Amazon book censorship Round 2

[KlavoHunter]

Why not? How would this impact you? Is it simply pique? It's arguably the best ereader, and this doesn't impact you unless you choose to.

Unless you choose to... what, pay for and try and read a book that Amazon suddenly later decides is 'obscene' and they literally go onto your Kindle and delete it away from you?

That's about as good an argument as "If you have nothing to hide, why do you care?". I really expected better from you, Stark.

[Stark]

It really isn't, because - as stated several times in the thread you're apparently too stupid to read - only live books linked to your account can be accessed or controlled by Amazon. Bulk convert your library to a different format, and you can continue to use the industry-standard in ebook readers without fits of paranoia.

Since I never said anything like 'if you have nothing to hide, why do you care', I guess you're just a fucking idiot. The issues with the -store- are irrelevant to the -reader-, and people whinging like bitches about not buying a Kindle (which doesn't have to use the store, and can just convert files anyway, and is measurably better than the competition) is the true lameness.

Of course, being nerds, its all bluster, since nerd boycotts never actually happen.

[Siege]

That's pretty funny coming from a guy who has contributed nothing beyond HO HO HO I LIKE BOOKS.

That's not actually what I said, but if it makes you happy then whatever, luv!

I suppose it's hard to deal with folks who don't buy into the Stark Troll 1.0 script, right? I can't wait to see what silly 'assumption' (PS: not really an assumption) you're gonna conjure up next... Am I right?

[Stark]

More on-topic, stories like these certainly don't do much to change my preference for books in the old school dead tree format.

Yeah, whatever shitbird. This isn't an attitude formed from ignorance, it's a 'preference' right? Put the tinfoil hat back on and fuck off; at least other people can actually talk about the market dynamic and legality of the actions instead of constantly crapping on about OH MAN REEL BOOX ARE BETTAH.

Since there's still no coverage of this in the media so the clueless don't care, and its a non-issue for people with brains, I don't see this having much of a long-term effect beyond Amazon's lawyers seeing they can get out of their previous agreement.

[ThomasP]

Just to toss ideas out. You can buy Kindle books and then decrypt them. Decrypted books are untouchable by Amazon and can be backed up as often as wanted.

For the record, this is illegal under US law thanks to the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA (as is distributing the relevant software and knowledge). Amazon has used the DMCA in the past to have this information taken down.

Not that it would stop anyone, and the right or wrong of it is certainly arguable, but it's worth mentioning for anyone thinking of going that route.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Did the first round involve that Pedo Guide?

[Bakustra]

Did the first round involve that Pedo Guide?

The "first round" was the deletion of a number of illegal copies of 1984 they didn't have the right to sell. The pedo guide came up later, there was a protest, they took it down, announced their support for freedom of speech, put it back up, then took it down again. That's why I don't think that they have any real system for dealing with this.

[Molyneux]

Why not? How would this impact you? Is it simply pique? It's arguably the best ereader, and this doesn't impact you unless you choose to.

1) As mentioned in another comment, decrypting the books may be illegal under current US law.
2) How the fuck else do you expect Amazon to learn a lesson if people keep throwing money at them? I'm not exactly organizing a mass boycott here, but I fail to see why you expect me to give my money to a company that steals from its customers. I'm really not sure what your thought process is.

[Bakustra]

Why not? How would this impact you? Is it simply pique? It's arguably the best ereader, and this doesn't impact you unless you choose to.

1) As mentioned in another comment, decrypting the books may be illegal under current US law.
2) How the fuck else do you expect Amazon to learn a lesson if people keep throwing money at them? I'm not exactly organizing a mass boycott here, but I fail to see why you expect me to give my money to a company that steals from its customers. I'm really not sure what your thought process is.

Quick question. Do you consider piracy to be stealing? Amazon is not selling the books themselves (all Kindle e-books in the public domain are free) but rather a license for the copyrighted data. So when they revoke said license, they are 'stealing' books from their customers exactly as much as a pirate steals Civilization 5 when he torrents it. I agree that ideally Amazon should compensate their customers.

[General Zod]

Why not? How would this impact you? Is it simply pique? It's arguably the best ereader, and this doesn't impact you unless you choose to.

1) As mentioned in another comment, decrypting the books may be illegal under current US law.
2) How the fuck else do you expect Amazon to learn a lesson if people keep throwing money at them? I'm not exactly organizing a mass boycott here, but I fail to see why you expect me to give my money to a company that steals from its customers. I'm really not sure what your thought process is.

Quick question. Do you consider piracy to be stealing? Amazon is not selling the books themselves (all Kindle e-books in the public domain are free) but rather a license for the copyrighted data. So when they revoke said license, they are 'stealing' books from their customers exactly as much as a pirate steals Civilization 5 when he torrents it. I agree that ideally Amazon should compensate their customers.

