Remote Kill Flags Surface In Kindle 630
PL/SQL Guy writes "The Kindle has a number of 'remote kill' flags built in to the hardware that, among other things, allow the text-to-speech function to be disabled at any time on a book-by-book basis. 'Beginning yesterday, Random House Publishers began to disable text-to-speech remotely. The TTS function has apparently been remotely disabled in over 40 works so far.' But what no one at Amazon will discuss is what other flags are lurking in the Kindle format: is there a 'read only once' flag? A 'no turning the pages backwards' flag?"
We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:2, Insightful)
for when we vote stories down. "Stupid" kinda works, but IMO it's not specific enough.
Flags (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA About Reading-Disabled Students (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, as a parent of an autistic child, I know how valuable the TTS function can be in our computer programs. As an author, I'm saddened that Amazon's rolled over on this for the publishers' and Author's Guild panic. TTS is not the same as an audiobook performance, nor does it have that possibility any time soon.
Re:They asked for it (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, that's what you get for buying content instead of just copying it from pirate bay or whatever.
True. Except when that option can get you in more serious trouble than a copyright suit, e.g. losing your job.
forget it (Score:5, Insightful)
I have remote flags also... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it sensationalist? Perhaps.
But are people who struggle to read being hurt by it? Yes.
But I'm sure to 95% of the population "those" people aren't important.
Re:tags are in the books (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Remote kill or flag change? (Score:5, Insightful)
(the Kindle could automatically correct errors in books as they are found).
Yeah, especially the inconvenient ones in history books.
Re:Remote kill or flag change? (Score:4, Insightful)
The book file has to be redownloaded. But you can take all of your book files and archive them to a computer before turning on the cell connection, just in case.
If book publishers start acting like software publishers, you can always just skip to pirating the books, this doesn't affect user added files(with or without paying, depending on the color of your hat).
Re:We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't think that having functionality removed from something you've bought, after the fact, is a problem?
Re:tags are in the books (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a law suit waiting to happen if there is no disclosure that the books will have these "flags" at the time of purchase.
Big fucking deal. If history is any guide, the affected consumers will get a credit for $0.99 off their next purchase from Amazon while the law firm who initiated the lawsuit will walk away with millions. Amazon will just write it off as a cost of doing business and go right on screwing their customers, albeit this time with a disclaimer about the DRM flags clearly displayed in a 2pt font.
Call me cynical.....
Re:tags are in the books (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't worry, I'm sure there is something about it buried in the 20 page license agreement.
Re:They asked for it (Score:4, Insightful)
True. Except when that option can get you in more serious trouble than a copyright suit, e.g. losing your job.
I fail to see how getting busted on copyright infringement will somehow cause you to lose your job - it's not a felony, so as I understand it, it'd have no bearing with your employer.
Re:Killflags... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and I hope one does, and soon. People need to know the risk of all these kill switches everything is getting.Better the learn it now when it only impacts a relatively few people.
Re:As my wife says, "Fuck 'em." (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Turning back? (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451.
Re:They asked for it (Score:2, Insightful)
I fail to see how getting busted on copyright infringement will somehow cause you to lose your job
Two words: company policy.
Re:They asked for it (Score:2, Insightful)
You're comparing people who are demanding a proscribed product that they purchase and consume outside the law with people who just don't like how much the product costs or how its distributed. The government denying you access to a good or service you demand is not the same thing as a private company offering a good or service in a way or at a price you don't like.
Furthermore, you have a legitimate means to air your grievances: don't buy. Not only do you send the clear message that you are unhappy with the product or service, you maintain the legal AND moral high ground in the debate.
Your post is labeled insightful. It is not.
You might as well buy it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit.
I have not bought a Kindle. This nutter [leasticoulddo.com] thinks that newspapers could "save" by distributing over Kindle instead of on paper.
Guy down later in the forum has it exactly right. You can't put a Kindle in your waiting room. If your "copy" of the paper is on a Kindle, you can't read the sports page while someone else has the world section or the comics. You can't hand "your copy" of the paper to someone else, or leave it behind once you're done with it if it's on a Kindle (something I do regularly - hey, I don't know the next person coming by, but I imagine they might want to read something too).
Hell, if it's on a Kindle, we lose yesterday's newspaper - so how will we wrap today's fish?
In all seriousness, that's the problem with DRM. It's never about "protecting copyright." It's always about some more nefarious purpose, like destroying the doctrine of first sale [wikipedia.org]. Remember how $ony patented a method to have video games "signed" by the first console they were put in, and subsequently refuse to run on any other console? That was just one of them.
Re:We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a great point, and really drives to the heart of the problem with this stuff. Someone needs to start suing for misleading advertising, whatever laws cover that.
I'm sure they have a TOS that says they can come by and bang your mom whenever they want, but hopefully the courts will call BS on that.
