_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
HTML Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
poemxo wrote 52 min ago:
I thought they already allowed this. Is this a reversal on a recent
restriction?
motbus3 wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
Well... Lots of companies are snitching their customers now
mrlonglong wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
How do I know if any of the books I already have are DRM free? And how
to get the epub or PDF?
zenethian wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
Too little too late. Iâve already ditched Amazon for ebooks in favor
of Koboâs ecosystem. Itâs not flawless but itâs not soul sucking
either.
butlike wrote 3 hours 43 min ago:
Wow it took this long to adopt epub?
Finnucane wrote 3 hours 2 min ago:
Amazon adopted epub several years ago. Publishers provide files to
them as plain epub files. What they sell is an epub file in a
proprietary wrapper. The wrapper exists, in part, to provide the DRM.
If they remove the DRM, they can remove the wrapper and give you a
plan epub file.
caseysoftware wrote 4 hours 8 min ago:
I've "collected" 500+ Kindle titles over the years and stopped buying
from them completely when they blocked downloads earlier this year.
When they enable these downloads, I'm going to export the ones I didn't
get last time and continue NOT buying from them.
Fool me once..
hereme888 wrote 4 hours 15 min ago:
I have zero qualms removing DRM or downloading pirated version of media
I have previously purchased.
I don't let those laws (corporate opinions) degrade my quality of life.
nullorempty wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
I could see them buying the rights to popular free or DRM-free books
and bringing them into their store, along with all the consequences
that would entail.
Not to mention the spying they'll do - Whatcha reading?
beej71 wrote 4 hours 25 min ago:
Well, it's a step in the right direction. I will never pay for an ebook
that I cannot permanently possess. And DRM is pointless. At some point
the words become visible and therefore are copyable.
shevy-java wrote 5 hours 15 min ago:
I think we should not allow Amazon to control our digital life.
Same with Google etc... just look how bad youtube has gotten. I
try to find a video xyz, using the search term xyz, and after
like 5 results, random videos show up. That is not a "search",
that is propaganda and an attempt to retain people on the
platform - but I am already on the platform playing BACKGROUND
MUSIC of some DJs. Why is Google wasting my time when I want to
FIND something? And what is even worse - that leaked onto the
search engine too. The search engine has been ruined by Google
deliberately so in the last some years.
misterbishop wrote 6 hours 10 min ago:
This is a step in the right direction. Now publishers need to take it
up.
DRM-free is a precondition for me buying digital books personally.
Practically no major digital bookstore offers it.
kgwxd wrote 6 hours 58 min ago:
Thank you great exalted one! We don't deserve your endless generosity.
daft_pink wrote 7 hours 7 min ago:
So weird. They lock it down so you canât put stuff on their device,
but now you can buy drm free on some other device?
1970-01-01 wrote 7 hours 22 min ago:
This is all very interesting news. From a sales standpoint, they're
nearly admitting they cannot manage DRM properly and at Amazon scale.
From a copyright standpoint, antipiracy will be extremely hard to
enforce. The only middle ground is targeting honest buyers, and we all
know how well that works. We should not expect this to be a permanent
change. Perhaps it will be more of a very short, DRM-free golden age
until another Amazon executive comes down and ends this experiment.
wrxd wrote 7 hours 13 min ago:
This is not about making all books DRM-free. It's about allowing
downloads for the ones that are already DRM-free, if the publishers
opt-in
1970-01-01 wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
Thanks, I missed the key detail!
sometimez wrote 8 hours 0 min ago:
Recently signed up for Littler Books for the sole reason they offered
everything in epub, pdf and Word doc. Sad this is not the standard for
paid content.
barbazoo wrote 8 hours 29 min ago:
First think I do and have ever done after having had to buy a book from
Amazon: Pull it into Calibre and remove DRM.
These days I donât buy from them but the same with Kobo which is a
better company to begin with.
criddell wrote 6 hours 32 min ago:
The latest version of Amazon's DRM can't be reliably removed by the
DeDRM package.
I still use a Kindle eReader (an Oasis) but I now buy books from Kobo
because those are easy to strip DRM from.
cft wrote 9 hours 4 min ago:
All ePub and PDF downloads are here:
HTML [1]: https://open-slum.org/
yanhangyhy wrote 9 hours 38 min ago:
time to pick up my e-book reader again..
jrm4 wrote 9 hours 47 min ago:
Haha, what a headline.
The internet "allows" ePub and PDF downloads for ALL books. Adjust
yourselves accordingly.
IAmBroom wrote 9 hours 17 min ago:
Not every person likes sailing under the Jolly Roger, matey.
jrm4 wrote 7 hours 47 min ago:
Oh, as a lawyer, I must insist that you should never do piracy and
its wrong, which is why I try to inform people as much about this
thing so that they can avoid it.
:)
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote 8 hours 33 min ago:
Too much convenience, selection, and the prices are all too low!
everdrive wrote 9 hours 26 min ago:
Amazon deserves a lot of criticism in the general sense, but this can
only be seen as a positive move. Most importantly, if they set an
industry standard, others might follow.
Fundamentally, I prefer a physical book to a digital one. But, the
primary reason I'd never even entertain a digital book is the lack of
ownership. Ownership is incredibly important, and we need to
celebrate victories when they happen.
TheCoelacanth wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
It's a positive move, but too little, too late. These same
publishers have already been available DRM-free from other stores
for a long time.
jrm4 wrote 7 hours 44 min ago:
Why?
Genuine question.
What's to "celebrate?" This is like "celebrating" a ketchup company
removing the rat hairs.
freedomben wrote 8 hours 3 min ago:
I agree this is a positive step, but this is like notch 1 on a
scale of 0 to 100, 0 being maximum abuse of your customer. I think
it's downright evil not to allow this for DRM free books, which
they have been doing for many years now. It is positive that they
reduced the level of evil by a little bit, and I'll give them
credit for that, but this movement is so minor in the scope of
things that it does not sway me whatsoever to go back to buying
from their Kindle store
foormanek wrote 9 hours 56 min ago:
Nobody with sane mind cares. You may buy Kindle, but then you jailbreak
it right away. You can "buy" Kindle e-books, but then you exfiltrate
these right away. When you stand your ground, what can Amazon allow you
or not allow?
WolfeReader wrote 6 hours 33 min ago:
You're financially incentivising them. You could do the same process
with Kobo, without rewarding Amazon at all.
freedomben wrote 7 hours 53 min ago:
Sure, if you don't mind playing a stupid cat and mouse game with one
of the largest corporations on the planet, go for it. I did it for a
bit and got real tired of the drag.
Now if a book is available from a DRM free source, I buy it.
Otherwise something else
IAmBroom wrote 9 hours 13 min ago:
Spoken like a techie, with the attitude NYers have to the "flyover
states".
Only tech-savvy people who are morally OK with pirating and
jailbreaking are "sane"?
watwut wrote 8 hours 27 min ago:
> Spoken like a techie, with the attitude NYers have to the
"flyover states".
Like you mean, when people from what you call "flyover states"
demonized cities so much, that they are ok sending armies into
them?
Lets be real, the overwhelming majority if derision and toxicity
flows the other way.
asplake wrote 10 hours 5 min ago:
As the author of five books (and my most recent one entirely
self-published), I haven't yet worked out how I feel about this or how
to respond. My current compromise is to charge more on the DRM-free
LeanPub.
criddell wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
How do you evaluate if the DRM is working as intended?
asplake wrote 2 hours 54 min ago:
Sales on Amazon are working as intended. DRM there is not a
variable I can control.
m01 wrote 7 hours 4 min ago:
Another possible compromise might be to use watermarking-based DRM.
Amazon doesn't seem to support it, but other e-bookstores do. In any
case, thank you for offering the LeanPub option!
freedomben wrote 7 hours 58 min ago:
Genuine questions here, not rhetorical or trying to imply anything
with them.
Why charge more on a DRM free site? Do you think people buying from
there are doing so that they can share the book illegally?
If someone wants to share the book illegally, I would imagine they'll
just download it from one of the pirate mirrors out there and not
bother paying you at all. My guess is you're probably just reducing
the number of people willing to pay the price. Classic supply and
demand curve against price.
asplake wrote 7 hours 2 min ago:
Where possible, I try not to focus on negative motives. Quite
simply, if people see a benefit in DRM-free, why not expect them to
pay for it? And there are other platforms beside the two I
mentioned â itâs not a choice between DRM-free and (for better
or for worse) Amazon.
nprateem wrote 29 min ago:
This is silly. You aren't competing with amazon you're competing
with Anna. If someone is interested in DRM free they aren't
stupid. Take the sale but don't take the piss.
rpdillon wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
In case your question was not rhetorical: to folks like me, I
view DRM as abuse, because it inevitably leads to me paying for
something that I won't end up being able to access down the line.