Actually, your comparison isn't quite accurate. When someone pirates a copy of a game or whatever, the owner or whoever they take the game from is deprived of nothing because they're just making a copy. In this case Amazon actually removes the customer's ability to use what they've paid for.

[Molyneux]

Why not? How would this impact you? Is it simply pique? It's arguably the best ereader, and this doesn't impact you unless you choose to.

1) As mentioned in another comment, decrypting the books may be illegal under current US law.
2) How the fuck else do you expect Amazon to learn a lesson if people keep throwing money at them? I'm not exactly organizing a mass boycott here, but I fail to see why you expect me to give my money to a company that steals from its customers. I'm really not sure what your thought process is.

Quick question. Do you consider piracy to be stealing? Amazon is not selling the books themselves (all Kindle e-books in the public domain are free) but rather a license for the copyrighted data. So when they revoke said license, they are 'stealing' books from their customers exactly as much as a pirate steals Civilization 5 when he torrents it. I agree that ideally Amazon should compensate their customers.

See Zod's reply.
I consider piracy to be copyright infringement. Stealing, on the other hand, involves the deprivation of something from somoeone - in this case, the people paid good damned money for their books. I dont' give a fuck if the copy is electronic rather than physical - when you buy a book, you buy it, not rent it. Amazon then removed the books - stole them - from their customers' Kindles.

The customer service reaction was disgusting, but even if Amazon had been apologetic and had compensated their customers for the deletion, it would have remained theft, compensated or no.

[ThomasP]

I dont' give a fuck if the copy is electronic rather than physical - when you buy a book, you buy it, not rent it.

I actually agree with you on this point, in that it should be this way, but as copyright law stands in the US and with most US trade partners, this isn't true in the legal sense. Other media have exceptions written into the law that applies some sense to owner's rights, mostly thanks to court precedent; digital media haven't quite gotten there yet.

Consequently, when you pay for a book from most of these electronic stores, you are in fact paying for a license to use a work, not ownership of the work (you get ownership with physical books largely thanks to the First Sale doctrine -- one of those exceptions I mentioned before). Even though this isn't written into the law per se, the illegality of breaking DRM enforces it in practice.

The law in this area is surprisingly arbitrary, with exceptions for some things (radio, VCRs, Xerox machines) while criminalizing others, even though they result in the same thing: people experiencing a work without paying for it. Chalk most of this up to what rights-holders feel about the topic, versus any sensible policy.

[Alyeska]

Legal rulings have recently made DRM cracking for the purpose of fair use to be legal. Violating the DMCA is itself not a copyright violation and without a copyright violation, there is no reason to punish people for cracking DRM. These were legal rulings this year. Specifically to do with Blu-Ray protection schemes. But it transcends all DRM.

[ThomasP]

You're probably talking about the Fifth Circuit's ruling on circumvention for fair use. I agree, that's a good sign. I'd still hesitate to call it free and clear because of this:

The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners.

That's pretty murky, and off-hand I've got no idea whether or not books being sold by copyright holders, under an distributor's licensing arrangement that may limit copying, could be spun to violation of copyright protections. Can anyone more familiar with Amazon's Kindle licensing comment on what it allows?

[Stark]

I actually agree with you on this point, in that it should be this way, but as copyright law stands in the US and with most US trade partners, this isn't true in the legal sense. Other media have exceptions written into the law that applies some sense to owner's rights, mostly thanks to court precedent; digital media haven't quite gotten there yet.

This is wonderful, except they're not selling you a book. They're selling you a licence to read a book. If people read their licence agreements, this sort of thing wouldn't be surprising.

I'm curious what legal jiggery-pokery Amazon pulled to so obviously do something they agreed not to do anymore (outside of inapplicable exceptions). Assuming they're not complete idiots and are vetting their content properly, its avoidable. Since nobody cares, it isn't a big cost for them, but clearly its to be avoided.

Luckily, not being in the United States of Lol I can break any encryption I want. I believe the Kindle plays pretty much anything except epub, which is a clear statement of 'yeah, we want to control you'. Hardly surprising.

[Bakustra]

Actually, your comparison isn't quite accurate. When someone pirates a copy of a game or whatever, the owner or whoever they take the game from is deprived of nothing because they're just making a copy. In this case Amazon actually removes the customer's ability to use what they've paid for.

Okay, lease termination would be a better argument. But the point is that at no point do you pay for the data with the Kindle service, but the money goes to the license, which can be revoked if there's a breach of contract. I don't think that the way they determine breaches is ideal and most of the time their process is completely ad-hoc. I believe that they should, ideally, recompense customers in situations like this, where the breach was not on the customer's end. But that does not make the license equivalent with the data.

