I really want the Kindle to be as cool as it seems. Though I have doubts about whether it would fit into my reading lifestyle, the concept of having a library of books in one’s hand remains awfully tempting … all the more so whenever I see anyone with one.
But, then, there’s this:
Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others – Pogue’s Posts Blog – NYTimes.com
This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.
But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.
The books, ironically enough, were Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm.
As is becoming progressively more and more clear, while you may own your Kindle, you don’t own the books you “buy.” You merely have them borrowed, with conditions, until Amazon decides you can’t have them any more, or that it doesn’t want to be in the Kindle business in the future. If the book vendor doesn’t think you should be able to let your Kindle read the book to you, it won’t. You can’t loan your Kindle book (without Kindle) to anyone. Or resell it. Or even give it away to the local library. And, as is now crystal clear, Amazon can take them back from you at any time. As Amazon “explained”:
The Kindle edition books Animal Farm by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) & Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) were removed from the Kindle store and are no longer available for purchase. When this occured, your purchases were automatically refunded. You can still locate the books in the Kindle store, but each has a status of not yet available. Although a rarity, publishers can decide to pull their content from the Kindle store.
And, apparently, from your Kindle, too.
Sure, nobody lost any money here. But that’s not the point, is it? That paperback I have sitting next to me may be less convenient, in aggregate, than a Kindle — but it’s mine, no question about it, to sell, loan, give away, burn, or keep for as long as entropy allows.
It may be materialistic of me in this “software as a service” world, but that’s why I’m not going to be buying a Kindle.
Kindle doubts of the past:
- Amazon Tries To Clarify Download Limits For Kindle Books, Doesn’t Quite Succeed [Drm]
- Kindle owners start to lose text-to-speech on purchased books — how do DRM-free Kindle books work?: Cory Doctorow
- House of the D.: Thoughts on e-readers and the self-publishing revolution. and
Why electronic books are not ready to play a big role in my life | ***Dave Does the Blog - Amazon Misusing DMCA to Block Non-Amazon Book Buying for Kindle?
- Bricks and mortar and paper | ***Dave Does the Blog
- What If the Kindle Succeeds? | Electronic Frontier…
- Kindling | ***Dave Does the Blog
(via BoingBoing)
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