It is in direct conflict with building a library. Having the
author opt-in to applying DRM to their books (as you have on
Amazon and Google Play, for example) and then expected me to pay
them extra so I can actually own the thing I paid for makes me
take three steps back from the "Buy" button. I tend to just walk
out rather than be treated that way. As a result, I've stopped
buying Amazon Kindle books entirely (now that I can't strip the
DRM). If I'm paying the money, I'm going to demand control, and
if I can't get that control, there will be no transaction.
FWIW, LeanPub for your book suggests $25, and the DRM-laden
version is $13.50. That's quite the premium!
asplake wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
I reduced Amazon pricing yesterday for Christmas
wrxd wrote 9 hours 57 min ago:
Out of curiosity, whatâs the ratio between sales on Amazon and the
DRM-free option?
asplake wrote 9 hours 16 min ago:
Amazon wins by miles, almost to the point of incomparability. For
all my issues with Amazon, thatâs fine by me: compared to all
other platforms, thatâs where the reviews and other forms of
social proof are.
alexnewman wrote 10 hours 8 min ago:
I believe every book I buy Iâm allowed to backup in any format I
want. Come and get me
icqFDR wrote 10 hours 10 min ago:
Iâd advise anyone buying e-books on Amazon to think it through
carefully. My account was banned recently because, years ago, I ordered
two paper books that Amazon said would be split into two shipments.
Both books arrived without any issues, but later Amazon refunded me for
one of them, claiming that one package never arrived. This happened
4â5 years ago.
Apparently, during a recent review, they decided this counted as fraud
and banned my account. As a result, I can no longer log in and lost
access to all my Kindle e-books. They also remotely wiped my Kindle, so
my entire library is gone. I appealed the decision, but Iâve been
waiting for over six months with no resolution.
asveikau wrote 1 hour 7 min ago:
Fyi for anyone reading, it is very easy to break DRM on old kindle
purchases. I think they rolled out new DRM for things published this
year and it may be harder but still possible. I would encourage
anyone here who has a kindle library to back up their purchases.
alex1138 wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
Yeah, welcome to tech. Don't get me wrong, I sympathize completely
with you. It's an outrage. But it's incredible that Every. Single.
One. of these companies has terrible automation with no ability to
file a ticket for a human to look at it
Facebook is marginally worse than the others because Facebook left
you with no way to actually contact the friends you accrued
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433
gambiting wrote 2 hours 13 min ago:
Surely, you take them to small claims court over it, they won't
bother so send anyone because their lawyers cost more per hour than
your entire account was worth, you win by default?
synergy20 wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
I have 5 kindles at home and they're all collecting dusts along with
some Alexa and Echo devices, the only thing I need Amazon for is its
ecommerce shopping site. The phone just replaces all those gadgets
and it probably has nothing to do with Amazon. Still it's a nice move
to support ePub and PDFs on kindles.
jgbuddy wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
I work at Amazon and can escalate this if you're interested. Let me
know the order ID and I'll see what I can do.
nsagent wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
They screwed me in a different way. I simply didn't log into Amazon
for a couple years as I've tried to minimize my use of Amazon. When I
went to log in, they locked my account without any way to unlock it.
Talking with support multiple times did nothing. Now all my digital
purchases are gone.
Edit: If anyone knows a way to get them to unlock the account, I'd
appreciate it. They won't issue a password reset or anything similar,
which seems ridiculous considering they never claimed fraud. Simply
that it had been too long since I logged in.
WolfeReader wrote 1 hour 31 min ago:
"Now all my digital purchases are gone."
If you used to be one of those good consumers who would never even
think of breaking DRM, I hope you reconsider it now.
namibj wrote 3 hours 51 min ago:
If you're in the US just look up the small claims process local
near you, and do it.
The fee is small and you'll learn how it works, and that's worst
case.
expedition32 wrote 6 hours 8 min ago:
I always find it surprising that apparently it is easy to BAN
someone's account but nobody has the power to UNBAN.
But I suppose when you get to the size of Amazon a million bans
becomes a statistic...
prism56 wrote 6 hours 10 min ago:
I buy all my ebooks. I search DRM free, if there is DRM only I'll
buy it the cheapest I can then download it from Annas Archive. I
like to support authors but I need to own what I buy.
WolfeReader wrote 1 hour 28 min ago:
I'm more into the satisfaction of breaking DRM, but this is good
too. Kudos for supporting authors!
Figs wrote 6 hours 28 min ago:
> I appealed the decision, but Iâve been waiting for over six
months with no resolution.
Sue them.
josephcsible wrote 6 hours 49 min ago:
> They also remotely wiped my Kindle
I wish the CFAA were used to go after people like whoever at Amazon
was responsible for that, instead of people like Aaron Swartz.
tekno45 wrote 6 hours 51 min ago:
remote wiping purchased stuff is diabolical, especially over
something so far in the past you can't do a charge back.
What are you using for e-book reading now?
ekjhgkejhgk wrote 7 hours 19 min ago:
What is that you say? Stallman was right again?
HTML [1]: https://stallman.org/amazon.html
qmr wrote 7 hours 27 min ago:
File suit.
huijzer wrote 7 hours 45 min ago:
I'm also particularly skeptical of Amazon because our Kindle Direct
Publishing account was banned also for no reason. They said something
about me having had a previous account before, but I'm not sure that
was true and I think it was a very extreme measure. We were actually
selling books at the time until we got banned. They obviously also
"forgot" to pay out the most recent month.
al_borland wrote 8 hours 28 min ago:
Banning long-time customers in otherwise good-standing for a mistake
they made years ago, which would already be settled financially and
such a minor cost is wild.
I can imagine something like this has happened to almost everyone.
So much for being the worldâs most customer-centric company. That
mission is dead.
thegrim000 wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
99.99% of the time when you read something on the internet and your
reaction is "that's wild" / "wow that's crazy" / "that's
unbelievable", then what you are reading is in fact likely nowhere
near the actual truth / real.
WolfeReader wrote 1 hour 35 min ago:
One of the primary functions of DRM is to remove a paying
customer's access to the works they paid for. There's nothing
"wild" or "crazy" or "unbelievable" about it.
array_key_first wrote 2 hours 42 min ago:
My experience with online services and software in general is it
makes mistakes A LOT. Like A LOT A LOT. And I have absolutely no
problem believing there little to no humans in the loop here.
nitwit005 wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
If you read up on Amazon's prior scandal(s) regarding their
broken leave system, you'll believe almost any mistake is
possible:
HTML [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20211025011703/https://www.n...
nijave wrote 6 hours 58 min ago:
Customer centric ended a few years ago
al_borland wrote 6 hours 54 min ago:
This may be your opinion, and mine as well, but itâs still in
paragraph 1 of Amazonâs own about page. It seems theyâve
forgotten their own guiding principles. [1] > Amazon is guided by
four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus,
passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and
long-term thinking. We strive to be Earthâs most
customer-centric company, Earthâs best employer, and Earthâs
safest place to work.
HTML [1]: https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us
fuzztester wrote 4 hours 25 min ago:
Hey Amazon, I have a great offer for to buy the Golden Gate
bridge.
yupyupyups wrote 7 hours 11 min ago:
>the worldâs most customer-centric company.
Those are big words Amazon certainly doesn't earn.
p2detar wrote 8 hours 32 min ago:
About Kindle, if you're in Europe, you could try Nextory or BookBeat.
They don't have as much content, but are good services nevertheless.
ashu1461 wrote 8 hours 54 min ago:
Amazon used to be really customer centric 5-10 years ago, I remember
once I ordered a physical book which was late in delivery and I
urgently needed that book, so they gave me a free kindle edition till
the book got delivered.
delichon wrote 8 hours 30 min ago:
Last week I had a vendor tell me that they did warranty service
through Amazon, and I should contact Amazon for a replacement, even
though I was outside of their return window. It turned out to be a
lie. But Amazon refunded me the full amount anyway, without
prompting. The handful of times I've contacted Amazon tech support
this has been my experience. The previous one was when they
replaced a $250 porch pirated delivery, no questions asked.
This behavior genuinely earns them more of my business.
bombcar wrote 7 hours 52 min ago:
The "danger" of their policies (and I've benefitted from them,
too) is that they obviously can be gamed, and they obviously have
to have defenses against that - which means if you cross some
invisible line (and now likely AI-monitored) you're doomed; no
recourse.
ctrlmeta wrote 9 hours 1 min ago:
> As a result, I can no longer log in and lost access to all my
Kindle e-books.
Can't you file a suit in a small claims court?
Insanity wrote 9 hours 4 min ago:
Damn that is scary. Iâve been reading on Kindle since 2017, I have
about 200 books on there.
