I didn't know Amazon could remotely wipe your Kindle clean of all content

[Northern Lawn]

This lady had her account closed, and they wiped her kindle of every book she ever bought. Apparently you don't own the books, you rent them.

I have a Kindle but I pirated my books, 10's of thousands of them. Glad I did. I still buy paper books and would have bought Ebooks, almost did a couple weeks ago. But now there is no way I would "RENT" a e-book from Amazon.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/righ...an-kindle-account-drm-dictates-183817150.html

As Digital Trends points out, Amazon very explicitly states that when customers pay for ebooks and other content on their Kindle or other e-reader, they are paying to license the content, not to purchase it. Bekkelund explains in his post that DRM is what controls this 'rental' of content, and under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Amazon can take away that content and all your future access to it if they suspect you of not playing by the rules.

 

[Vic Vega]

Amazon says she violated the TOS over and over so they closed the account. She opened a new account and continued to violate the TOS so they closed that account.

They don't say what she did.

 

[Northern Lawn]

And she says she never had another account but who really knows. I more concerned that they stole what she paid for.

I wonder If I'm a sucker for buying like a hundred games from steam. I never read terms, just click ok. Bad for business if they start stealing.

 

[Double Trouble]

That's one of the reasons I refuse to buy DRM'd crap.

 

[DaveSimmons]

This lady had her account closed, and they wiped her kindle of every book she ever bought. Apparently you don't own the books, you rent them.

I have a Kindle but I pirated my books, 10's of thousands of them. Glad I did. I still buy paper books and would have bought Ebooks, almost did a couple weeks ago. But now there is no way I would "RENT" a e-book from Amazon.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/righ...an-kindle-account-drm-dictates-183817150.html

For all we know she was the one stealing, breaking the DRM and sharing with pirates like you? If the downloads are marked, they might have been traced back to her even with the DRM gone.

Sorry, I trust Amazon a lot more than a random complainer on the internet.

 

[Northern Lawn]

Sorry, I trust Amazon a lot more than a random complainer on the internet.

Amazon admitted they made a mistake now and reactivated her account.

btw, in Canada we're still allowed to share files. The judge said it was like going to the library.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Amazon admitted they made a mistake now and reactivated her account. .

Do you have the link to that? I didn't see that in the original article or a couple of blogs linked to from it.

This blog speculates that she was (without realizing it) breaking the terms under which Amazon is allowed to sell the ebooks:
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-dele.html

(Amazon only has rights to sell books to the countries that the publishers allow them to sell to, but she was using a UK account from Norway.)

 

[Northern Lawn]

Do you have the link to that? I didn't see that in the original article or a couple of blogs linked to from it.

It's near the bottom of the piece under "Update".

http://mhpbooks.com/amazon-would-li...ling-your-books-no-you-cannot-have-them-back/

Phipps has posted the following to his own piece on this kerfuffle:

Update @ 23:55 - Linn just contacted me to say her account has been mysteriously re-activated and she’s busily downloading her books. Hopefully Amazon will have more news for us all soon. Even positive arbitrary actions disclose how much Kindle customers read only with the grace of Amazon, of course…

Update @ 00:30 - Amazon PR just wrote to say: “We would like to clarify our policy on this topic. Account status should not affect any customer’s ability to access their library. If any customer has trouble accessing their content, he or she should contact customer service for help. Thank you for your interest in Kindle.”

 

[paperfist]

And she says she never had another account but who really knows. I more concerned that they stole what she paid for.

I wonder If I'm a sucker for buying like a hundred games from steam. I never read terms, just click ok. Bad for business if they start stealing.

Steam can do the same thing (no one owns PC games anymore) and if you agreed to their recent ToS update you can't sue them if they screw you over.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow that sucks that they can do that.

This is why I will only pay for something if I have an actual stand alone file to show for it. That way I can put the file anywhere I want, make backups of it, etc. I would not buy something otherwise. As much as I hate the concept of the pdf file format because it's closed source, I prefer any ebook to be in that format. If properly done with a table of contents and everything it works pretty well. I've seen some html based books too but half the time they are buggy because they try to be too fancy with excessive javascript and crap.

