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?"
First post flag! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First post flag! (Score:5, Funny)
I am kinda glad they are doing this remotely. I'd be upset if an Amazon SWAT team broke into my house and physically disabled my Kindle.
--
Slow Poke [pair.com]
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.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm surprised this 'feature' wasn't already known about and defeated by now....
Re:Customer is always right? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let them get burned they are smart enough to take care of these things on their own. Sometimes I think these companies sell all this DRM crap because they know it will be cracked. This way a large portion of the suckers will get caught on the treadmill and the ones who other wise would have asked for the companies head on a steak, will default to cracking their device to get it to work and keep quiet.
I personally hope all of the tech savvy back away from this and for once let a company release something and let their customers suffer for a bit. When Jane Doe pays for something and finds out the company doesn't want her to have certain options available to her that's when you will have a good reason to fight back. It's not so easy to do that when you've already hacked the crap out of it and its downloading torrents while calculating your BMI after your breakfast reading.
Re: (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, fo
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Kindle Content Return Policy (Score:5, Informative)
From the Kindle Content Return Policy [amazon.com]:
They asked for it (Score:5, Funny)
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't smoke marijuana; however, I know plenty of people who do. This situation has existed since before I was born. People, and politicians (they don't count as people), have discussed making marijuana legal. It may never happen in my lifetime. That does not stop people from recognizing bad law.
Copyright is there to protect the artist. I see little artistic protection in copyright law. I see corporate protection. I don't think I am the only one who sees this, hence all the downloads.
People will NOT obey an unjust law. When corporations declare that they sold you a license instead of a product and start turning off access to what the customer paid for...well, you reap what you sow. There are not enough lawyers out there to sue everyone who downloads. Ask the RIAA if you don't believe me.
Besides, downloaded stuff just works better. I hate to tell all those coke-sniffing, mistress pampering executives at all those corporations that their business model sucks donkey-dick, but I have to. Downloads don't pester people with advertisements. They start up immediately. They play the entire content. You can change direction when you want. You can shift the content to other media. Shit! What's not to like? Except that we do cheat the artist. That cannot be denied. We must find a way to support the arts, and dump the middle-man. That middle-man is getting in the way of culture.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Interesting)
It was never cashed, but I feel good about it anyway.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Informative)
It might not have been cashed because he (she?/they?) may have a clause in his contract saying he cannot accept money directly for his music.
Yeah...really...
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Informative)
Session musicians - already paid
Studio Engineers - already paid
Studio rental - already paid
Production costs - already paid
Cover artist - already paid
Distribution costs - already paid
The only people who get paid copyright fees are the production company and the artist, I personally do not care about the production company (and if the music is more than a year old, they will have already been paid in full, or are incompetent) and if pay the artist anything even 1 cent it would be more than will ever see by me buying the music legitimately
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I don't have a problem with the production company making money. That's a good thing.
I have a problem when they step on my rights to make that money. We can argue all day over what my legitimate rights are and get nowhere. I just think you should pop over to The New York Time's web-site before too long. On Monday they had a really cool article on how production companies are requiring artists to produce two CDs worth of material for every CD they market. It usually takes twelve songs to make a CD. The production companies are now requiring artists to produce as many as twelve additional songs so that Target can have two exclusive songs to match the two exclusive songs on the Best Buy version, and so on.
Wait a minute! Who's getting screwed here? I'm starting to lose track.
Re:They asked for it (Score:4, Interesting)
Except the artist, unless they happened to make anywhere near the "advertising fees" extortion.
Bands make money from concerts* and merchandise, not albums. Exceptions are indie and wildly wildly successful mainstream bands that make enough to pay back the fees and/or are popular enough to negotiate a fair contract.
* Often the things they sell there as well as the tickets, many times they keep a greater deal of profit sold at concerts.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm. Could that mean if they cash it they can't sue you, but if they don't cash it they have the option to sue you?
IANAL, but that sounds sinister to me...
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: (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: (Score:3, Funny)
Phone books? I can't seem to find any other use for them other than kindling for my fireplace, and yet I continue to receive about 6 or 7 of them a year.
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (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.
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: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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, give me a break. It has little to do with working better and more to do with people not having to pay for stuff and little chance of getting caught or punished.
In terms of being locked into something like the Kindle, I sure as hell would not pay money for something where the terms of my purchases can be changed after they take my money.
And I find it a bit ironic you trust pirates of all people to deliver you a product free of root kits and trojans.
The people who copy content aren't the ones who add that crap, it's just another attack vector for malware authors to use. i.e. They find out what a popular download is, then create malware to masquerade as that download.