I doubt I would re-read many of them, but my partner is still going
through some of them (with the family library thing).
Iâd be pissed if it got wiped.
zecg wrote 8 hours 13 min ago:
I'd download epubs of everything from Anna's Archive and/or
soulseek (Nicotine+ is nice) and kindly tell them to fuck off with
their account.
arcanemachiner wrote 1 hour 25 min ago:
I can't believe Soulseek is still a thing. Kinda warms my icy
heart.
mathieuh wrote 9 hours 7 min ago:
I saw the writing on the wall when they recently removed the facility
to download your own books. I downloaded all of them, removed the DRM
with Calibre, and now obtain e-books through other sources.
cassianoleal wrote 9 hours 50 min ago:
That's the point of DRM-free ebooks though, isn't it? You download
them and keep them safe so if the provider decides to cut access to
your account, you remain in possession of the goods.
So the correct advice would be to avoid anyone buying DRM-encumbered
digital property - the same as RMS has been making for who knows how
long!
ajdude wrote 9 hours 34 min ago:
It's safer to assume that Amazon is always acting in bad faith and
search to purchase your DRM free e-books from other vendors.
There's plenty of other options out there besides Amazon
toomuchtodo wrote 7 hours 54 min ago:
[1]
HTML [1]: https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks
HTML [2]: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bookshoporg-lau...
mikkupikku wrote 8 hours 19 min ago:
> There's plenty of other options out there besides Amazon
Often not in my experience. Abe and B&N.
WolfeReader wrote 1 hour 37 min ago:
Bookshop, Kobo, Google Play Books
dunham wrote 7 hours 29 min ago:
If by Abe, you mean Abe Books, they're a subsidiary of Amazon.
I believe Baen sells some DRM free sci fi books, but it's a
smaller catalog.
jshier wrote 6 hours 56 min ago:
Pretty sure all of Baen's books are DRM free, and they offer
virtually every ebook format around. They even used to
include CDs with their hardbacks that would would include a
huge subset of their collection. But they aren't a retailer,
they're a publisher, so you're only getting the titles they
publish.
mapt wrote 9 hours 50 min ago:
The only reason for a recent review (like with all the recently
banned Facebook accounts from 2009) is firing up AI tools that didn't
exist 5 years ago.
IAmBroom wrote 9 hours 22 min ago:
Or general auditing purposes.
egeozcan wrote 9 hours 51 min ago:
A friend of mine received a double shipment for a $300 order. Being
honest, he contacted customer service to arrange a return. Everything
seemed fine until a few days later when he noticed they had also
refunded his original payment. He reached out again to let them know,
and they said theyâd just recharge his card. Apparently, that
transaction failed (no clear reason why), and without any warning,
they banned his account, wiping out his entire Kindle library in the
process. Amazon works wonderfully right up until it fails
spectacularly.
thaumasiotes wrote 2 hours 29 min ago:
Something similar happened to me with Blizzard. I'd buy
subscription time and, a few days later, they'd cancel my
subscription and refund the charge. After a few rounds of this,
they suspended my account.
In that case, I appealed and was told, for the first time, that the
reason for the refunds was that the card I'd been paying with
didn't match the stored payment information saved to my account.
Both cards were equally valid and there was no indication anywhere
that having saved payment information disqualified you from paying
by any other method. As best I can tell, Blizzard just updated
their policies one day for no particular reason, then made not
complying with the new, secret policies a bannable offense.
exe34 wrote 8 hours 53 min ago:
I never bought any ebooks off Amazon without removing the drm at
the time. I did buy a lot of shows and movies, but if they take
those away, I'll just pirate them, given I've already paid.
mystraline wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
Buying drm'ed shit, and removing later only indicates that DRM is
acceptable.
Pirate it to start, and dont pay. You're an 'illegal' either way,
with a tort copyright violation OR a criminal DMCA violation.
d3Xt3r wrote 2 hours 58 min ago:
Unfortunately not everything is available on the high seas. For
instance, it's impossible to find older seasons of MasterChef
Australia (in HD). Heck even trying to view it legally, outside
of AU, is a mission - Amazon is the only entity that has the
older seasons. I ended up subscribing to a Prime account just
for this.
exe34 wrote 4 hours 53 min ago:
At the time a lot of the things I was reading were only
available on there or on paper.
kshacker wrote 9 hours 29 min ago:
I wonder just like retailers are required to account for local
sales taxes (I know it is not that clear cut), there should be some
enforcement mechanism to settle disputes locally. Setup an agency
which "legally" provides support for google, Amazon, and all those
unreachable entities. Provides local jobs as well as quick
grievance redressal. Maybe something like consumer protection
agency but not federal, maybe at least one per county maybe more
depending on the population.
Edit - I don't mind paying for the service. Maybe charge everyone
$99 to file a case to avoid everyone piling on, but it helps
resolve most egregious ones, and fee could be refunded at the
agency's discretion.
d3Xt3r wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
How would that work for countries where Amazon doesn't have a
legal presence? A foreign court would be able to do anything.
dragonwriter wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
> there should be some enforcement mechanism to settle disputes
locally.
They are called courts and they exist.
Of course, companies like to require you to agree to binding
arbitration, instead.
zackmorris wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
The solution to authoritarian problems is to organize.
In this case, we're overdue for a service that we all pay into,
like a collective credit card, that only continues making
payments to companies like Amazon if all of the members are
happy. When you get banned without due process, payments stop
until the matter is resolved.
Also, the collective can bargain-down rates. If it senses price
increases beyond inflation, it just sends the adjusted amount,
like 95%, until the matter is resolved.
We need this collective bargaining for housing (like tenant
unions), the workplace, politics, pharmaceuticals, etc. The scale
of this is so large that the collective could exist beyond any
specific industry. So that it would operate as a meta economy
beside the so-called free market economy (late-stage capitalism)
that we operate under today due to the lack of antitrust
enforcement.
Groups like the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) are working
towards these sorts of goals on a number of fronts:
HTML [1]: https://weall.org/
hnuser123456 wrote 6 hours 33 min ago:
Or maybe pass some laws with more penalties for defrauding your
own customers.
RobotToaster wrote 7 hours 50 min ago:
Some kind of court, for small claims?
Dylan16807 wrote 30 min ago:
That won't get you your account back.
eli wrote 5 hours 48 min ago:
Just need to outlaw binding arbitration
charcircuit wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
Amazon will reimburse arbitration fees if you win making it a
cheaper option for consumers than small claims court.
BoredPositron wrote 54 min ago:
It's 75 bucks in the EU without waiting for the
reimbursement.
eli wrote 1 hour 29 min ago:
Two problems with that argument: 1) Amazon would also have
to reimburse small claims court fees if you win, and 2)
arbitration is worse for the consumer in pretty much every
other way.
eszed wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
"If".
[Edit, because one-word replies are uncivilized: one reason
to be suspicious about binding arbitration is that the
company against whom you'll be pleading is a repeat
customer of that arbitration service. It's a
non-transparent / non-public process, so it's hard to have
confidence is fair, and over which we (ie, the public) have
no influence if it were not.]
charcircuit wrote 2 hours 12 min ago:
>is a repeat customer of that arbitration service
Who is locked in by the contract. The arbitration company
gets their fees no matter the outcome.
>so it's hard to have confidence is fair
You can appeal to a court if it's unfair.
eli wrote 1 hour 14 min ago:
"We examine whether firms have an informational
advantage in selecting arbitrators in consumer
arbitration [...] We first document that some
arbitrators are systematically industry friendly while
others are consumer friendly. Firms appear to utilize
this information in the arbitrator selection process.
Despite a randomly generated list of potential
arbitrators, industry-friendly arbitrators are forty
percent more likely to be selected than their consumer
friendly counterparts. Better informed firms and
consumers choose more favorable arbitrators. [...]
Competition between arbitrators exacerbates the
informational advantage of firms in equilibrium
resulting in all arbitrators slanting towards being
industry friendly. Evidence suggests that limiting the
respondentâs and claimantâs inputs over the
arbitrator selection process could significantly
improve outcomes for consumers."
HTML [1]: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/...
qmr wrote 7 hours 26 min ago:
We could call it "small claims court".
andylynch wrote 9 hours 20 min ago:
I can't speak for how effective the process is, but this is the
idea behind the EU/UK GPSR's Authorised Representative framework
- though not exactly local (that would be excessive, since GPSR
also applies to much smaller sellers too)
RobotToaster wrote 7 hours 10 min ago:
I hope it works better than the EU DSA dispute resolution,
which I've heard multiple accounts of youtube just ignoring.
nippoo wrote 9 hours 58 min ago:
They failed to deliver a Pixel phone to me - they never even tried to
deliver it and the status said "permanent delivery failure" so I
assumed they'd automatically refund me.
