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Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to readKindle, book revocation, and the freedom to readPosted Jan 14, 2012 1:00 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)In reply to: The Nook Tablet and the GPL by dany Parent article: The Nook Tablet and the GPL I think you could also reap the benefits of a network-connected Kindle without fear of losing your books by just backing up your books (using the USB access where the Kindle appears as a storage device). But then maybe the Internet has a way to poison the Kindle for a certain book so even if you restored it from backup the Kindle would refuse to read it. I don't know the boundaries of "my freedom to read," but would the fact that the Kindle won't read formats such as the open epub format be an interference? I believe the only format it will read that gives you decent readability is one only Amazon can generate. So if Amazon doesn't want you to read something, you don't read it -- at least not practically.
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Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 1:16 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
the kindle will read many formats.
now some people don't consider any e-reader to have 'decent readability' (see the other comment about how it doesn't handle specific types of hyphination), but I routinely get multiple formats of books and put them on my kindle without involving Amazon or converting the format.
so far I've only found one place that I could get epub books where I could not get the same book in a format the the kindle could handle. And in that case it as a DRM locked down epub, hardly what I would call 'open'.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 3:33 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I recently acquired a Kindle Touch and looked up the long list of formats it can read. There are many I don't recognize, and many that are not ebook formats. I tried to read a few PDFs on the Kindle and it was technically possible, but a nightmare. I'll convert the PDF to paper next time. Are you saying you found books in other than Amazon-proprietary AZW format that were readable on Kindle? And in that case it was a DRM locked down epub, hardly what I would call 'open'. There are multiple kinds of openness. The fact that anyone can create and distribute an epub file, locked down or not, is an important and valuable kind of openness.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 4:21 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> Are you saying you found books in other than Amazon-proprietary AZW format that were readable on Kindle?
Yes, .azw is basically .mobi plus DRM, so .mobi and .prc books work perfectly. there are others that work.
.pdf works if the page size the .pdf was created as is close enough to the screen size (this is why I have the kindle DX it's 9.7" screen is good enough to read most .pdf files that were created with letter or A4 pages in mind)
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 1:19 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
when Amazon has removed books from the kindle in the past, people who had the books backed up could just re-load them as you speculate.
Any system where the vendor can push an OS patch to the device gives that vendor the ability to remove any content from the device, disable any feature that you are depending on, and 'poison' the device for any content in the future. People act as if Amazon (for kindle) and Google (for Android) are just itching for the chance to do this. So far I have only seem them do anything in reaction to legal action.
Apple on the other hand.....
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 13:53 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
And when Amazon tried remote deletion in the US it was such a PR disaster that after legal action they were forced to an assurance that they'd never do it again (but only in the US, to devices also purchased there). I suspect they'd do virtually anything rather than remotely wipe books from any kindle anywhere, because they know that if they do it, the PR nightmare will start again.
(It didn't help that they remotely deleted 1984, of all books! That they chose this one suggests to me that they were forced into putting remote deletion onto the books, and intentionally chose to act on the most inflammatory one possible, to ensure that they had a reason never to do it again to wave in publishers' faces in future. It's not like it's in their interest to wipe out books people are reading: it makes the Kindle a less attractive reading platform, and that's all they care about because reading platform attractiveness is pretty directly correlated with money spent buying books at Amazon.)
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 18:25 UTC (Sat) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link]
It's interesting how people have different concerns about this.
To a lot of people, the issue seems to be whether the entity that has remote control of your library is likely to abuse that power. To me, that question is more or less irrelevant. I strongly hate the idea of any entity having remote control of my library of books. It doesn't matter who, or how they say they'll use that power!
If it is a generous and well-behaved entity, which has well-written PR and makes plausible promises not to abuse their remote control, then this makes me hate the situation all the more, because their power is the stealthy, well-mannered, insidious kind that is harder to take the measure of and that my friends and neighbors will tolerate.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 18:50 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
But they don't have control of my library! I can back the thing up at any time (and have of course done so).
If you choose to have your only backup be on a remote site administered by the company which sold you the books, well, don't be surprised if said company takes advantage of you.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 14, 2012 22:42 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
it is impossible to have a company store your library for you without giving them the power to delete your library (or portions of it)
If you don't like that, don't have a company store your library. Even with Kindle, Nook, etc you have the ability to maintain your own copy of the library.