 

[momeNt]

Steam can do the same thing (no one owns PC games anymore) and if you agreed to their recent ToS update you can't sue them if they screw you over.

People actually buy games through steam? I thought it was a launching program for half life games?

 

[Northern Lawn]

This blog speculates that she was (without realizing it) breaking the terms under which Amazon is allowed to sell the ebooks:
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-dele.html

(Amazon only has rights to sell books to the countries that the publishers allow them to sell to, but she was using a UK account from Norway.)

Hmmm... Amazon also apparently did the same to Orwell's books:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0

In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”
On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.
In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them

Wow, maybe Orwell was warning us about Amazon's Big Brother approach.

But to Amazons credit

Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,”

Antoine Bruguier, an engineer in Silicon Valley, said he had noticed that his digital copy of “1984” appeared to be a scan of a paper edition of the book. “If this Kindle breaks, I won’t buy a new one, that’s for sure,” he said.

 

[Northern Lawn]

Steam can do the same thing (no one owns PC games anymore) and if you agreed to their recent ToS update you can't sue them if they screw you over.

I would go ballistic if Steam managed to remotely access my computer and uninstall my games. I'm pretty sure putting a clause in a contract saying "You can't sue us" is illegal and wouldn't hold up. I would call the RCMP.. it's Hacking.

 

[Northern Lawn]

Wow that sucks that they can do that.

This is why I will only pay for something if I have an actual stand alone file to show for it. That way I can put the file anywhere I want, make backups of it, etc. I would not buy something otherwise. As much as I hate the concept of the pdf file format because it's closed source, I prefer any ebook to be in that format. If properly done with a table of contents and everything it works pretty well. I've seen some html based books too but half the time they are buggy because they try to be too fancy with excessive javascript and crap.

I tried some PDFs on my kindle and on my BB, it was Terrible. The Mobi format for kindle makes for a really nice read. I can adjust the font size, I can't count pages anymore but it tells me what % I've read.

Reading Wool Omnibus right now.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would go ballistic if Steam managed to remotely access my computer and uninstall my games. I'm pretty sure putting a clause in a contract saying "You can't sue us" is illegal and wouldn't hold up. I would call the RCMP.. it's Hacking.

Sadly it would probably fall as a copyright/IP issue, and those issues trump every possible law, even murder, so even the RCMP would not be able to do anything.

It really sucks how lot of stuff is like this though. I hate the concept of steam or any other system where the content is governed. If I buy something, I should be able to use it stand alone and they should not be able to take it away from me for ANY reason. Guess this is one down side of this tech world. You can't possibly do those things with physical objects, but with electronics they can do all sorts of tricks like this.

Because of this, paper books will probably continue to be widely enough used. It's hard enough to get certain people to trust technology, well when the technology *really* can't be trusted, then they'll just say screw it and buy the physical book.

 

[Northern Lawn]

Sadly it would probably fall as a copyright/IP issue, and those issues trump every possible law, even murder, so even the RCMP would not be able to do anything.

It really sucks how lot of stuff is like this though. I hate the concept of steam or any other system where the content is governed. If I buy something, I should be able to use it stand alone and they should not be able to take it away from me for ANY reason. Guess this is one down side of this tech world. You can't possibly do those things with physical objects, but with electronics they can do all sorts of tricks like this.

Because of this, paper books will probably continue to be widely enough used. It's hard enough to get certain people to trust technology, well when the technology *really* can't be trusted, then they'll just say screw it and buy the physical book.

Trudeau Junior will save us.

 

[Double Trouble]

Steam can do the same thing (no one owns PC games anymore) and if you agreed to their recent ToS update you can't sue them if they screw you over.

Yep, by installing steam and agreeing to their terms, you're probably granting them all sorts of rights and probably absolving them of any responsibility should they screw up something on your PC. No thanks, I'm not buying anything that's actually a rental valid only as long as the vendor wants to allow me to have it.

 

[Sephire]

STEAM has free access to your PC.

 

[davmat787]

Steam can do the same thing (no one owns PC games anymore) and if you agreed to their recent ToS update you can't sue them if they screw you over.