Fast forward a few months, I never received a refund and they claim
they have no record any more. I could chargeback my credit card but I
imagine I'd also be permanently banned from Amazon - so instead I
accept they've just stolen $1000 from me with no recourse...
(if anyone from Amazon is reading this, my email is in my bio!)
EbNar wrote 1 hour 51 min ago:
No way I'd give away 1000 ⬠in exchange to be allowed to buy from
some store. Actually, I don't even have an Amazon account, but if I
did, I'd prefer to be banned than to burn 1000 ⬠like that.
b8 wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
Just reach out to andy or bezos and the executive team will reach
out and fix it.
crazygringo wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
Man, for $1000 I'd definitely be checking to make sure it got
refunded, and manually requesting a refund after a week had passed.
Waiting a few months is not smart because not every delivery
service is going to store the delivery status details. I've
generally found that after 3 months, data starts disappearing from
services and refund options can become technically impossible.
Like, on eBay, even if a seller wants to refund you after more than
90 days, they can't. Part of this is for accounting too -- at some
point you just have to be able to definitively close the books and
say here are the sales we made, that number isn't going down in the
future because of potential outstanding returns.
delfinom wrote 5 hours 44 min ago:
File in small claims court, they can't ban you for that and they
have to send someone out
singpolyma3 wrote 3 hours 22 min ago:
They can ban you for any reason they want
mgr86 wrote 7 hours 48 min ago:
wait is your email really username@username.net? I registered
java.lang.string (at) gmail back when I was learning java 20+ years
ago. Haven't really used it in over a decade though.
MaKey wrote 8 hours 15 min ago:
It seems wild to me to just accept a loss of $1000 for something
that isn't your fault. I'd be persistent in each contact with
Amazon and if you're really not getting anywhere I'd go to small
claims court or do a chargeback.
gambiting wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
Like, I know there are some really rich people around, obviously
you see them driving around in fancy cars and living in big
houses, but you kinda forget that some people can just lose $1000
and ignore it like it's nothing. Crazy.
dust-jacket wrote 8 hours 35 min ago:
No, this is silly. Don't do this. You absolutely keep pushing for a
refund and go via you CC provider if they don't respond.
barbazoo wrote 8 hours 31 min ago:
And risk being locked out of the worldâs online marketplace and
all of Amazonâs other businesses? Maybe a bit hyperbolic but
thatâs where we are headed for sure.
codersfocus wrote 1 hour 1 min ago:
The world's marketplace is alibaba.com, or aliexpress.com for
individual orders.
You can find 99% of the junk on amazon on aliexpress for a
lower price, though without prime shipping.
Nextgrid wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
Have you never been banned in a video game and wanted to get
back in? You create a new account and call it a day.
It's not like you should feel bad about playing dirty with a
company that considers it fine to just steal $1k.
nightshift1 wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
It's perfectly feasible to never use Amazon. I don't know your
situation, but i think people should go out more and prefer
quality over quantity. Most of the stuff that Amazon sell is
crap anyway.
jolmg wrote 52 min ago:
> but i think people should go out more and prefer quality
over quantity
Whether you find higher quality in your local area depends on
your local area and what you're buying. More generally
applicable, you can find higher quality with independent
online stores.
MaKey wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
For $1000 I'd definitely risk it and kick up a fuss about it if
they locked me out.
deltaburnt wrote 8 hours 44 min ago:
Much less money lost, but Amazon is notorious for not providing
free game codes that are supposed to be included with GPU
purchases. The customer rep at first apologized and offered a small
refund (less than the cost of the game). A later rep started
implying I was trying to defraud Amazon.
Many people online share similar experiences. Wonder how much money
this wide-scale fraud saves them.
TreeInBuxton wrote 4 hours 41 min ago:
Amazon doing dodgy things with PC parts is why I will no longer
purchase them from there - I'll happily take the extra £10-20
hit to buy it from another "proper" retailer (ie, Scan or
Overclockers here in the UK), knowing that issues can be resolved
more easily
gorbachev wrote 8 hours 56 min ago:
Something similar happened to me. The delivery company returned two
packages, two separate orders, as damaged back to Amazon. They were
marked as "delivered". They automatically refunded just one item in
one of the returned orders.
I had to call them to get a refund for all the items on all the
orders, and even then they had a lot of difficulty figuring out
what was happening. Isn't Amazon supposed to be a world leader
(maybe after Walmart) in this stuff?
nijave wrote 6 hours 55 min ago:
Not too long ago I received an empty package from Amazon but
luckily it was a low price item and they reshipped it without
fuss.
Not sure what you'd do in such a scenario if they tried to fight
it
philo_sophia wrote 9 hours 18 min ago:
Just ask for the refund. If they lock your account you can always
make a new one (gonna be a scary day when that isn't possibl cuz
they use biometrics or something.....).
But if they just close your account in response to asking for a
rightful refund.... Literal thievery
everdrive wrote 9 hours 31 min ago:
That should be the last straw. In the least, why haven't you closed
your account?
robin_reala wrote 9 hours 52 min ago:
For $1k stolen from me I think Iâd go with not shopping at Amazon
again, tbh.
mynameisash wrote 8 hours 4 min ago:
Yeah, I get that Amazon is incredibly convenient, but $1000 is
$1000 no matter which company takes it from you. If some local
mom and pop shop effectively stole $1000 from me, you can bet
your ass I'd never patronize them again.
II2II wrote 7 hours 30 min ago:
They never said they continued to patronize Amazon. Given the
thread kicked off with claims about loosing access to DRMed
content due to an unrelated delivery/payment issue, the person
involved may be concerned about loosing access to digital
content. Some people spend a lot of money on books, movies,
etc.. The $1000 may be a drop in the bucket.
sheepscreek wrote 10 hours 0 min ago:
That is truly insane - sorry that youâre unable to access the books
that you rightly purchased.
Though I highly doubt this alone was the reason for an account ban.
Is it possible your credentials were stolen/misused without your
knowledge?
icqFDR wrote 9 hours 29 min ago:
Thatâs possible, but I canât know for sure because Amazon never
provided any concrete details. I didnât receive any warning
emails, only a cryptic message after the ban:
> "Amazon.co.uk found that the rate at which refunds were occurring
on your account was extraordinary and could not continue."
After looking through my order history, the only refund I could
find on this account was the one related to the book I mentioned
above. If there was any other activity or misuse, Amazon hasnât
disclosed it to me, which makes it impossible to verify or dispute
their conclusion.
wrxd wrote 10 hours 6 min ago:
Unfortunately bad press is likely going to be the only thing to give
you your account back.
You should write a blog post and let the internet and the media do
its magic
arcanemachiner wrote 1 hour 25 min ago:
Pretty much what I was going to say. I think Twitter (or whatever
social media people use these days) would be a more appropriate
place to put the company "on blast".
partomniscient wrote 10 hours 16 min ago:
They're still going to take note of what you're reading and possibly
brand you as a non-ultra-capitalist disruptor. Amazon can get fucked.
I still buy physical media from them once a year (November) when
availabilty and rest of the world can't compete price-wise. Yes I
recognise the hypocrisy of said actions and minimise it as much as
possible. Non-US based. Many physical media producers (e.g. Disney) no
longer produce stuff for our 'region'.
wrxd wrote 10 hours 25 min ago:
This was unexpected. They lost me as a customer when they stopped
allowing me to download books I bought and I'm in the Kobo (+ BookLore)
side now and I am not coming back.
I wonder how many books are actually DRM-free and are going to be
affected by this change. I suspect relatively few, but I would be happy
to be wrong
zelphirkalt wrote 7 hours 16 min ago:
But Kobo is bad too. Try refunding a book. Their website sent me in
neverending circles and still I could not find a way to refund. Their
stuff requires some specific reader or so. I don't quite remember the
details, but I bought a book, thinking to avoid Amazon shit. Then I
realized that their stuff sucks and I don't want to buy their blessed
device or install special reader software. Also not DRM-free. So I
wanted to refund, but couldn't. It is a very bad user experience. The
only good experience you get from them is, if you go all in on their
software/devices.
Since I couldn't refund, I had to pirate the book as epub/pdf from
elsewhere. I decided to never again buy anything from Kobo.
chocochunks wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
It's not super easy to refund digital goods in general with few
exceptions like Steam. I have done it with Kobo but IIRC you have
to chat with a CS rep or least you did when I did it.
No where legit is DRM free for eBooks from the big publishers. You
don't even have to use the Kobo app since they let you download the
ACSM file and use it Adobe Digital Editions which could be used on
a computer or ADE supported eReader like Pocketbook (or Kobo!).