To be somewhat fair to Amazon (and Apple, and so on) they're not exactly the boogeymen here. Obviously Amazon thinks automated text-to-speech isn't a "performance" and should be included and allowed in all works. But the content owners are saying "disable text to speech or we pull our works". Just like the music labels with DRM.
We know for a fact that the content owner's are serious - they think they have a monopoly, and would rather make their content unavailable than to make it available in the form customers want.
Perhaps Amazon is even sitting back praying that a customer will sue them for disabling/removing text-to-speech so that they can point their finger at a court when telling the publishers "We can't disable text to speech".
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
And I find it a bit ironic you trust pirates of all people to deliver you a product free of root kits and trojans.
I don't totally disagree with you, though. We do give the middle man too much and the artist too little. But pirating gives the artist less.
Re:tags are in the books (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK Amazon clearly wants to have text-to-speech enabled for all books. It's the publishers (and their threat to remove works if speech is enabled) you should be mad at. Amazon is trying their damnedest to make a compelling ebook product, and like Apple with iTunes, trying to drag the publisher's kicking and screaming onto the internet.
Like music, I expect once the market is there, people will demand the functionality (or pirate for it, or sue for it) and it will become commonplace.
If Amazon took a high and mighty moral stand, they would just be killing the market (and their own business opportunity) and letting another eBook maker who WILL compromise their morals take over the market.
At least we know Amazon is trying to open things up as much as they can.
Re:Hey, it's me pot! Over here with kettle! (Score:4, Insightful)
Very astute of you to make the comparison between iTunes/iPod/iPhone creating the market for digital music and the resulting consumer demand that allowed them to drop DRM.
It does indeed sound just like Amazon's Kindle creating the market for E-Books and the resulting consumer demand (and default of enabled) resulting in Text-To-Speech being standard on all E-Books and E-Book readers.
Oh wait, or were you trying to say there's something wrong with the iPhone and Kindle?
Re:They asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Kindle in a doctor's waiting room?
Gah! I wouldn't touch that thing, knowing that every germy hand had picked it up and played around with it.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
And I find it a bit ironic you trust pirates of all people to deliver you a product free of root kits and trojans.
Like Securom or Sony's crap? Yeah, I trust the pirates more than the original.
If you're really worried, look at the feedback for the torrent. Or look for names of groups who pride themselves on the quality of their cracks. There's an entire subculture based on that.
And if the whole release is a .avi, there's not much to talk about anyway.
Re:tags are in the books (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK Amazon clearly wants to have text-to-speech enabled for all books. It's the publishers (and their threat to remove works if speech is enabled) you should be mad at.
If Amazon wants us to direct our ire towards the publishers, then they should have come clean about these flags before selling the Kindle. Except, wait... then it would have flopped, and hard. Instead, they pulled a bait and switch fraud on their customers.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I won't get a Kindle (Score:2, Insightful)
Or use most other e-readers. The local library is free and paper backs are cheap - I don't have to worry about someone messing with what I am reading...and if they do I can use the book to beat sense into them (please note hard covers are better for this option than paper backs).
Re:Was Stallman Right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't really seem possible. If they are wrong then that is the last thing that history will judge them as. If they are right then history won't remember them at all.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
If I choose to obtain a digital copy of a work I would never pay for, I am not actually depriving the creator of anything. It doesn't matter why I would choose not to pay. It might be because I am cheap, poor or lazy. It might be because I find something about the creator or publisher to be morally objectionable (like say, abuse of copyright). As such, I find no moral objection to obtaining an illegal copy, often made illegal through a law I find morally objectionable.
Re:We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:4, Insightful)
This story was important to me. My wife wants to buy one of these and as long as stories like this come out I'll encourage her to buy the paper copies.
In my house this isn't sensationalist, it's a story about DRM and Amazons growing use of it.
Re:We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't think that having functionality removed from something you've bought, after the fact, is a problem?
This is the big issue for me.
Say I'm shopping for a new toaster. There's all sorts of toasters on the market, lots of good models to choose from. Ultimately I decide to buy one specifically because it has a built-in bagel slicer... But not just any bagel slicer - it's some kind of high-powered laser bagel slicer.
But, after I buy the thing, lawsuits start cropping up. Kids are sticking their fingers in the thing and getting them sliced off. Traditionally manufacturers have done a recall if something like this happened... Or issued a warning... Or designed new packaging that indicates it isn't kid-safe... Or redesigned the product so that kids can't stick their fingers in it...
Not anymore though. These days they'd just send the kill signal and disable the laser bagel slicer. Suddenly my toaster, which I bought specifically for the bagel slicer, has no bagel slicer.
A key feature that made me buy that product, instead of another, is gone. A feature that may have made one product cost more than another, is gone. A feature that I liked and used, is gone.