Now, there is the question of whether they legally can consider this a breach of contract sufficient to delete content, according to the article. Perhaps there was a court order? But in that case, surely they should have brought that up by now, unless they fired their entire PR department for the holiday season.

[General Zod]

Okay, lease termination would be a better argument. But the point is that at no point do you pay for the data with the Kindle service, but the money goes to the license, which can be revoked if there's a breach of contract. I don't think that the way they determine breaches is ideal and most of the time their process is completely ad-hoc. I believe that they should, ideally, recompense customers in situations like this, where the breach was not on the customer's end. But that does not make the license equivalent with the data.

I would have much less of a problem with their deletions if they had more transparent standards on what they didn't consider acceptable, and actually offered some sort of compensation to anyone adversely affected. As it is they're not doing a very good job of staying consistent.

Now, there is the question of whether they legally can consider this a breach of contract sufficient to delete content, according to the article. Perhaps there was a court order? But in that case, surely they should have brought that up by now, unless they fired their entire PR department for the holiday season.

There was a court order, which has been mentioned a few times throughout the thread. As it is we don't know whether or not a contract was genuinely violated, or if Amazon's just using that as a convenient excuse to get rid of something they don't like.

[Molyneux]

I actually agree with you on this point, in that it should be this way, but as copyright law stands in the US and with most US trade partners, this isn't true in the legal sense. Other media have exceptions written into the law that applies some sense to owner's rights, mostly thanks to court precedent; digital media haven't quite gotten there yet.

This is wonderful, except they're not selling you a book. They're selling you a licence to read a book. If people read their licence agreements, this sort of thing wouldn't be surprising.

I'm curious what legal jiggery-pokery Amazon pulled to so obviously do something they agreed not to do anymore (outside of inapplicable exceptions). Assuming they're not complete idiots and are vetting their content properly, its avoidable. Since nobody cares, it isn't a big cost for them, but clearly its to be avoided.

Luckily, not being in the United States of Lol I can break any encryption I want. I believe the Kindle plays pretty much anything except epub, which is a clear statement of 'yeah, we want to control you'. Hardly surprising.

In that case: I refuse to buy a Kindle because I like to buy my books, not rent them - and hold that anyone who does otherwise is a stupid git just asking to be swindled by their oh-so-shiny Kindle.

[Xon]

Luckily, not being in the United States of Lol I can break any encryption I want.

Nope. As an Australian, you are covered by American copyright laws by treaty obligations. A copyright violation of Amercian copyrights can have you extradited and judged in an American court of law.

The "free trade agreement" which John Howard was responsible for, has effectively imported most of the DMCA restrictions.

[ThomasP]

Luckily, not being in the United States of Lol I can break any encryption I want.

Nope. As an Australian, you are covered by American copyright laws by treaty obligations. A copyright violation of Amercian copyrights can have you extradited and judged in an American court of law.

The "free trade agreement" which John Howard was responsible for, has effectively imported most of the DMCA restrictions.

Do you have a link to the text of that agreement? I'd be interested in a look.

I'd be really surprised if they'd extradite for personal, non-commercial infringement. A major counterfeiter or big-time pirate I'd see, but that's a far cry from P2P file-sharing on an individual scale, in real and legal terms. Even in the US, copyright infringement isn't prosecuted as a criminal offense until it hits the big time; that's why all those downloader lawsuits in the US are happening in civil court.

Extradition for a civil matter sounds pretty outrageous, but then again the law might actually allow for it. As far as the rights holders are concerned, in Australia they have AFACT to handle that for them in-house.

[Xon]

Do you have a link to the text of that agreement? I'd be interested in a look.

linky. It's basicly article 17.4, trying to dig up the actual laws that implement that is not something I can easily do(and they'ld probably just refer back to that treaty which references other treaties anyway). It comes down to Australia implementing a bunch of WIPO treaties which where effectively are the DMCA.

I'd be really surprised if they'd extradite for personal, non-commercial infringement. A major counterfeiter or big-time pirate I'd see, but that's a far cry from P2P file-sharing on an individual scale, in real and legal terms. Even in the US, copyright infringement isn't prosecuted as a criminal offense until it hits the big time; that's why all those downloader lawsuits in the US are happening in civil court.

The difference between a multi-million dollar fine where your wages and assets can be garnished for the rest of your life(bankrupty doesn't discharge it) and less than 5 years in jail is a little academic.

Extradition for a civil matter sounds pretty outrageous, but then again the law might actually allow for it. As far as the rights holders are concerned, in Australia they have AFACT to handle that for them in-house.

Bypassing encryption on copyrighted material is a criminal act if it is willful(and if there exists a copyright label somewhere it is, regardless on if you would have interacted with it) and for private financial gain.