Comments on: Why DRM is not a good idea…

By: GetSmart

GetSmart — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:56:16 +0000

If you haven’t got it figured out, Stallman has been right all along. This shit will just get worse as time marches on. And this sort of thing is the least of the abuses we’ll see.
But for the moment our sacred history is safe. Why, where would we be without the morally uplifting story about how Andrew Carnegie chopped down the cherry tree and sold the lumber for a profit and how Jesus and John the Baptist used Tang to baptize the Knights Templar at the War of the Rose bowl.

By: newrepublican

newrepublican — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:26:21 +0000

Yawn.

When you finish with the “maybes” and “what-ifs”, read this:

http://tinyurl.com/mwdasg

It was done poorly – at the request of the publisher.

By: The0ne

The0ne — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:35:32 +0000

Amazon IS going to feel the heat. Their the ones that advertised and sold the goods. That’s what most customers will come back to complain to. The publisher is probably just laughing at the whole thing

Seriously, would you complain to Amazon or the publisher? And who will you most likely get a response from and in return allow you to rant and vent? AMAZON

By: smartalix

smartalix — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:40:27 +0000

In Capitalist America the Book orders YOU!

By: Improbus

Improbus — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:31:22 +0000

@iskander

In the New World Order YOU are the property.

By: iskander

iskander — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:48:23 +0000

We will soon need to re-define the words “buy” and “own”

By: kjackman

kjackman — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:47:53 +0000

Dude… I have a Kindle (gen 2). I bought 1984 a few weeks ago and have been reading it off and on, along with several other books. I had no idea this had happened until I read it here.

So I grabbed the Kindle and took a look… it’s gone. No announcement, no explanation, no warning, no nothing, just… gone. So, if I hadn’t read about it here, I’d be wondering what the hell happened to the book I bought… or thought I’d bought, but… maybe I didn’t, maybe it never really happened, I only imagined it did…

In other words, 1984 went down the freakin’ memory hole!

Geez, Orwell, how can you even sleep at night now!? >:-(

By: kywrite

kywrite — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:59:35 +0000

On further thought, Amazon sells books via subcontractors as well in an automated vendor system. Maybe what happened is one of these vendors scarfed up the gutenberg.au books, formatted them nicely, and put them up for sale w/o permission, knowingly or unknowingly.

In that case, then, Amazon should not have removed the books from Kindles. Instead, they should have replaced that unauthorized version with the correct, legal version THAT THEY STILL SELL on Amazon. 1984 is one of their featured Kindle titles, for $9.99. Sure, they would have had to pay the license cost to the publisher — but they should also have taken precautions with their vendors to ensure books sold via Amazon, using Amazon’s good name and resources, were legally the vendors’ to sell. They should make good and offer these customers a new copy of the deleted books for free.

By: kywrite

kywrite — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:44:07 +0000

So it was an unauthorized version? Does this mean Amazon is picking up books on public-domain sites like gutenberg.au (which uses a different copyright law system and, yes, has all Orwell’s works available for free), reformatting them for Kindle, then SELLING them? That would explain the sudden “oops, we can’t sell this unauthorized version in the US” realization, and the seemingly sneaky removal in the middle of the night.

What a rip.

By: Rick Cain

Rick Cain — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:42:35 +0000

I got to use a kindle. I’m still mystified why this is considered better than a book.

By: deowll

deowll — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:03:28 +0000

I do buy ebooks in RTF format. They work on all my computers. Even my little net book has a 10 inch screen and I’ve got a 9 cell battery pack. I do have to plug it in more often but it costs about the same and is rather more flexible.

By: Animby

Animby — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:31:01 +0000

I want a Kindle so bad I an taste it. But, I’m waiting to see what PlasticLogic comes out with (soon?) so I can read PDfs and other formats.

As for the iPhone? Sheesh! My reading glasses need reading glasses to get through a newspaper on one of those screens…

By: RBG

RBG — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:01:44 +0000

I digress:

Just purchased over 30 Bonanza episodes for $5. This was entirely due to the fact that the copyright owners screwed up and forgot to extend the copyright for these particular years, pushing it into public domain.

Had to laugh that it was marketed as “The Best of Bonanza”

They couldn’t use the iconic Bonanza theme likely due to the fact that it has it’s own separate copyright.

Instead they use a piece of lame stock music.

No way sez I and I insist upon synching a Bonanza theme CD cut with the opening credits for my young kids to properly enjoy “the classics.

Didn’t help. They thought Bonanza was boring. What is the world coming to?

RBG

By: KarmaBaby

KarmaBaby — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:25:57 +0000

People read?

By: Oinky

Oinky — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:03:21 +0000

So if I had bought that book on my Kindle, and it was deleted, Amazon certainly will credit my account, right? And, if I had finished reading the book, I will have read it for free. Just like a library, but more to the point, the publisher lost a sale, didn’t they?