You never really owned the game back in the days of floppies and CD-ROM's anyway. You bought a license to run the software along with a copy of it on media to install it, but you did not buy the source code just like you don't own the words of the author in a book, even though they come in the book that you buy.

If that makes sense... :hmm:

 

[leper84]

And she says she never had another account but who really knows. I more concerned that they stole what she paid for.

I wonder If I'm a sucker for buying like a hundred games from steam. I never read terms, just click ok. Bad for business if they start stealing.

I have a back up hdd. Once a month I'll plug it in and among other things, update a full copy of my steamapps folder. Then it gets unplugged, static sleeved and put in a drawer.

I only do it now so that if I click on the wrong pron and Windows dies, I don't spend forever redownloading all of MY games; though I'm sure worst case scenario if Steam began pulling that bs there would be a work around to use MY games as long as I keep the data backed up.

I've heard of Amazon blacklisting customers before, I think someone even posted here a link to someone who returned 'too much' and Amazon out of no where completely shut down their account- even access to their receipts for warranty issues. I can understand the reasoning that they don't want to keep a bad customer but it seems pretty shitty they can arbitrarily decide what level bad is. Which is why I'm very selective as to what digital content I buy from Amazon- If its something I'd want to watch more than once I'll just send my money elsewhere.

 

[CPA]

I would go ballistic if Steam managed to remotely access my computer and uninstall my games. I'm pretty sure putting a clause in a contract saying "You can't sue us" is illegal and wouldn't hold up. I would call the RCMP.. it's Hacking.

No, it's not illegal. It's actually done pretty often with companies putting in arbitration rules in contracts. Look, if you don't want their service and play by their rules, don't accept their offer to use their service.

 

[Cerb]

Steam can do the same thing (no one owns PC games anymore) and if you agreed to their recent ToS update you can't sue them if they screw you over.

My GOG installers disagree, even without hard copies. I own those copies every bit as much as anything before the DMCA.

You never really owned the game back in the days of floppies and CD-ROM's anyway. You bought a license to run the software along with a copy of it on media to install it, but you did not buy the source code just like you don't own the words of the author in a book, even though they come in the book that you buy.

If that makes sense... :hmm:

Only as a silly straw man. If you buy a book, you own the book. You do not need to own the plates the book was made with to say you own that book. Software is different, but the same sort of thing applies: if you have a copy you can use without constant consent of the rights-holder, you own that copy of that game, and in vulgar terms, you, "own the game."

Owning the rights, and owning a copy, are totally different things, and we generally assume one is talking about a given copy, if nothing else is specified. Thus far, shrink-wrap licenses have yet to hold up in court, too (systems like Steam are different, in that you can be made to agree terms before buying).

 

[diesbudt]

I would go ballistic if Steam managed to remotely access my computer and uninstall my games. I'm pretty sure putting a clause in a contract saying "You can't sue us" is illegal and wouldn't hold up. I would call the RCMP.. it's Hacking.

Actually in their contract they state it is illegal to class action lawsuit.

Nothing about individually attacking the company via lawsuits. And they say they added this because in Class action lawsuits, the lawyers win, not the people.

 

[lxskllr]

That's one of the reasons I refuse to buy DRM'd crap.

Yup. This is why libre software is important. DigitalRestrictionsManagement can't live in libre software. This also isn't the first time they've remotely deleted content. The most notable was when they deleted 1984 from people's machines. Does the irony get any more delicious? Even the name Kindle tells you up front what they can do. They can burn your books without ever leaving the office. Such modern wonders our overlords provide for us...

 

[Texashiker]

No, it's not illegal. It's actually done pretty often with companies putting in arbitration rules in contracts. Look, if you don't want their service and play by their rules, don't accept their offer to use their service.

Steam and other companies have been putting class action lawsuit protection in their agreements.

But most of the agreements exclude small claims courts.

As for amazon, I thought ereaders were better then books?

There was a thread on here a year ago or so were people said they had not bought a book in years? Or something like that.

At least when you buy the book, its yours. Amazon is not going to kick in your front door and take the book from you.