My interest in Amazon's Kindle just died

[zinfamous]

sucks, but I think the author goes a little far in labeling this "Big Brother-esque."

 

[zoiks]

Amazon says that it won't repeat ebook recalls.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1386...=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Still, the fact that DRM is in there kind of spoils it for sure.

 

[brandonbull]

Stop being an emo i love you and buy some real books. Just the name alone sounds gay.

 

[Born2bwire]

It always surprises me that people still do not know that:

A. Books bought from Amazon have DRM.
B. You can buy DRM free (and free DRM free) books from many other e-book retailers and view them on a Kindle.

 

[Queasy]

At least Amazon had the good sense to refund everybody their money.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: zoiks
Amazon says that it won't repeat ebook recalls.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1386...=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Still, the fact that DRM is in there kind of spoils it for sure.

Amazon SAYS that it won't. However, what if they change their mind?

Another facet to this is that if they can delete a book you have purchased, they have the capability to change a book you have purchased. This means they can remove your current copy and replace it with an altered copy. Without notifying you.

NO THANK YOU.

 

[nageov3t]

meh.

I'll care when it happens to me.

thus far, I've been nothing but happy with my kindle in every single way.

 

[Deeko]

I still love my Kindle.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Freely distributable from Project Gutenberg Australia (any author who died before 1955):

Animal Farm:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011.txt

1984:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

Many of Orwell's other works:
http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html

 

[0roo0roo]

publishers are douchbags.
esp angry about them nerfing voice playback to protect their audiobook market. thats just bs.

 

[Vanman345]

I agree with most of the points made about the "recall" of the books by "Big Brother". But I would like to say that there is a method whereby kindle owners could still have that content and have access to it if they followed one of the most basic rules of data safety....back it up. There's this handy USB cable that allows you to easily copy all your kindle books to your hard drive. If you can live without having access to the wireless service you can read those banned books. Amazon can't tinker with what's on your kindle if it isn't connected to the wireless service.

Is that a hassle? Yes. A deal-breaker? Not necessarily.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: Vanman345
I agree with most of the points made about the "recall" of the books by "Big Brother". But I would like to say that there is a method whereby kindle owners could still have that content and have access to it if they followed one of the most basic rules of data safety....back it up. There's this handy USB cable that allows you to easily copy all your kindle books to your hard drive. If you can live without having access to the wireless service you can read those banned books. Amazon can't tinker with what's on your kindle if it isn't connected to the wireless service.

Is that a hassle? Yes. A deal-breaker? Not necessarily.

I'm picturing if you sync the Kindle to the PC, and the Kindle sends an instruction to the PC to delete or replace the file. I guess that depends on how the Kindle syncs up to the PC, in whether it shows as a generic disk that you drag and drop files from, or if there's some app like iTunes that manages the sync.

You may have the actual file, but if you ever go to read it, Amazon replaces it with either nothing or whatever they want.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: brandonbull
Stop being an emo i love you and buy some real books. Just the name alone sounds gay.

Now tell us how you really feel.

 

[zerogear]

I love my Sony PRS-700 :], that and I can rent ebooks from the library and put it in my PRS-700 Reader, while the Kindle.... you can buy books from Amazon... and nothing else. Closed system ftl

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: zerogear
I love my Sony PRS-700 :], that and I can rent ebooks from the library and put it in my PRS-700 Reader, while the Kindle.... you can buy books from Amazon... and nothing else. Closed system ftl

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
It always surprises me that people still do not know that:

A. Books bought from Amazon have DRM.
B. You can buy DRM free (and free DRM free) books from many other e-book retailers and view them on a Kindle.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: zerogear
I love my Sony PRS-700 :], that and I can rent ebooks from the library and put it in my PRS-700 Reader, while the Kindle.... you can buy books from Amazon... and nothing else. Closed system ftl

Uh... no?

 

[waggy]

idnt they have another issue a few months ago? seems the kindle is not something ot buy.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were ?1984? and ?Animal Farm.?

Amazon says- "You just got punked!"

 

[nageov3t]

Jeffrey P. Bezos says:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/tag/kind...displayType=tagsDetail

 

[0roo0roo]

whatever..the feature that allows removal of content needs to go.
its certainly turned me off the whole ebook idea ...not that i was hot on it, but now its dead to me.

 

[DontMindMe]

Originally posted by: Kadarin
This is the equivalent of buying a song from iTunes where the music industry decides they don't want to offer a track for sale and Apple deletes the song from your collection and your ipod when you connect and sync up.

I was seriously considering a KindleDX. Was.

plz link an example of iTunes doing this...?

 

[brxndxn]

Would the Kindle allow me to put Word documents, PDF's, or text files on it? If so, then it might actually be useful to me.. I could start storing all my technical manuals on it and free up valuable laptop screen space..

Something tells me the Kindle won't allow anything but purchased books..

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: brxndxn
Would the Kindle allow me to put Word documents, PDF's, or text files on it? If so, then it might actually be useful to me.. I could start storing all my technical manuals on it and free up valuable laptop screen space..

Something tells me the Kindle won't allow anything but purchased books..

you can definitely load pdf's and non-amazon ebooks on it.

word and .txt, idk, but it seems likely.

 

[Eos]

The computer file formats that you can read or listen to on
your Kindle are listed below:

? Kindle (.AZW, .AZW1)
? Text (.TXT)
? Unprotected Mobipocket (.MOBI, .PRC)
? Audible (.AA, .AAX)
? MP3 (.MP3)

In addition to the ile formats listed above, you can also convert other personal
documents to read on your Kindle. The supported ile formats are listed below:

? Microsoft Word (.DOC)
? RTF
? PDF
? Structured HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
? JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
? GIF (.GIF)
? PNG (.PNG)
? BMP (.BMP)
? Compressed ZIP (.ZIP)

The Kindle DX adds the ability to read .PDF files without conversion.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: DontMindMe

Originally posted by: Kadarin
This is the equivalent of buying a song from iTunes where the music industry decides they don't want to offer a track for sale and Apple deletes the song from your collection and your ipod when you connect and sync up.

I was seriously considering a KindleDX. Was.

plz link an example of iTunes doing this...?

He's not saying Apple did that, he's offering an unnecessary and slightly flawed analogy.

Apparently Amazon allows people to self-publish their books for the Kindle, and someone decided to self-publish 1984 and Animal Farm and sell them for $.99 each. Based on their choice of books, I wonder if they did it to make a point about DRM.

https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin