Microsoft is taking back ebooks

[fjtorres]

Nadella runs a tight ship.
Something might slip through the cracks here or there but he's not about to throw good money after bad chasing a bad idea. App-locked ebooks didn't work for Tomeraider, it didn't work for Target and it wasn't working now.

Better some bad press now than a bigger mess next year. They have way bigger fish to fry.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by bob_obo

What about if you're honest about breaking the law?

But to live outside the law you must be honest

(Dylan, Absolutely Sweet Marie)

[haertig]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Breaking the law is of course a personal choice, but there are people who prefer to be honest.

Which is why I said, "Others are of course free to virtue-signal any way they want on this."

[crossi]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

What probably happened:

Satya Nadella to staff: "Why are we even in this business?"
Staffer 1: "Uh, but Google..."
Staffer 2: "Apple..."
Staffer 3: "Incremental income..."

Nadella: "Seriously? What income? Nobody is buying them to start with. And with good reason. Whose idea was it to app-lock the whole thing to the browser? When has that ever worked? It's not working, it's never going to work, and it's not important enough to bother with. People want actual files they can backup. If you won't buy it, don't try to sell it! Besides, it has nothing to do with tools or platforms or productivity. Just because the other guys jump off a cliff doesn't mean we have to. What, are we to waste billions on internet TV shows nobody will watch just because Google...?!
"One more time, people: The monkey boy isn't running the show anymore. No more monkey see, monkey do. We're a tools and platforms company. Our business is to help people be more productive. Tools, tools, tools. Stop grubbing for pennies. Shut it down, pay both customers to go away and get back to selling Surface Hubs and Hololens. If you want to copy every stupid thing Google does, move to SiliValley."

Oh, funny! And probably true.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by darryl

I'm sure most who have bought e-books in good faith from Microsoft would not care if they are infringing copyright in reading them, irrespective of whether they have their money refunded.

I really think most people are pretty honest and that, if they accept the refund they'll accept the loss of the books.

Actually I think piracy proves, in an odd way, the honesty of most people. It's easy enough to get a pirate copy of a book today. A lot of people either know how or could easily find out how, and do it. And yet most people buy their books.

We have a washateria in the retirement home where I live and all the machines only take quarters. I keep stocked up on quarters and my neighbors often borrow them from me. I have them pay me back in quarters. Once, out of curiosity, I began tracking this to see if I was losing anything. I kept track for about 6 months, during which I lent out about 400 quarters. That's from memory and not precise but I had it in a note app in my phone so I had the exact number from each person. I also tracked the paybacks. It turns out in that 6 months I lost 9 quarters.

No-one knew I was tracking this and I'm pretty well known here for my forgetfulness so pretty much everyone here had to assumed there was no chance of getting caught for not paying me back. Yet all but one person did and she's more forgetful than I am so that was probably not intentional.

We hear on the news all the time about bad things happening and yet we drive right through a green light so often without worrying about the cars coming up to the red light stopping. We live in a world characterized by trust and trustworthiness and exceptions aren't really that common. That's why they make the news.

Barry

[Apache]

I also believe that the majority of people are honest. I have had customers call us because they realized that they forgot to pay us. Sometimes my wife will get to talking to a customer and they will both forget that the customer had not paid yet.
Apache

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Breaking the law is of course a personal choice, but there are people who prefer to be honest.

Yes, but the law is not honest when it adds another unnecessary layer. The book is under copyright, not licensing. That is a law in error.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Yes, but the law is not honest when it adds another unnecessary layer. The book is under copyright, not licensing. That is a law in error.

Licensing is a legal fiction that is used to try to add restrictions that do not normally apply, for example, typically it's used to bypass the first sale doctrine which says that once you sale a product, you can not control what the buyer does with it. The fiction is that it's licensed rather than sold. As such, it's a contract. Of course, click through tends to ignore the idea that to have a contract, both parties need to agree to it. Some licensing agreements have been held up in court, some have been tossed out.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by barryem

I really think most people are pretty honest and that, if they accept the refund they'll accept the loss of the books.

Actually I think piracy proves, in an odd way, the honesty of most people. It's easy enough to get a pirate copy of a book today. A lot of people either know how or could easily find out how, and do it. And yet most people buy their books.

Barry

I agree with you 100% about piracy. It is a point I have made many times. What is amazing about e-book publishing is that a profitable market still exists despite the ease of obtaining pirate copies.

However, I expect that many of these honest people would not regard keeping these books as being dishonest. Interesting but not strictly relevant is the question of who bears the costs. I imagine it would be Microsoft. I somehow doubt that publishers and authors, having been paid by Microsoft for these books, are going to refund any amounts to Microsoft. If this is the case, we have the situation where the Author/Publisher has been paid for a license which cannot be used. The reason why the book will not be available is not so much because of the license but because Microsoft chose to lock its e-books to the Edge browser with DRM, and is no longer prepared to maintain its licence infrastructure. Some authors/publishers may be in for a windfall. I'm not privy to the legal arrangements but one possibility is that the licenses purchased from Microsoft remain in force but of course cannot be used.

