep hearing about it.

To be honest, I find it repulsing that people can lose stuff they paid for so easily.

If I buy a paper book at a store somewhere, and later it is discovered that this store should not have been selling this book, then they'll just stop selling it. Nobody is going to get into my home to take the book off the shelf, put some money in its place and give me a coupon to buy a bag of fries as an extra.

If an ebook-store goes broke, one loses access to any book that was not backupped and de-DRM-ed. What would you think of a DRM-ed sofa (to make sure no more than 3 different people are using it), with built-in internet connection? The store where you bought it goes broke, and you lose access to the sofa; in other words, it sprouts pins on the seating or something.

These examples sound ridiculous, but it's exactly the way I see DRM and dependency on an internet connection to be able to use your media. In th non-digital world, everybody would say that such a dependency is idiotic, but in the digital world, people seem not to care. I find that astounding.

People got a lot more than just their money back in the Amazon case, they got $30.- each, if remember correctly. If you buy a stolen pbook the real owner could easily come to your house and take it back. They will if it is a valuable book. If an honest person finds out they bought stolen goods they will contact the police, anyway. Even if they lose some money on the deal.

As for your sofa analogy, that is not quite correct. Even if the store where you bought the DRMed books goes broke you can still read the books you bought there afterwards. You just can't download them again, so keep on using that sofa. DRMed ebooks don't need an internet connection after the first activation.

No misunderstandings here, I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but let us remain objective. Obviously disinfecting the files and backing up is always prudent. So, do we care? Those of us that understand these things do care and back up. Some may not care because they only read the books once.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

People got a lot more than just their money back in the Amazon case, they got $30.- each, if remember correctly. If you buy a stolen pbook the real owner could easily come to your house and take it back. They will if it is a valuable book. If an honest person finds out they bought stolen goods they will contact the police, anyway. Even if they lose some money on the deal.

When buying a pbook in a store, I do not expect that the store stole it somewhere. They may have bought it legally in another country, and then resell it in the Netherlands. For most goods, this is no problem, but it could be that the publisher doesn't want the book to be sold in the Netherlands and finds a way to legally summon the store to take it out of their inventory.

That is not my problem. I saw the book there, I paid for it, so it's mine now, whatever happens between the store and the publisher. If the store or publisher wants to take it away in exchange for some perks such as extra money or coupons, then they have to either *ASK* me to agree, or do it through the police, quoting some law that makes it legal for them to do that.

As for your sofa analogy, that is not quite correct. Even if the store where you bought the DRMed books goes broke you can still read the books you bought there afterwards.

Not if these books are on a device that needs to be in contact with the seller at all times to be able to open the book. I don't know if there are such devices or apps already, but on computers, this is normal practice with games and many programs, nowadays. If the seller goes broke, the authentication server goes down, and your game or program won't start.

To be honest, I fully expect the Kindle, Kobo and Sony readers to start functioning like that. I wouldn't even be surprised if they scrapped the capability to side-load books, or your own documents, for that matter, and only accept DRM-ed books that are continually checked over the internet.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

That is not my problem. I saw the book there, I paid for it, so it's mine now, whatever happens between the store and the publisher. If the store or publisher wants to take it away in exchange for some perks such as extra money or coupons, then they have to either *ASK* me to agree, or do it through the police, quoting some law that makes it legal for them to do that.

.

If the store has no legal right to sell you an item you cannot legally take possession of it. It doesn't belong to you, even though you paid for it and you have to give it up. You really have no choice in the matter. The store that sold it to you must compensate you for any losses, of course.

Amazon handled it badly by just deleting the books, they more than made up for it later and they have learned their lessons. Making a repeat of such a scenario very unlikely. Not only will they be thoroughly vetting uploaded materials, they would also discuss any "removal" actions and compensation ahead of time. But in a case such as the 1984 case Amazon really has no choice but to remove the books --- unless the copyright holders agree to another arrangement. But they should be more open about it and offer any additional compensation up front.

I don't think the general public will accept a DRM that requires an "always-on" internet connection. Reading is something that many people do when they are not online, in places with no electricity or no internet. They couldn't get away with it, though they might want to. I personally would not buy any books if I couldn't remove the DRM. Will they make it more difficult to side load? Yes, they want you to buy books from them, they don't make money on the hardware. But there will always be devices around we can use to sideload, even if we need the assistance from some friendly hackers.