Re:They asked for it (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, give me a break. It has little to do with working better and more to do with people not having to pay for stuff and little chance of getting caught or punished. Copyright laws may be flawed, but they are not completely unjust. The people who use things without paying their fair share are the unjust ones...not rebels against an unfair law.
It has a lot to do with both working better and being free. Copyright law is horribly flawed, to the point of being nearly completely unjust. I can't say that they're better than piracy at this point. It's just different people getting fucked in each scenario, either the public or the industry, but it's the industry that has brought us to where we're at through their constant lobbying for more and more monopoly powers over copyrighted works and durations that last generations. It's disgustingly corrupt and I think that's why people don't really respect copyright anymore.
And I find it a bit ironic you trust pirates of all people to deliver you a product free of root kits and trojans.
It's certainly not trust. Don't trust anything you download unless you verify that it's clean. There are some distributors that have earned a level of trust because they have consistently only distributed clean copies, but by and large you shouldn't trust anything you download. The fact that people will take the risk is simply due to the fact that the industry has ensured that they can screw us over with impunity.
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.
The artists have become collateral damage in a struggle between the middle men and the public. The middle men try to grab more and more power and control from the public and give the artists as little as possible. I think that they need to be killed off and copyright law reformed if artists are ever to get a fair shake and if the public is ever to start respecting copyright again.
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:5, Informative)
Re:They asked for it (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he's smoking the Constitution.
Re: (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. Pirat
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:They asked for it (Score:4, Informative)
And more to the point: if I purchase a *used book*, none of the parties involved get any (more) money -- they got paid the first time.
But they'd certainly *like* to stomp out that "revenue leak", and eviscerate the First Sale Doctrine, as noted above...
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: (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: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: (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.
tags are in the books (Score:3, Funny)
Unless they upload a replacement, the book would have to have all the possible tags attached. I'm assuming the books are on the device itself. Obviously, I don't know enough about the Kindle2.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:tags are in the books (Score:5, Funny)
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: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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes. Great point.
If you have something against class action lawsuits or "ambulance
chasers" then feel free to have this stuff litigated on your own
dime. You will be paying something on the order of $200/hr - $500/hr
minimum and there will be lots of labor involved.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't worry, I'm sure there is something about it buried in the 20 page license agreement.
Re:tags are in the books (Score:4, Informative)
Flags (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Flags (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly you're new here - the "baseless speculation" bit is implicitly set on all stories.
Re:Flags (Score:5, Funny)
From his UID, I'd say he was half as new as you :)
The Flag That Cannot Be Named (Score:5, Funny)
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?
No. But there inside your home on your desk inside your kindle is a flag so vile, so full of hatred, so very <insert your opposing political party here> that when activated it will only let you read books from Oprah's Book Club.
Hey, it's me pot! Over here with kettle! (Score:5, Funny)
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?
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: (Score:3, Informative)
The government agrees with you here, which is why there is an exception to the DMCA act for the purpose of enabling TTS.
Amazon allowing this flag to be switched creates a very real problem for them when it comes time to go after any DRM crackers who are bright enough to claim their tools are only meant for enabling TTS.
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2006/index.html [copyright.gov] - reference
Remote kill or flag change? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the first is more likely - although the second could be useful in other ways (the Kindle could automatically correct errors in books as they are found).
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).
forget it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:forget it (Score:5, Informative)
What you really want is a tablet PC running Linux if you are concerned about DRM. Any product where you don't have control over the operating system or environment will always be suspect to the whims of corporate lawyers.
Re:forget it (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, there is a text-to-speech [kde.org] is a standard package in one of the most common desktop managers for linux. I use the text-to-speech sometimes while I'm doing the dishes, etc. It does about as well as most text-to-speech programs do. You don't have to use kde to do it, ktts is just the front-end, it uses the festival [ed.ac.uk] synthesis system, so a front end might be out there can use a less full-featured OS than kde, which might be faster and hence more suitable for an e-book reader device. I wonder if it's possible to get the festival speech synthesis system running on it and bypass amazon's DRMed solution all together.
Re:forget it (Score:4, Informative)
Take it as shorthand. Considering that (1) the proprietary Kindle product has kill switches, (2) other proprietary products and OSes have demonstrated their willingness to include kill switches, what you really want is some sort of machine and OS that is completely open to auditing, ensuring that you have the capability to do whatever is within your legal rights, despite any consumer-unfriendly corporate opinions to the contrary. The word Linux is just quicker to type.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm curious what other ebook readers you're looking at. So far, I've used a Foxit eBook reader, Sony PRS-700, kindle, iPhone and various computers.