The next issue is DRM, which can make it impossible to access even your own copy. The answer is to either break the DRM (pretty trivial with all common uses), or reward publishers (like Baen Books) who choose not to use DRM. It's not Amazon that is forcing the DRM on kindle books, it's some of the publishers who are demanding it. And those publishers demand it for the e-book no matter what you use to read it.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 15, 2012 0:01 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] DRM, which can make it impossible to access even your own copy. Or worded another way which doesn't connote such evil: DRM, which makes it possible to read a book without actually owning (and buying) a copy.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 15, 2012 1:09 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]
> DRM, which makes it possible to read a book without actually owning (and buying) a copy.
I thought that was what libraries were for. :)
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 15, 2012 4:11 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I thought that was what libraries were for. :) I'm glad you said that, because that's really the point. DRM is digital equivalent of the lending library concept - partial access to a book. In fact, one uses DRM to make a digital lending library - the library buys one full copy of the book, then distributes files to patrons, one a time, with each file becoming useless after a few weeks courtesy of DRM. I suppose if the market were such that publishers didn't offer books for sale to individuals to keep on their bookshelves, but instead sold them only to libraries, some of which charged patrons money, the same ill thoughts that go toward DRM would go toward libraries.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 15, 2012 22:09 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
yes, DRM could be used that way, but that's not the common way that it's used. I don't sign up to read an e-book without purchasing it, I buy an e-book. The entire transaction is setup as a sale.
If it was only libraries that were using DRM, and the transaction was clearly structured as a temporary borrowing (with all the terms and conditions defined), with DRM used to enforce the terms. I would have no problem with DRM.
However, when a publisher charges the same or more for the e-book purchase than for the hardcover purchase, there's no justification in saying I am doing anything other than buying the book.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 16, 2012 0:26 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] But the underlying concept that one is able to transfer less than the whole set of rights that would go with selling a traditional book is still there.
I don't sign up to read an e-book without purchasing it, I buy an e-book. The entire transaction is setup as a sale And I assume you mean to say that what it's a sale of is the equivalent of a sale of a traditional book. But I'm not sure what your point is -- I may have gotten lost in hypotheticals -- because you clearly understand that you aren't in fact doing that. You know when you buy a DRMed e-book that there are things you're not getting.
when a publisher charges the same or more for the e-book purchase than for the hardcover purchase, there's no justification in saying I am doing anything other than buying the book. The main justification is that the seller doesn't intend to sell you "the book." In our free market system, that's a whole lot of justification. We generally accept that market prices are too complex to make them the indicator of what's being sold. In fact, I have little trouble accepting that a restricted ebook is worth the same to someone as a full-rights hardcover.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 16, 2012 1:30 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
you are buying in to the theory that I'm not buying a book, only buying limited rights to read the book. I see it differently.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 16, 2012 3:46 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I don't think it's a matter of theory, just definition. I think we have a semantic breakdown and we're talking past each other. I don't think we mean the same thing by "buy."
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 19, 2012 15:31 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Your favorite Linux distro can also release a package update that would delete all files starting with "1984". It would be a breach of trust, it would be a PR disaster, but it can be done. Yet I have no problems running "yum -y upgrade" on my systems.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 19, 2012 16:53 UTC (Thu) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link]
If the ereader manufacturer had no way to push updates to me -- I had to opt in by pulling updates from them -- and if I and others could inspect, modify, and/or redistribute the source code of the updates, then I would be fine with that.
Kindle, book revocation, and the freedom to read Posted Jan 26, 2012 18:06 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
One could say that the same is true of the Kindle. The only thing the wireless/3G interface is useful for is a link to Amazon -- you can't use it to access anything else -- and it sucks power so a prominent option is provided to turn it off. Don't want Amazon talking to your device? Don't turn the wireless/3G interface on. Your battery will last longer too.
You lose a bit of convenience -- buying books is a bit less convenient, and rather than periodicals appearing spontaneously on your device you have to plug it in and click once in Calibre. But that's not the end of the world, really. (You can also back the whole thing up in Calibre and be immune to Amazon-triggered deletions that way.)
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