This has been the case since before they were even called Kobo! And
if the publisher offers the book DRM free they just give you a
DRM-free ePub instead of the ACSM file.
These days, with the Calibre DeACSM and DeDRM plug-ins you don't
even need ADE. It's also trivially easy to remove the DRM from the
Kobo desktop app or their readers. It's way easier than Amazon and
a way better experience with multiple routes to a DRM free file.
zelphirkalt wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
This ACSM file fiddling was too much of a hassle. I used to DeDRM
ebooks from Amazon (also using Calibre), but I didn't know about
DeACSM. I just want an epub or pdf file. I don't want their
reinventing the wheel to somehow gatekeep content bs file
formats. This is a clear sign for me, that they do not have my
best interest at heart.
Their website didn't guide me towards a callable phone number or
give me an actual e-mail address I could write to. Instead I went
back and forth between chatbot and docs and webpages, without
success. It is obvious to me, that they want as little actual
human in the loop as possible. Real shitty experience, while my
money is already gone and I am trying to get it back. Easier to
give up and just download an acceptable version elsewhere. Not
going through all that hassle to use their platform, which
doesn't value me as a customer anyway.
chocochunks wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
Using the Kobo desktop app is almost identical to Kindle with
regards to DeDRM. You open app, you download book in app, you
open Calibre, then here is where it changes, you click the Obok
plugin on the Calibre toolbar, find book and import and get an
ePub and you don't even have to convert it!
ACSM is Adobe's crap and the same thing you'd have use for
Google Play Books and a few others. It's again another slight
step change where you have to open the ACSM with ADE to get the
book in the first place. WTF Adobe did it that way, IDK but
they did.
DennisP wrote 8 hours 57 min ago:
I bought a Kobo for the same reason but when it came to buying books,
none of the books I wanted to buy were on Kobo's store.
terinjokes wrote 6 hours 31 min ago:
If you want to be part of Kindle Unlimited you have to give
worldwide exclusivity to Kindle Unlimited, and can't have ever
published your eBook on another platform.
Even if I wanted to join, Kindle Unlimited is not offered here. I
can't even buy the eBook from Amazon.
NikolaNovak wrote 9 hours 52 min ago:
For me it appears highly genre-correlated. High percentage of science
fiction books come with a small statement "this book is drm free on
request of publisher / author". Zero of my photography, music,
computer science or graphic novels came with such a tag.
delecti wrote 8 hours 50 min ago:
Yeah, Tor Books publishes without DRM, and they seem to be one of
the bigger SFF publishers these days. John Scalzi, George R.R.
Martin (though not the ASoIaF books), Robert Jordan, Annalee
Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, and a bunch of other SFF authors I
recognize. I'm sure there are others, but all the once I've noticed
have been from Tor.
freedomben wrote 8 hours 17 min ago:
Indeed, and I love Tor for this. Brandon Sanderson has also come
out against DRM. I already loved the man's books, now I love the
man too
p0w3n3d wrote 10 hours 30 min ago:
So much for your masterâs mercy
SoKamil wrote 10 hours 34 min ago:
I hope they will allow me to download e-books that I uploaded through
their upload site.
I do backups but better be safe than sorry.
drpixie wrote 10 hours 46 min ago:
What's amazon's angle on this? Because it's not believable that they
wouldn't have an angle.
So the real question is - how is amazon going to enshitify drm-free
books? Are they trying to wipe out gutenburg, standard-ebooks, etc?
Are they trying to be the youtube of drm-free? The place where everyone
goes, and that becomes crap due updating Ts&Cs - inserting ads or
charges?
monomial wrote 11 hours 7 min ago:
Do yourself a favor and go get a Kobo reader, install KO Reader on it
and never look back.
mapontosevenths wrote 9 hours 13 min ago:
I like to be able to price shop, but I do want to support the
authors. So I use Kobo & Kindle, then buy it wherever it's cheapest
usually.
Then I use epubor ultimate to convert to epub and read it on my
generic e-ink reader. Some folks object to the licensing or whatever
with epubor (unattributed GPL?) but it works, it's easy, and when
Amazon tightens up the DRM they always find a way around it
eventually.
freedomben wrote 7 hours 56 min ago:
Dang, it's unfortunate they don't support Linux
embedding-shape wrote 11 hours 12 min ago:
Hah, they actually did a slight rollback! When I first heard about them
stopping the downloads, I immediately downloaded all the books I
purchased from Amazon and went from buying ~1 book per week to 0. Seems
a lot of us doing so had some sort of effect.
Unfortunately, it seems like this will be chosen by the publisher, so
of course probably most of the books won't be downloadable at all, and
Amazon can now point their finger at the publisher instead of taking
the blame themselves. Publishers was probably always the reason behind
the move, but at least now Amazon have someone else to blame, which I
guess is great for them.
Rebelgecko wrote 3 hours 42 min ago:
YMMV depending on the kind of books you read, but I think the
majority of the ones I've gotten from Amazon are labeled as DRM-free.
A lot of fantasy/science fiction authors (as well as some publishers
like Tor!) feel strongly about that kind of thing
ay wrote 8 hours 6 min ago:
I have bought more than 600 books over a decade or so;
But after they decided the ebooks were actually just license to read,
I did exactly the same as you, and now rather than happily buying
from them, actively discourage everyone in my social circle from
using kindle.
I am not going back, whoever they decide to blame.
BeetleB wrote 4 hours 21 min ago:
> But after they decided the ebooks were actually just license to
read
They decided that when they launched the Kindle. It's always been
that way.
kstrauser wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
No, it hasn't. Until very recently, their website said "Buy now
with 1-Click", minus the new "By placing an order, you're
purchasing a content license & agreeing to Kindle's Store Terms
of Use." wording underneath it. The process was identical to
buying a physical book: you give them money, and you end up with
your own physical or electronic copy of it.
Any interpretation of that transaction as anything but a purchase
of a copy is delusional. I couldn't care less what their ToS said
about it, any more than I'd care what a sign on the wall of a
bookstore said.
BeetleB wrote 3 hours 5 min ago:
> No, it hasn't.
Yes, it has. They made it clear right when they launched the
store.
> I couldn't care less what their ToS said about it
You're welcome to not care about whatever you feel - your
concerns and reality are orthogonal.
This became big news a long time ago:
HTML [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jul/17/ama...
smeej wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
The linked article is about Amazon's having realized they had
no right to sell the books they thought they had sold and
reversing the transaction, not revoking a license to
something they thought they had licensed to you.
You seem to be missing the importance of that nuance.
BeetleB wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
Sigh.
OK: [1] "Amazon has revised the text when purchasing a
Kindle e-book on its online store. You do not own the book
you bought but are licensing it. It used to say âBy
clicking on above button, you agree to Amazonâs Kindle
Store Terms of Use.â"
...
"This is not a policy shift from Amazon for the US; they
are more upfront about it now. Amazon has always licensed
the digital content to users, so anything purchased does
not mean the user owns it, they just bought a license"
As the article points out, the change in verbiage was
because of a new California requirement that this should be
made explicit. It was always a license. They merely changed
the verbiage on the button to conform to state rules.
Edit: I have to say, after a bunch of rather pointless
arguments today and yesterday on HN, it disappoints me that
the average commenter is quick to jump to unsubstantiated
conclusions. Both times the facts were trivial to lookup.
Not the HN of yore.
HTML [1]: https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-changes...
smeej wrote 17 min ago:
I mean, you're citing goodereader.com as though that's
somehow an authoritative source and not just a blog by a
guy who likes ereaders, but has no special legal
knowledge.
Much more useful would have been if you had linked to an
archive of the original Kindle Store Terms of Use, which
state:
> Use of Digital Content. Upon your payment of the
applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the
non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the
applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display
such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely
on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the
Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use.
Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon
under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided
by Amazon.[0] (emphasis mine)
Notice that "or as authorized by Amazon" is part of the
clause with "solely on the device," not a separate clause
that somehow might be interpreted to apply to the "right
to keep a permanent copy" part.
Does it also say that it is considered licensed to you?
Sure. But the "license" is the "right to keep a permanent
copy."
It's one thing for Amazon to say, "Shit, we sold you a
book we weren't authorized to sell. We have to undo the
whole transaction." It's quite another to do what the
GGGGGGGP comment (I didn't count the G's) is complaining
about and delete your permanent copy of a book for which
they did validly sell you a license to keep a permanent
copy.
Amazon has meaningfully changed the license agreement
now. In 2025, it says:
> Use of Kindle Content. Kindle Content is licensed, not
sold, to you by the Content Provider. Upon your download
or access of Kindle Content and payment of any applicable
fees (including applicable taxes), the Content Provider
grants you subject to the terms of this Agreement,
including without limitation those in âChanges to
Service; Amendmentsâ below, a non-exclusive right to
view, use, and display such Kindle Content (for
Subscription Content, only as long as you remain an
active member of the underlying membership or
subscription program), solely through Kindle Software or
as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on
the number of Supported Devices specified in the Kindle
Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use.
