Amazon behaving badly (again)

[Alpha o]

I download. Then I will disable Kindle on the PC, store the books elsewhere for when I want them. I paid for them, I don't intend to resell them or profit except for my own enjoyment. That is legal.

You can add this to the discussion:
https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/...ital+Reader%29

[Ripplinger]

The minute I make a book purchase from anywhere, including Amazon, I immediately download the book. That habit is probably thanks to Calibre, I've used it since my first ereader. I wanted one place to store all my books that also gave me an easy way to search if I've already got a book or not.

I suppose if I had a backlog of 100s of books to do all at once, I can see me putting it off, but it would bug me to no end until I'd manage to get it done.

[gimble]

Originally Posted by Alpha o

I download. Then I will disable Kindle on the PC, store the books elsewhere for when I want them. I paid for them, I don't intend to resell them or profit except for my own enjoyment. That is legal.

Unless you also remove the DRM when storing, you will need to re-enable the kindle app to read those books later... and if amazon disabled the account in the meantime, you wont be able to read the books.

The issue in this case is the legality of removing DRM...

Originally Posted by Alpha o

You can add this to the discussion:
https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/...ital+Reader%29

Interesting. The issue with the kindle unlimited scams stems from Amazon employing a system (similar to Spotify) of pooling the subscription money to be allocated proportionally to the total pages read by subscribers during the month. The bots in this case simply boost page counts artificially.

One way for amazon to deal with this is to cap the page count contribution from each account. Another is to directly distribute each account's subscription money to corresponding books rather than pooling it across the board preventing the scam in the first place.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Alpha o

I download. Then I will disable Kindle on the PC, store the books elsewhere for when I want them. I paid for them, I don't intend to resell them or profit except for my own enjoyment. That is legal.

"That is legal" is a very loaded statement in this case. It is maybe (a weak maybe) possible to make a valid defense using fair play, but maybe not. Right now the legal status would be grey, neither allowed nor persecuted. There is no precedent. I doubt there will be any serious attempt to challenge it in court.

[cfrizz]

I don't worry about the legality of stripping DRM, since I'm not uploading anything and I know that there isn't ANY chance of them coming after me. I simply want to keep what I bought since it is now my property. I don't care if it is paper or a digital file. I bought it, it's mine.

And for anyone who is stupid enough to TRUST or believe any BS that a company spouts, that's such a deplorable lack of common sense it boggles the mind. Businesses operate for their benefit and to make money, not for you. If they see an opportunity to screw you over, believe it they will jump on it!

We have all seen ebook stores come and go and take people's books with them all because they "didn't know", took it for granted that they would always be there, or are simply lazy.

This may have been acceptable in the beginning since we didn't truly know, but all these excuses are not acceptable now umpteen years into the digital world. If you have no common sense or sense of keeping what you bought and paid for, you deserve whatever you get if they suddenly disappear.

But if you care about keeping your property then do the common sense thing and download and back them up.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

The minute I make a book purchase from anywhere, including Amazon, I immediately download the book. That habit is probably thanks to Calibre, I've used it since my first ereader. I wanted one place to store all my books that also gave me an easy way to search if I've already got a book or not.

I suppose if I had a backlog of 100s of books to do all at once, I can see me putting it off, but it would bug me to no end until I'd manage to get it done.

Ditto. I would never have gotten into ebooks at all if I couldn't back-up and store them. I studied all the options thoroughly before even purchasing my first ereader.

Of course, I'm a hoarder by nature. Many people simply aren't.

[janrey]

Originally Posted by rcentros

This thread reminded me that a used book my wife ordered from England on February 24th, that was supposed to arrive no later than March 27th, still hasn't arrived. I was being patient because I know that (what amounts to "Media Mail" from England can sometimes get delayed) but it's now over two weeks past the "expected by" date – and that was the "outside" (latest) date.

So I go to Amazon. Click on Tracking and get the message "Your package was probably delivered, as we expected it to arrive by now." When I click "Get help with order," I get this message "

Have you checked:
Front Porch?
Back door?
Under your door mat?
With your household members and neighbours?

When I click "Still can't find it," I get two options, "Ask seller for a replacement," or "Ask seller for a refund." Apparently, at this point, Amazon is completely out of the loop – so much for Amazon's "A-to-z Marketplace Guarantee." I'm not mad at the seller (because I know stuff gets lost in the mail), and I did request a replacement but, had we bought on eBay, eBay would have remained in the loop. If we bought with PayPal (the standard with eBay) they would have us contact the seller, like Amazon, but if the seller had been unresponsive in a certain amount of time, we could file a claim and – until the claim was solved – the funds would be put in escrow. So the much maligned eBay actually has a system to protect their buyers. Next time my wife is in the market for a specialty medical book (she's a doula / birth educator) I'll suggest she goes to eBay instead of Amazon. I doubt she even realized the book was coming from England.

It will show up eventually. The US postal service is crazy with book rate packages. I ordered a book a few years back that never showed. Amazon refunded my money, no problem and I reordered and got that one. Five months later the book shows up in my mail. Don't know where it was in those five months. Called Amazon to see if they wanted it back, nope, keep it.

My guess is this week they either had a glitch in their algorithms or there was something fraud related that triggered on some accounts. This woman in the article was only making a guess as to why her account was canceled but at the end of the article it was stated that someone at Amazon later reported to her that there was a fraud trigger and they since cleared the account. The triggers may have been an overactive algorithm. I almost expect them to trigger me because I ordered stuff for my husband but forgot to uncheck the box to use the gift amount that was on my account. So I replenish the gift card* amount but what does Amazon do, they utilize the replacement amount as well when they process the order. I then have to go and replenish the gift card amount again. This time I made sure all orders were in processing before doing so.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by janrey

It will show up eventually. The US postal service is crazy with book rate packages. I ordered a book a few years back that never showed. Amazon refunded my money, no problem and I reordered and got that one. Five months later the book shows up in my mail. Don't know where it was in those five months. Called Amazon to see if they wanted it back, nope, keep it.