The Foxit totally sucks. It's got a nice formfactor, but it's slow and difficult to read PDFs without having the text get wrapped and lose all spacing (sometimeswordsgetjumbledtogetherlikethis).
The Sony reader is pretty good except that the glare totally sucks and when reading PDFs, it's only got pre-set zoom levels; no fit-to-width, so the text is constantly eit
Killflags... (Score:5, Interesting)
...and they are internet capable? I'm going to laugh my ass off when some hacker reduces every ebook on every Kindle in the world to a useless pile of bits.
Re: (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.
As my wife says, "Fuck 'em." (Score:5, Interesting)
I was going to get my wife a Kindle for her birthday. She asked, "What's the point? The books are almost as expensive, and I can't send them to my mom or sister when I'm done. And what happens when the hardware breaks, and I need to get a new one? I don't want to be forced to get a Kindle just because those are the books I bought before. Fuck 'em."
My wife, the non-geek. She gets it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
She obviously doesn't read anything from the Gutenberg project, which for me, is entirely the point of my Kindle.
This is what I'm reading currently. I've wanted to read this for years, but I'm cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/Greens-History-English-People-D/dp/0260218839/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242313760&sr=8-10 [amazon.com]
$110 is the price for 125 year old books. It's only available used. Note: this is different than Green's SHORT history. This one is the big one, Green's Opus Magnum. The best history
I'm done with Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
I was a customer for over ten years. Spent well over ten thousand dollars there in books and other items. But for the last several years their customer support has declined, their partner businesses engage in numerous disreputable practices that mirror the abuses at ebay, their manipulation of book rankings on so-called adult material (gay), and they seem intent on monopolizing the epublishing trade. I closed my account and won't look back.
Yes, the Kindle-DX looks like a nice machine. But what one gives up in basic rights as a reader is more than enough to keep me buying used books printed on dead trees for some time. And I can always scan the books I buy to load on an ereader with less virulent DRM limitations and corporate controls. I own an iRex iLiad, that while not the best manufacturer, at least they offer a free Linux development environment to download and install. Users are hacking new software on that platform. Does anyone here expect Amazon to allow that? Not me.
BTW: closing my account with Amazon took several phone calls and numerous transfers from one department to the next. They don't like it when customers attempt to leave them and make the process as difficult as possible. Yet another reason to never give them my money again.
Re:I'm done with Amazon (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like canceling an AOL account in the '90s.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm done with Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
To remove my credit card from their database. Also, to remove my customer record. And finally, to let them know just how displeased I am with their business practices.
I have remote flags also... (Score:5, Insightful)
Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Buy a real book and then have it read to you by your girlfr... oh, wait, this is Slashdot. Ignore me :)
Lawsuit? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't one of those Blind Advocacy groups sue them for discrimination?
Random house (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget to direct your ire at Random House for doing this as well as Amazon for rolling over.
Call them and bitch.
http://www.randomhouse.com/about/contact.html [randomhouse.com]
And that's why my Kindle's flag... (Score:4, Funny)
And that's why my Kindle's flag will be a Jolly Roger.
You Don't Own MY Works. (Score:5, Funny)
This is my post. I wrote it. Is is a creative and inventive work which benefits society at large. Moreover, it is a concrete example of intellectual property. This post, that you are reading right now, belongs to me. It is mine.
This post is mine in the same way that my house, or car or clothes are mine. These words that I have written are given as much protection as freedom of speech or to vote. They need it. If just anyone is allowed to come along and copy them, or alter them, or include them in another work without my permission, then it will be as though my right to speak freely has been taken away, or I have been disenfranchised.
If someone else reads these words without paying me, or worse sells them to others to read, I will have been robbed. It will be as if my home was burned down, or my family sold into slavery. An injustice of the highest order.
These words need protections. Strong protections. This post needs to be defended, even as it is copied endless and effortlessly across millions of computers, each recopying it hundreds of times, at negligible expense. The worth of these words is worth more than all the bits it occupies in cyberspace. Indeed, their worth is worth more than the worth of cyberspace, and even society itself.
For if these words, if this post cannot be afforded the most stringent, uncompromising and sacred protection that our society has to offer, then our society will not be worth the bits it is represented on. The reality of digital worldwide transmission must not be allowed to compromise the most fundamental rights we have. The protection of this post is a challenge which our civilization must meet, or else our civilization must fall.
This post and all related materials, Copyright © ObsessiveMathsFreak 2009.
All rights reserved, worldwide.
None of the materials provided in this post site may be used, reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or the use of any information storage and retrieval system, without express permission in writing from the author, along with suitable monetary compensation.
Unauthorized use of the materials in this post are subject to prosecution to the fullest exent allowable by law.