Content Provider may include additional terms for use
within its Kindle Content. Those terms will also apply,
but this Agreement will govern in the event of a
conflict. Some Kindle Content, such as interactive or
highly formatted content, may not be available to you on
all Kindle Software.[1]
They've eliminated the right to keep a permanent copy
that was originally part of the license sold. That change
matters. Deleting content sold under that license is a
violation of the terms of the agreement on their part.
[0] [1]
HTML [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110109000847/http:...
HTML [2]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display....
kstrauser wrote 2 hours 57 min ago:
> Yes, it has. They made it clear right when they launched
the store.
No one except those who explicitly went looking for this knew
it. It wasn't made clear in any way.
> This became big news a long time ago:
Speaking of orthogonal. I remember this well. It was a case
where Amazon stole back books people had purchased. The core
concern at the time wasn't that Amazon had revoked a license
to read a book, but that they had deleted purchased books
from users' collections.
But at the end of the day, for many years Amazon had an
action button saying "Buy now with 1-Click" with no legal
fiction disclaimer. The button was identical to what you'd
see when buying a bag of cat food, DVD, or anything else
you'd flat-out purchase from them.
BeetleB wrote 2 hours 51 min ago:
I'm neither disputing the verbiage on the button, nor the
ignorance of users. None of those affects the fact that you
did not own the ebook - it was licensed to you.
What is silly is actually knowing the whole 1984 episode,
and still believing you owned the books.
smeej wrote 2 hours 38 min ago:
> "These books were added to our catalog using our
self-service platform by a third-party who did not have
the rights to the books," spokesman Drew Herdener told
the Guardian. "When we were notified of this by the
rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our
systems and from customers' devices, and refunded
customers."
> Amazon refunded the cost of the books, but told
affected customers they could no longer read the books
and that the titles were "no longer available for
purchase".
This has nothing to do with people's having bought a
license to the books. It's about Amazon's never having
had authorization from the publisher to sell the books.
There is no reference at all to people's having licensed
the books from Amazon. Amazon referred to people as
having bought the books.
ashton314 wrote 7 hours 42 min ago:
What do you do now? Iâve been buying physical books off of Abe
Booksânot a bad thing at allâbut Iâd like to use my
jailbroken kindle again because the form factor is so convenient.
dredmorbius wrote 1 hour 49 min ago:
FYI: Abe is Amazon: < [1] >, citing < [2] >.
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbeBooks
HTML [2]: https://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/01/amazon-to-acquire-...
wishfish wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
Buy DRM free when you can. Not only is this convenient for you
but will hopefully help nudge the market. When you can't, buy the
book from one of the easily cracked sources (Kobo, Google, Adobe
DRM).
Or you can save yourself the bother of removing DRM by buying the
book from wherever and then downloading a copy from Anna's.
exe34 wrote 7 hours 6 min ago:
If you already bought them, just download them off anna's
archive.
ay wrote 7 hours 11 min ago:
I try to buy physical books, and make an effort to buy it
elsewhere, with AMZN being the reluctant last resort if I truly
canât find it. I donât have a specific go to place anymore.
Also, I reduced the buying pace - owning physical books takes up
space, so the bar for getting something into the library is now
much higher than before.
JimmyBiscuit wrote 7 hours 19 min ago:
Not the guy but you can just buy your ebooks from someplace else
and use calibre to convert/send them to your kindle.
Im kinda cheeky and use Amazons Send-to-Kindle service to send
ebooks in epub format to my kindle via wifi
Finnucane wrote 9 hours 51 min ago:
Itâs pretty unusual for Amazon to put any other entityâs interest
ahead of itâs own, so they can be presumed to have some business
reason for it, like the number of people whoâve decided not to buy
from them any more.
syntaxing wrote 11 hours 18 min ago:
Just get a kobo instead. The price difference between with ads and a
new kobo is minimal. Not worth the Amazon headache with a locked down
device.
misterbishop wrote 6 hours 6 min ago:
I love my Libra 2 reader, but I only use it to read epub files from
questionable websites. I would pay for books if they were available
as DRM-free epubs.
makeitdouble wrote 8 hours 31 min ago:
Kobo is extremely region limited.
It's fine if it fits your need, but will be far from a good
alternative in most regions.
Ciantic wrote 10 hours 3 min ago:
I have Kobo, but their decision to enable secure boot in newer
models, and consequently pushing out FOSS choices as operating
systems makes me think I won't get another Kobo. Yes the Nickel menu
works still with secure boot enabled devices. I like to think that
devices I buy might have different use-case in future, and
secure-boot enabled devices seriously harm that.
BeetleB wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
Will this affect my ability to install KOReader?
rgegerge wrote 10 hours 47 min ago:
There are two single line comments recommending kobo over kindle in
this thread. How do I know this is a genuine recommendation and not
astroturfing?
BigTTYGothGF wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
Check their post history, nobody's going to be doing that kind of
long con here. (Different kinds of long cons, maybe, but not for
shilling an e-reader)
wishfish wrote 5 hours 10 min ago:
Kobo is the sort of device which would make HN happy. The software
is much more open and permissive than Kindle. Integrates with
Calibre more tightly. Has a fairly rich ecosystem of tweaks and
addons which don't require a jailbreak. Wish it didn't have secure
boot but am otherwise pretty happy with it.
Kobo feels like something I actually own. More so than Kindle or
even my iDevices. That's a little unusual these days from a
mainstream product and that will make its users enthusiastic.
jabroni_salad wrote 6 hours 56 min ago:
Here's a better rec: Buy any device with a carta 1300 screen and
only buy from shops that are supported by the DeDRM plugin in
Calibre.
jjice wrote 8 hours 40 min ago:
I'll chime in - the Kindle Paperwhite I believe is the superior
machine from a physical feeling and aesthetic perspective. The
problem (for me) is who makes it. Amazon keeps locking it down so
it's harder and harder to load your own DRM free books onto it, in
addition to tracking everything you do on it (like sending all your
reading statistics whenever you get online).
I have a Kobo Clara BW. It's still a great machine, but the Kindle
is definitely superior for feel and visuals, but I use the Kobo 95%
of the time. They are way more open with the software and I have
mine in "sideload" mode (an official setting), which really just
means that it doesn't make me log into anything and it doesn't even
attempt to connect to the internet. Also, I can purchase a DRM free
ebook on the train, plug a USB cable into my phone and my Kobo, and
then load it on like that. Now I own my digital book, have
supported the author with a larger margin, and get to read it on my
more private machine.
Definitely not a no-brainer for everyone, but I'm happy with my
Kobo.
carlosjobim wrote 9 hours 29 min ago:
How do you know anything? You can never know for sure if you can
trust another person, and this is why people can get schizophrenia.
Asking people to verify that they are honest will never help you.
Dishonest people will of course lie to you and say they are honest.
While honest people will be insulted by your question and not want
to engage with you.
What you can do is verify. Try a Kobo, try a Kindle. Make up your
own mind.
freedomben wrote 8 hours 6 min ago:
Indeed, and it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to do an
internet search to get more opinions. If you think everyone is
astroTurfing and shilling, then you have to fall back to the good
old-fashioned scientific method of trying things out yourself.
It would be great too to bring that information back to HN and
share it with us.
forinti wrote 10 hours 21 min ago:
I have both. The Kindle is a better device overall, but the I like
Kobo's software better.
What I found disappointing was when I had to swap out the screen on
the Kobo and found that it was glued and that the battery was
soldered. I managed to do fix it, but I don't like things that are
unnecessarily hard to fix.
Flimm wrote 10 hours 58 min ago:
The eBooks in Kobo's store are also locked down with DRM.
aidenn0 wrote 3 hours 1 min ago:
Tor and Baen are two publishers that have been offering DRM free
books on Kobo for a while.
WolfeReader wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
Only some are. At the bottom of each book's store page, you can see
if a book is DRM-free. And if it is DRM-free, you can download an
ePub.
Example: [1] They've been doing this for YEARS before Amazon.
HTML [1]: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/gardens-of-the-moon
syntaxing wrote 6 hours 50 min ago:
Sure, but you can load any file onto the device.
jabroni_salad wrote 6 hours 58 min ago:
Yes, but Calibre can get the files onto any other device with a
drag and drop operation, which is not the case with the newest
version of Amazon DRM.
icedrift wrote 10 hours 59 min ago:
Thing is Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you
don't mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and
add koreader.
wishfish wrote 5 hours 16 min ago:
I've had both. Kobo is fine hardware-wise. And light years better
on software than Kindle. One huge example: I have 1000+ books in
Calibre. Took the time to tag them all into their respective
categories. Kobo recognizes those tags and my book collection is
sorted. With Kindle, I'd have to sort by hand on device. It ignores
Calibre tags.