The question is moot in any event because the DRM scheme used has not been circumvented.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by darryl

I agree with you 100% about piracy. It is a point I have made many times. What is amazing about e-book publishing is that a profitable market still exists despite the ease of obtaining pirate copies.

However, I expect that many of these honest people would not regard keeping these books as being dishonest. Interesting but not strictly relevant is the question of who bears the costs. I imagine it would be Microsoft. I somehow doubt that publishers and authors, having been paid by Microsoft for these books, are going to refund any amounts to Microsoft. If this is the case, we have the situation where the Author/Publisher has been paid for a license which cannot be used. The reason why the book will not be available is not so much because of the license but because Microsoft chose to lock its e-books to the Edge browser with DRM, and is no longer prepared to maintain its licence infrastructure. Some authors/publishers may be in for a windfall. I'm not privy to the legal arrangements but one possibility is that the licenses purchased from Microsoft remain in force but of course cannot be used.

The question is moot in any event because the DRM scheme used has not been circumvented.

Also because MS is switching Edge from its proprietary code base to the Chromium code base. Now that browsers are no longer the center of gravity of the internet there is no competitive Advantage in an optimized proprietary code base. And odds are the Edge DRM depends on the inhouse codebase. It's probably more trouble than it's worth to try to graft the edge ebook object store to Chromium.

Bexides, I can't think of a single app-locked ebook ecosystem that has been cracked.
Not because it might be impossible but because none succeeded enough to be relevant.

[darryl]

@fjtorres. It's a terrible concept. Unfortunately it can properly be described as a zombie concept, because despite repeated failures it just won't stay dead. Inevitably after a gap of varying length someone else thinks they can make it work.

[Mikou]

Count me in as someone who had no idea that Microsoft had an e-book store.

Years ago, I bought an e-book from Amazon (pre-Kindle era when they were still selling books in LIT format). Eventually, I realized that I no longer had the original file because it was stored on an external drive that died. Only when I tried to re-download from Amazon's servers did I discover that they had shut down the e-book store. I wish I had thought to demand a refund. Even though it was only 1 book, I was so upset that I didn't get notified and so distrustful that I refused to buy anything digital from Amazon for several years.

Later on, when the Ebookwise store closed, I lost access to 5 books that I purchased in a proprietary format (locked IMP file) that had not been cracked. I had to repurchase.

My 3rd burn was losing access to a few books that I bought from Kobo in locked PDF format. Because Kobo no longer supports that format, my access to those book purchases was removed. I received no prior notification and only got a refund because I demanded it. Unfortunately, I had used discount codes for the original purchases. Since the books were selling at full price, the refund I received for several books would have covered the price of only 1 of the books.

Because of those 3 incidents, I make it a point to avoid buying e-books that cannot be liberated from DRM and backed up. I love reading too much to cede control to a company that can take away my purchases without warning.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Mikou

Because of those 3 incidents, I make it a point to avoid buying e-books that cannot be liberated from DRM and backed up. I love reading too much to cede control to a company that can take away my purchases without warning.

The first consideration I had before first buying ebooks was can I remove DRM? First ebook I bought was actually in LIT format after I had discovered ConvertLIT (for MS Reader LIT DRM removal). Adobe DRM hasn't been cracked yet.

Even now, my purchasing decision is based on ease of DRM removal. I stopped buying from Barnes & Noble when they made it hard to download Nook books. I've mostly switched from Amazon to Kobo as well because I'm afraid the writing is on the wall with KFX and the new DRM for K4PC 1.25 and Kindle FW 5.10.2+.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Even now, my purchasing decision is based on ease of DRM removal. I stopped buying from Barnes & Noble when they made it hard to download Nook books.

Barnes and Noble burned me too. So I agree with your purchasing decision.

Me, I've added to that. I have now amassed "my lifetime supply" of eBooks. If the companies insist on controlling what I have paid for with some kind of super-DRM in the future, then I just won't buy anymore. I don't need to.

Buying eBooks to build a collection is fun. Can get expensive, but it's fun. However, it's hardly necessary when you already own more than you could possibly read in your remaining lifetime. Super-DRM just might be my salvation, it would finally knock some sense into me so I'd quit buying more eBooks that I won't live long enough to read. Probably not the result the book sellers envision for their super-DRM, but that would be the effect on me. I've already cut way back on my buying. I only buy lesser expensive eBooks now, mostly from new authors. The big name authors and their expensive eBooks ... I get those from the library these days.

[Mikou]

I forgot about B&N. I only bought a few books from them. As their financial struggles grew, I was relieved I wasn't too invested in them. The final straw was disallowing backups. They are exactly the type of store that I fear would shut down and take my purchases with them without a refund. They have one of the most reader-unfriendly stores I ever used.