I definitely have a problem with that.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They asked for it (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank you! Specifically, it's not there to protect the artist's source of income, or guarantee the artist any income, for that matter.
Re:First post flag! (Score:5, Insightful)
You think this is funny, but I'm not laughing. Right now, in my mind, amazon is no better than Mr. Soprano.
I bought a bunch of books to use the "text-to-speech" software while driving to work, and now suddenly that's been disabled, which makes those particular books practically worthless to me. Is Amazon going to issue a refund? No, because just like every other media company, they think it's okay to sell goods without warranty. Hell even the lowly food industry says, "We hope you are satisfied with you're candy bar, but if you're not, return unused portion for refund." Only the iuck-lcikers in the rcord companis, game cmpanies, and book sotress think it;s perfectly acceptable to FORCE customers to keep a product they don't want. No returns.
If they go out of business, it will be their own stupid fault due to ignoring that age-old rule, "The customer is (almost) always right." Screw your customer by selling them product as "text-to-speech" and then disable that product, and you've effectively screwed yourself. Customers have a long, long memory. They will not come back for further frakking. Even the most rudimentary business class teaches you this.
Re:They asked for it (Score:1, Insightful)
"Reprobates like you" then you tell him to eat a bullet?
You need serious psychological help.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
I need less people thinking they can freeload off creative works because they rationalize that they "never would have paid for it."
If you won't pay for it, don't take it. It's not rocket science.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They asked for it (Score:1, Insightful)
You still need psychological help if you can't see that telling them that, then telling them to eat a bullet isn't....off your fucking rocker crazy.
Re:forget it (Score:1, Insightful)
That's a harsh response, considering that he's right.
Specifying Linux was unwarranted. But, unless you have control over the operating system on your device (through free software), Amazon can remove the kill switches and make the Kindle do your housework and it still won't mean jack shit.
Consider that the next time you end up saying "what I really want is the Kindle without ______" because of problems with the software that Amazon has actually shoved down your throat.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with depriving the creator of anything. It has to do with the creator's rights to have his creations distributed on his terms.
It's not a "natural" right in any way shape or form, it is inherently an unnatural right. You're not depriving the creator of any liberty, you're only going around the purely legal bargain between the people, and content creators, to give them this unnatural "right" with the hopes that in the end it will benefit us more than if we didn't relinquish our own natural right to do whatever we wish with our own possessions.
Since the whole concept behind this bargain is that the copyright will help the creator make money and thus be incentivized to create, but in the case in question the person is most definitely not depriving the creator of any money, where exactly is this moral issue that you're so upset over?
Is it simply that this is the law, and breaking the law is amoral? I certainly don't agree to that, but I will as always agree to have you be the first one subject to the world you wish for, and encourage you to eat a bullet the next time you break any law at all. Since you've certainly already done so willfully, I expect no further posts from you.
Re:They asked for it (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to the Internet, where frivolous discussions about anything elevate to the point of wishing death upon someone who has a different opinion than you. You obviously haven't been desensitized.
Re:They asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
You still need psychological help if you can't see that telling them that, then telling them to eat a bullet isn't....off your fucking rocker crazy.
More redneck than anything else, I'd say. The United States was built on people objecting to laws on moral grounds, and flagrantly violating them. Generally the laws that originally governed this country when it was a colony were wholly unfair. They are unfair again, and I see little benefit to bowing to the whims of the filthy rich.
Customer is always right? (Score:4, Insightful)
No. The customer is right unless them being right interferes with another, bigger customer being right. Or it interferes with a number of other customers being right. That's the way it really works.
The way it should work is, the customer is only right if they are not wrong. In most of Europe, if you go into an establishment looking to have your butt smooched and every single one of your sniffy little needs met, you will be shown the door rather than letting you waste the employee's and other customer's time.
We're getting away from the point. (Score:2, Insightful)
The point you're all missing is that any legally downloaded copy of a book can be prevented from being accessed via TTS by a customer with some form of reading disability.
I have no axe to grind regarding the merits (or otherwise) of the technology, but the point is that if you have paid for the content, you should be allowed to access it however you want. Deliberately locking out legitimate users with disabilities is seriously bad medicine, and anyone who does so deserves all the bad karma he'll get.
Re:First post flag! (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately they won't go out of business over stuff like this. Most consumers don't care about consequences of their purchasing choices, the reasons for which are numerous -- too dumb, busy, or simply apathetic. "The customer is (almost) always right" only applies if the available customer pool is small enough for that to matter; once a market grows beyond a certain size, companies only have to make X % of their customers happy, and marginalize or ignore the rest.
I'd love for things to be different, for for a completely DRM-free eBook to be available, but I'm also too cynical to believe this could ever happen.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he's smoking the Constitution.
Re:They asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright only exists to encourage content creators to create more work, not to guarantee them money for the rest of their lives (and that of their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc...). When Disney decided that copyrights should be perpetual and bought a bunch of politicians to make it so, THEY didn't uphold their part of the bargain (as stated in the Constitution).