For this feature alone, I'd never go back to Kindle. Sure, I might
be able to replicate it with jailbreaking + KOReader. But the Kobo
worked this way out of the box.
WolfeReader wrote 6 hours 39 min ago:
Try actually using a Kobo reader sometime.
syntaxing wrote 6 hours 48 min ago:
How so? Just looking online, the prices between a Kindle and Clara
BW is minimal (the Clara BW is actually cheaper). I donât see how
the hardware is better when they use the same exact screenâ¦
stringsandchars wrote 10 hours 1 min ago:
> Kindle hardware is significantly better and cheaper. If you don't
mind tinkering get a kindle and jailbreak it to remove ads and add
koreader.
Because Amazon were increasingly locking-down their systems - and
also because they are all-round shits - I decided to abandon the
ecosystem having been a customer since the days they only sold
books.
I have owned two Paperwhites, two Oasis devices, and a Kindle
Scribe. I sold all of them last year and bought a Kobo Libra
Colour.
I get WAY more joy from reading on the Kobo. I love buying books
from the Kobo store (yes I know they also have DRM) - and I'm
buying and reading WAY more on the Kobo than I was at the end of my
time with Amazon.
Every time I buy yet another book on the Kobo Store I feel the
thrill of sticking it to the horrible, anti-user shits at Amazon.
strawhatdev wrote 11 hours 19 min ago:
I wonder if this is in response to Bookshop.org's DRM free e-book shop.
I buy a lot of e-books and have completely switched over because of
that feature.
habosa wrote 8 hours 50 min ago:
Iâm waiting for Bookshop.org to offer an integration with any
hardware reader for most of their books. When they do, Iâll switch
to whatever that reader is.
BeetleB wrote 4 hours 22 min ago:
Eh? Not sure what you mean.
I picked a random book: [1] It's DRM Free, and available as an
ePub. Other than Kindle, what device does not accept ePub?
HTML [1]: https://bookshop.org/p/books/hemlock-silver-t-kingfisher/0...
jwalton wrote 10 hours 28 min ago:
Bookshop.org has a DRM free section? Where do I find such a thing?
m01 wrote 7 hours 6 min ago:
It's at least available as a search filter. On the book listing it
seems to show "Type: Ebook (DRM-free)". Maybe there's a better way.
gizzlon wrote 10 hours 30 min ago:
Cool, but quite a small subset are DRM-free. OTOH. its seems like all
the audiobooks on libro.fm are DRM-free?
HTML [1]: https://support.libro.fm/support/solutions/articles/48000695...
internet_points wrote 11 hours 19 min ago:
At least better than completely disallowing it I guess.
IlikeKitties wrote 11 hours 20 min ago:
The current experience of using a Kobo Libre Color, Koreader, any
webdav mounted in koreader and pirating everything on annas archive et.
al. cannot be beat by any commercial offering. Unsuprisingly my copy of
1984 has never been deleted from my NAS
WolfeReader wrote 6 hours 35 min ago:
I love breaking DRM, but you should at least buy the books. Authors,
editors, illustrators, and translators all deserve to be paid for
their work.
kstrauser wrote 20 min ago:
That's my take. I break the DRM off books I've bought. I own those
copies. I'll format shift them for my own convenience. Bought on
Kindle but want to read on my Kobo? It's impossible to make me feel
guilt about that.
But I don't read books I haven't legally acquired, whether through
a paid bookstore, or temporarily borrowed via Libby, or Standard
Ebooks or whatever. I won't yell at other people for doing that,
but I don't do it myself. In a nutshell, I follow the same rules as
with physical books I own (or temporarily possess).
stringsandchars wrote 10 hours 10 min ago:
> pirating everything on annas archive et. al. cannot be beat by any
commercial offering
While I understand people pirating movies - there are hundreds of
movies I'd happily pay to watch, but which are literally unavailable
to me because of some arbitrary 'regional' restriction imposed by the
distributors. But I can't think of a single book that isn't available
in most parts of the world - certainly they're available wherever a
Kobo is for sale.
So how are new books going to be published in the future, if people
like you don't pay writers for their work? Would you like your work
to be pirated, so you wouldn't be able to even buy another Kobo?
kmeisthax wrote 4 hours 55 min ago:
Datahoarders with hard drives full of pirated books are not nearly
as much of a threat to writers as, say, AI slop making it difficult
to market new books. If you pirate a book and read it, the author
can still sell you the sequel. Not so much if you don't even know
who the author is.
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote 8 hours 31 min ago:
>Would you like your work to be pirated,
Imagine being so good at writing, that people out there are trying
to get a copy of it that they can upload to The Pirate Bay. Hell
yeh, I'd love that... seems like reaching the big leagues.
IAmBroom wrote 9 hours 8 min ago:
People have been writing for much longer than writing has been a
profession. And their work has been published by the means of the
day, which pre-Gutenberg in the West meant hand-copying.
It's not immoral in any way to make a living off of your own
creations, but - artists gonna art.
spidermonkey23 wrote 9 hours 56 min ago:
I feel like if the platform is unwilling to give you access to
books you posted for, you should be able to download them from arrr
without authors or publishers being affected financially - buy
first pirate later.
Suggger wrote 10 hours 31 min ago:
You are essentially a distributed Fahrenheit 451 node.
Flimm wrote 11 hours 21 min ago:
Can anyone find even one DRM-free ebook on Amazon Kindle?
criddell wrote 6 hours 30 min ago:
All Tor books (the publisher, not the privacy tool) are DRM free.
metaphor wrote 9 hours 37 min ago:
I've noticed a lot in the SFF genre, including my current fiction
read: Joe Abercrombie's latest release The Devils[1].
You'll see something like the following on the bottom of book
details:
> At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without
Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
HTML [1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3CB76TV
ggm wrote 11 hours 28 min ago:
So Gutenberg and the internet archive could monetise click through
links or an affiliate program? No disrespect intended, if this meant we
could fund them with Amazon pitching in some vig I'd think about it.
Mind you, they'd probably make more with direct donation per person,
but Amazon could drive many multiples more via the store.
TheSilva wrote 11 hours 29 min ago:
Too little too late, already ditched the whole ecosystem after so many
years and devices.
paradox460 wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
Same here.
Switched to a Boox, installed koreader, set up sync thing. It's
insane how much better a reading experience this is
misterbishop wrote 6 hours 9 min ago:
The only previous option was not paying for books. This change at
least creates the potential for a path to pay for books, if
publishers accept it.
TheCoelacanth wrote 4 hours 57 min ago:
No, these publishers were already available DRM-free from other
stores.
bambax wrote 11 hours 21 min ago:
Same. I'm done.
freedomben wrote 8 hours 9 min ago:
Yep, never again. I tried to take a pragmatic position with the
DRM, and it is just not possible. I buy the crap out of DRM free
stuff, but if it's not DRM free, it's not for me
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote 11 hours 31 min ago:
How many books are actually available DRM-free? This reads a bit like
"Amazon will provide free land, construct a paddock and provide feed
for life if you order a unicorn, except unicorns don't exist".
plorg wrote 6 hours 28 min ago:
It's not exactly nothing, but it's a pretty small change . Some
publishers sell DRM-free on other platforms, and to be honest I was
under the impression Amazon used to allow this in the past as well.
Of course if they really believed in the concept they would publish
their own works DRM-free, but that would conflict with the business
model of the publishing arm.
kmeisthax wrote 6 hours 59 min ago:
All of Cory Doctorow's books are DRM-free. Actually, he insisted on
it as a contractual rider with his publisher, so he isn't available
on any platform that doesn't have a DRM-free option. I wouldn't be
surprised if Amazon re-allowing downloads for DRM-free is
specifically because Doctorow's publisher is angry at them.
In practice, the biggest store that doesn't have a DRM-free option is
Audible... which has a near-monopoly on audiobooks. So Cory Doctorow
has to do crowdfunding campaigns for all his audiobooks. Of course,
that doesn't stop his books from getting illegally reposted to
Audible anyway, and Amazon doesn't care about enforcing rights they
can't have. Which led to him actually publishing this gem on Audible:
HTML [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Why-None-Books-Available-Audible/dp/B...
m01 wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
Ironically on Kobo you can buy Enshittification with DRM:
"Download options: EPUB 3 (Adobe DRM)": [1] Kobo does sell some
other books DRM-free, so perhaps this is some sort of error. You
can buy it directly from the publisher without Adobe DRM, there it
has a watermark instead.