My book rate package (from an Amazon marketplace seller), which took five days to travel from Maryland to Pennsylvania, has been sitting in Pennsylvania for a full week. Now Amazon says it's delayed (ya think?) and is giving me a new delivery date of Friday. So I wait.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

In my view, Amazon failing to identify the exact term or condition breached, when and how, is totally unacceptable. It would be like being arrested, and convicted, without ever finding out your offence. Kakfa springs to mind. Or, more appropriately, "unconscionable", which has a legal meaning.

Which is why innocent cancellations can't be ignored, specially by those affected.

Disclaimer: My only link to Amazon is I own a Kindle, bought through a local non-Amazon computerl retailer, not from Amazon directly.

I suspect Amazon doesn't want to spell out what its algorithms are looking for because they don't want to give the true scammers the information they need to find a workaround.

I do think Amazon should have to split their digital services out - maybe even to a read-only access, no more sales - when they close a user's account for suspected misuse of their physical returns policy.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

"That is legal" is a very loaded statement in this case. It is maybe (a weak maybe) possible to make a valid defense using fair play, but maybe not. Right now the legal status would be grey, neither allowed nor persecuted. There is no precedent. I doubt there will be any serious attempt to challenge it in court.

Fair use is the US term. I'm pretty sure that there are precedent for format shifting for your personal use. As someone else said, the issue is bypassing DRM and the DMCA which makes bypassing copy protection illegal. So technically, removing DRM from Amazon ebooks is illegal. However, as the book says the average professional commits three felonies a day anyway in the US, so why worry?
(https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonie...oding=UTF8&me=)

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

If Amazon can revoke my access to them at their whim then I have the right to protect my purchases.

Those are not your "purchases". You bought a license to use a surrogate of a book for a finite amount of time that Amazon exists. The files you download are the Amazon's property.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Those are not your "purchases". You bought a license to use a surrogate of a book for a finite amount of time that Amazon exists. The files you download are the Amazon's property.

OK. Here's Clive Cussler's new book on Amazon. Kindle purchase. Show me where on this webpage that you order from it says what you are suggesting: "You won't own this book after you pay us, you are only licensing a copy of it, and we can take it away from you at our sole discretion any time we want to, for any reason, and not even tell you why."

Please point out where that disclosure of information is:

https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Sea-NU...=clive+cussler

So while "everybody knows things are this way", show me specifically where they state it, that's what really matters legally and ethically. You've got to disclose something like that. And it has to be disclosed clearly and be easy to find, not buried somewhere that is not obvious, to be considered ethical IMHO. If they don't state it at your point of purchase, it is perfectly reasonable and logical to assume that this purchase is just like every other purchase: you pay for the product, and then you own it.

[gimble]

Originally Posted by haertig

show me specifically where they state it, that's what really matters legally and ethically. You've got to disclose something like that.

When you register a kindle device to your account or install the kindle app, you agree to the kindle store's terms and conditions. You cannot download kindle books without registering a device first or installing the app. I believe you also agree to the same T&C when you first access kindle's "cloud reader".

Whenever you make a purchase, you have to specify which device it is for (including the cloud reader), which ties the purchase to the agreement you made for that device. This way, amazon doesn't need to ask you to agree to the "fine print" for every single purchase.

As for the actual T&C, see https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=201014950

Specifically:

...Upon your download or access of Kindle Content and payment of any applicable fees (including applicable taxes), the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Kindle Content an unlimited number of times (for Subscription Content, only as long as you remain an active member of the underlying membership or subscription program), solely through a Kindle Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Supported Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider....

Also see this for additional commentary -> https://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/ki...azon-dele.html

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Those are not your "purchases". You bought a license to use a surrogate of a book for a finite amount of time that Amazon exists. The files you download are the Amazon's property.

Whilst technically you are correct, morally I disagree. I ‘Buy’ an ebook, just like I ‘Buy’ a audiobook. If I couldn’t liberate them I wouldn’t buy them.

The idea of only buying licences for digital items is archaic and should be changed as so much is now digital. I don’t buy anything digital I can’t keep and store. That’s why I won’t buy digital movies or TV programs. If I wanted to just borrow items (which is what buying a licence basically means) i’d join a library.

And back to “Amazon behaving badly”. I’ve seen the worst side of them and I don’t agree I deserved it, so now I don’t trust them and never will again, and that affects my purchases with them.

They want to be trusted, and to be the only shop we ever use, that won’t ever happen unless they start to be more transparent in their dealings with those they persevere as difficult or unwanted customers.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by gimble

When you register a kindle device to your account or install the kindle app, you agree to the kindle store's terms and conditions. You cannot download kindle books without registering a device first or installing the app. I believe you also agree to the same T&C when you first access kindle's "cloud reader".

Whenever you make a purchase, you have to specify which device it is for (including the cloud reader), which ties the purchase to the agreement you made for that device. This way, amazon doesn't need to ask you to agree to the "fine print" for every single purchase.

As for the actual T&C, see https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=201014950

Specifically:


Also see this for additional commentary -> https://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/ki...azon-dele.html

We go through this on a regular basis. Just because Amazon or any other company says something in their T&C doesn't make it true or legally binding. Companies claim all sorts of rights and privileges all the time. People simply assume that since a company asserts something, it must be correct.