Meaning, I have no moral qualms pirating anything where the creator wouldn't receive any benefit from my purchasing it. Pirating Louis Armstrong songs is not morally or ethically wrong, for example, since purchasing it isn't encouraging his zombie to produce further work. The same goes for a stunning amount of music where the band receives very little to no benefit from album sales. For example, if you go buy a Beatles CD, no one from the band receives a cent, so why is pirating it wrong?
Copyright does not exist to guarantee a revenue stream for giant faceless corporations.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
As I stated above, I have no use for marijuana. I don't care one way or the other if marijuana is legalized. All I care is that people are not allowed to drive or operate machinery under the influence of it. After that I don't care.
Our problem is that so many other people care enough that they will smoke the stuff without your permission, or my permission, or the State's permission, or the Federal Government's permission. Regardless of how you and I feel about it, THEY feel it is unjust, and by sheer force of numbers (that is what counts in a Republic, right?) THEY are correct! The law is unjust.
Same applies to illegal downloads. You and I may not like them. It doesn't matter. Enough other people have a different opinion, and by sheer force of numbers they are correct!
Re:They asked for it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Or they look at the post and see someone who doesn't like Sony or MS's business practices. Which is fine. A cantankerous connotation in a post does not him or her a troll make, nor does belittling a cantankerous post you a wiseman make. This is /. And if your user # is correct, then you should know better than raise your hoary head at this, of all things, to take potshots at.
Annoying? Yes. Disturbing? Not entirely. (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a Kindle (2), purchased just under a month ago.
While it is annoying that these flags exist, it is part of the TOS that you have to agree to.
Personally, the TTS feature is not of great value to me. If I'd been concerned with audio books, I would not have purchased a device to read them. Besides, it is clearly stated on the product page that the TTS is experimental and available where allowed by the publisher.
However, I fairly certain that the flag exists in the book itself and not in the Kindle. If a publisher decides to withdraw TTS rights, Amazon only needs to update the book in you server side library and upon next sync, you receive the updated book that blocks TTS. Otherwise, the Kindle's minimal storage would need to be used to maintain a database of disallowed content for the TTS tools. From a developer standpoint, that is poor implementation.
Any large scale functionality changes require a firmware upgrade. Currently my Kindle is unable to receive these as I have a hack to use custom idle screens. I have to remove the hack in order to update.
Re:They asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
It has to do with the creator's rights to have his creations distributed on his terms.
No such right exists. A temporary legal privilege exists, but only at the expense of our property rights. That is not an exchange I am willing to make.
Re:They asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
You need, huh? What about our concerns? Think those concerns aren't legit, perhaps? We are the customers, have you forgotten? Our concerns come first, and we, not the mess that is the law, are the final arbiter of what is and is not a legit concern. We know quite well that the law has been tainted by special interest lobbying. We are more fair than the content providers. But you must provide good value. We will not part with our hard earned money for a bad deal.
If I'm going to make a legitimate purchase, I demand that the seller not cheat me. That means no tricks! No DRM, no remotely controlled off switch, no time bombs, no surveillance for marketing or any other purpose. No lock in, no trying to hook me in order to gouge me down the road, no hidden gotchas. And none of this dodging around the first sale doctrine by trying to tell me I bought a license, not a product, no long complicated EULAs full of unenforceable and untrue nonsense trying to claim that I have fewer rights than I actually do. Like, don't try to tell me I'm not allowed to reverse engineer or hack something. And most certainly no root kits! Do you not understand how much contempt you show your customers when you treat them so, and not see the repercussions that will lead to?
And, you know, there are people who don't buy or freeload either. What have you to say to that? That you don't think there's enough of those to matter?
Re:Customer is always right? (Score:3, Insightful)
A smart business should be careful with that logic. Customer Y might be bigger than customer X, but if Y buys 2 $100 items, and X buys 10 $25 items in the same period, they'd better think twice about pissing off X.
Re:They asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Really that is a shame, you should call the police to help you recover this stolen work. It would be a shame for you to have deprived of it... wait, you mean you still have the work? Well if society (over 60 million downloaders in the US is enough to call "they" society or the people certainly) didn't steal the work then what did they steal?
Re:Kindle Content Return Policy (Score:3, Insightful)
So what happens if you buy a book and they disable the TTS capability 10 days later? You're SOL?
Re:They asked for it (Score:1, Insightful)
The pot laws are stupid. Vote against people who support them.
Want to support the artist instead of the corporation? Find an artist you like who gives his work away.
There is room in the world for both paid and free entertainment. Stealing from suits doesn't support anyone.
And please don't say books are like music. You play a song for your friends, they buy the CD, sure. You don't usually find people reading their favorite chapter from a book to a crowd.