Was Stallman Right? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Was Stallman Right? (Score:4, Informative)
I first read that shortly after it was first published. At that time I thought the dystopian future he described was far fetched. Twelve years later I think he had great foresight. All the elements are now in place. The relentless re-education campaign that inures people to the loss of "little" freedoms here and there are preparing a generation that don't know any better. A generation of sheeple who aren't even aware of the blood-paid freedoms and rights which they are trading away very, very cheaply.
History will likely judge people like Orwell and Stallman as prophets of sorts.
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.
You might as well buy it... (Score:3, Insightful)
PDF as solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm interested in the DX because of its native PDF reader, and nothing else. I probably would never buy a book from Amazon to read on it, because everything I want I can get as a PDF, whether it be something technical or literature.
Because of this, theoretically, I'd be immune to these issues, right? They're my own, drm-free PDFs which can't be remotely deleted or somehow blocked.
I like the *idea* of the Kindle in that I can carry millions of pages of whatever on a very light device with a good screen. I was trying out my mom's Kindle and I was shocked at how much I *really* liked it; the screen was really great and, while I didn't care for the slow page redraws, it wouldn't be a deal-breaker. Thus I like the DX idea even more; bigger screen, and drm-free content.
Amazon killed my book. Here's why... (Score:5, Informative)
The following was from the first paragraph of the email:
I've requested a refund for "NAME OF BOOK OMITTED". Issuing a refund also removes access to the file. If the item is still on your Kindle, please delete that copy. After the refund is issued, you will no longer be able to access it.
Well, I watched for it, and not only was access to the file removed, The file is no longer present.
Amazon has the Kill-switch ability to delete content. I am going to assume they have the ability to delete my personal content I add to through the USB.
Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
This is old news. The whole brouhaha over this happened months ago. The Kindle 2 came out, with text-to-speech. The Author's Guild whined like little babies claiming it would reduce audiobook sales (presumably they also want to charge you for reading to your kids.) They wanted the functionality removed completely. Amazon reached a compromise, that publishers could opt-out by requesting that it be disallowed on their books.
There's no point getting your panties in a bunch *now*. The horse is out of the barn. Nor is Amazon the one to complain to. The publishers and the Author's Guild are the ones to complain to.
If anything, Amazon deserves credit for putting the feature in in the first place without restrictions. Given their business model, you might have expected them to proactively design the feature to the publishers' requirements long before it was released. They might have been like Microsoft who preemptively crippled the Zune's sharing feature.
And this a surprise? (Score:3, Interesting)
So I think I'll stick to paper, thank you very much.
Everyone is upset about this, but not me. (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, this flagging ability should be viewed as a good thing.
All books should be available from the library FOR FREE. You go to the library, you borrow the book, and you return it in two weeks. You can re-check it out again for another 2 weeks if you want.
This flagging ability COULD allow this to be done without driving to the library. You COULD use this to NEVER buy a book. You simply "check it out" for 2 weeks and then it vanishes.
Now I'm skeptical that it will ever be allowed to work this way, but this is the way such devices SHOULD work. If I can go check out a physical copy for 2 weeks, why not a digital copy? If it's free, I don't mind if it vanishes in 2 weeks, just like a library loan would.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (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: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: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: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:We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:5, Informative)
It should be considered to be theft on a massive scale. What else would we call it when A deprives B of something that they paid for fair and square?
The problem with "buying" digital content these days is that the only way you can legally purchase it is by agreeing to 50 pages of legalese that basically strip you of any rights you could possibly have with regard to the information you're buying. Thus, you are giving them money without any assurance that you'll actually be able to make any use of what you're buying. Nice racket they've got going, huh?
memento flag (Score:5, Funny)
the memento flag:
you can only read the chapters once and in reverse order only.
the pulp fiction flag:
chapter order is randomized
the Bedazzled flag:
last page is missing in mystery novels
the pat robertson flag:
all naughty words like "gay" and "damn" are changed to "homo" and "golly"
they also introduced several modes:
leet speak mode:
so your p4r3nts can't read over your shoulder.
The beevis and bottomhead flag:
all accidental double entedres are bolded (heh heh).
Ascii art mode
speed reading mode: the words disappear from the page at defined rate.
Controverial undocumented ebonics and hot coffee modes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We need a "sensationalist" tag (Score:5, Funny)
Do we need a "sensationalist" tag? Is CmdrTaco abusing his power as editor? What's stopping him from using these powers to spy on your Slashdot viewing habits? Will he kill your family and steal your very soul through your nose? And what about his wife? Why don't we ever hear about her? What's she got to hide?
All very suspicious. Terrifying, you might say...
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451.