HTML [1]: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/enshittification-4
chocochunks wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
Depends on the region and publisher. On the Canada site, where
it's published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, it is DRM-free. [1]
So maybe it's screwup on the UK site.
HTML [1]: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/enshittification-2
buu709 wrote 10 hours 19 min ago:
You'd be surprised. Tor and Solaris both offer DRM free books on
Amazon. Also anything self published tends to be DRM free.
I saw the writing on the wall and downloaded my books from Amazon a
few months before their announcement. Out of around 1000 books I had
300ish that were DRM free.
timmg wrote 9 hours 48 min ago:
Dumb question, but: is there a way to find/filter ones that are?
(I can't seem to find anything in the (web) UI that makes it clear
which books are downloadable.)
buu709 wrote 9 hours 21 min ago:
There wasn't when I went through my collection. Reading the
announcement from Amazon it looks like the existing DRM free
books will not be automatically flagged to be downloadable.
The publisher/author will have to go through a process to have
their books be downloadable again.
amluto wrote 10 hours 53 min ago:
All books published by Tor are DRM-free.
Gazoche wrote 9 hours 57 min ago:
...in the US. I tried to buy an ebook of the Stormlight Archive
from Australia and was sad to discover that DRM-free versions were
not available.
terinjokes wrote 6 hours 17 min ago:
And most of Europe, and the rest of the world, where the eBook is
offered directly from Tor.
It looks like distribution in the UK, Australia and New Zealand
(only?) is from the imprint Gollancz, who has decided to go with
DRM versions.
IAmBroom wrote 9 hours 18 min ago:
I think you missed the joke. Tor is an anonymous relay service,
often used for pirating copies.
freedomben wrote 8 hours 11 min ago:
I assume GP was referring to Tor Books, (which name confused me
immensely at first since I've been using the Tor project for
many years) but that would have been an absolutely hilarious
joke and I think you interpreting it as a joke is totally
reasonable given how prominent the onion router project is.
wizzwizz4 wrote 9 hours 12 min ago:
Tor Books is a publisher. They run [1] .
HTML [1]: https://www.tor.com/
jwalton wrote 10 hours 32 min ago:
And Baen. Baen has a storefront of their own online at [1] .
HTML [1]: https://www.baen.com/
PaulRobinson wrote 11 hours 23 min ago:
Books enter the public domain. Project Gutenberg and others produce
DRM-free versions. Many academics and people who wish to share their
knowledge also publish works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive
(copyleft), licenses.
The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as âa unicornâ that
âdoesnât existâ, is mildly sad. You should explore all of the
above a lot more, and much more besides.
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote 10 hours 54 min ago:
I assumed that that was clear from the context, but let me rephrase
it then:
"being made available DRM-free on Amazon" (and I'd narrow that down
to "primarily/only on Amazon")
Of course public domain books are DRM free but I'm getting those
from Gutenberg, not Amazon. Likewise, the copyleft books I'll most
likely download from their own homepages, not Amazon.
I'm aware that DRM free media exists, including for currently
copyrighted content that Amazon distributes ;)
input_sh wrote 10 hours 55 min ago:
> Books enter the public domain.
...and then they get re-packaged with DRM on Amazon's store, mostly
because people uploading public domain books on Amazon have no idea
what they're doing.
> Project Gutenberg and others produce DRM-free versions. Many
academics and people who wish to share their knowledge also publish
works DRM-free, sometimes under permissive (copyleft), licenses.
You can read DRM-free stuff on a Kindle already, so that's not
particularly relevant here.
> The fact you see DRM as the norm and non-DRM as âa unicornâ
that âdoesnât existâ, is mildly sad.
When every big publisher is doing it, it is the norm. That doesn't
mean there doesn't exist any book publisher which doesn't do this,
but the vast, vast majority of the books actually sold today
contain DRM. We don't have to like that norm, but pretending it
isn't one is just denying reality.
g947o wrote 9 hours 57 min ago:
This.
While lots public domain books are on Amazon's store, most of
those books are not free, both in the sense of "free or charge"
and "DRM free". A lot of literature classic are released by a
major publishing house with foreword and annotations, which to be
fair, are copyrighted works and provide value. And they cost a
bit of money. The "real" public domain versions provide by Amazon
are barebone. Those versions are often good enough for many
people, but you don't need to get them from Amazon in the first
place.
In other words, public domain or not does not have much to do
with DRM-free or even Amazon.
sallveburrpi wrote 11 hours 4 min ago:
Mildly sad is also that you seem to fault GP for not
âexploringâ more, instead of the insane practice of DRMing
everything in the first place.
I never have purchased DRM protected media and never will - Iâd
rather pirate everything digital and but physical hard copies.
PaulRobinson wrote 10 hours 57 min ago:
I donât actually think itâs their fault, and if they feel
Iâm faulting them, that wasnât the intention.
I think itâs sad that what we thought everyone saw as a
nonsense is now so normalised that alternatives are just
disappearing from view. Everyone should be encouraged to explore.
Piracy is your preferred option, but when that became more
mainstream we actually ended up creating the market for more DRM,
in the form of iTunes, Spotify and others. Iâm not sure I want
the future of digital media to be entirely subscription-based
like that.
What might be a better solution is showing that media creators
can achieve more of their own objectives through releasing media
without DRM. This only works if their objectives are not entirely
around making money from media sales, and more aligned to
influence, or audience building.
Iâm actually surprised at this point that musicians - given
they donât make money from streaming services and see them as
tools to build audiences for live tours where they really make
their money - donât just jump over already.
sallveburrpi wrote 10 hours 51 min ago:
I was just talking about books, but sure for music there are
tons of alternative options as well.
I detest streaming platforms and itâs pretty easy to buy
music directly from the creators in almost all cases - except
maybe the top âsuperstarsâ but I would argue that they are
probably doing fine anywayâ¦
Also physical records still exist for music as well.
Lots of artists can do just fine with living from media sales.
Look Iâm not saying âpirate everything and never pay the
artistsâ - Iâm saying ânever pay the predatory tech
companies that have inserted themselves between us and
artistsâ
cwillu wrote 11 hours 37 min ago:
But only if the author/publisher explicitly go in and permit it.
This isn't announcing that pdf's and epub's are now available for
everything that was drm-free, this is announcing that they will
_permit_ pdf's and epub's to be available.
m463 wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
> But only if the author/publisher explicitly go in and permit it.
actually, many kindle books I have from years ago mention they have
no drm at the request of the publisher.
...yet were distributed in DRM .azw format
BloondAndDoom wrote 5 hours 43 min ago:
Yes it reads that way, and I guess that also means all previous
purchases will be behind DRM.
1. Sell digital things, that costs as same as physical copy
2. Make it so that customer doesn't even own them
3. Profit (No question marks in between)
What a mess. I've mostly stopped Kindle/ebooks but I still have
audible which seems like suffering from the same problem.
codazoda wrote 9 hours 47 min ago:
I'm a self-published author. This is the default setting for new
books uploaded without DRM. It's gated behind an "I understand"
checkbox. I plan to allow my books to be downloaded as PDF and ePUB.
It makes sense not to do this retroactively.
crtasm wrote 8 hours 24 min ago:
Can you create the epub and pdf files yourself and have them
distributed unaltered?
codazoda wrote 4 hours 1 min ago:
Technically, yes, but Amazon customers probably wouldn't benefit
from that. I don't currently distribute or sell books directly
because that creates a tax burden. So it's probably best to let
the various stores handle it. I still want to sell books but I
don't want my readers to be restricted by DRM for a book they
paid for. The honor system is fine for me.
Edit: I now realize you might mean in the Amazon KDP UI. I don't
see a way to upload your own.
_heimdall wrote 10 hours 29 min ago:
That seems reasonable enough to me though. It should be the
publisher's choice what formats of the book they are willing to sell.
makeitdouble wrote 8 hours 34 min ago:
Having the action prominent and potentially with the default
reversed would still leave it to the publisher's choice.
We can understand why they do it this way (they only need the
option to exist, and can afford to apply dark patterns to it), but
we don't need to excuse Amazon. Especially when they don't give a
shit about what we think in the first place.
_heimdall wrote 2 hours 51 min ago:
Oh I wouldn't expect Amazon to care what I think, especially with
regards to digital books as at least I am not a customer.
I'm also not going to write off everything they do as evil only
because of who they are though. Defaulting to disabled vs enabled
would be reasonable too, though I don't know enough publishers or
independent authors to know which option would be more often
selected to pick a default.
nottorp wrote 11 hours 38 min ago:
For all three DRM-free titles?
literalAardvark wrote 11 hours 23 min ago:
Not even, it's opt-in.
DIR <- back to front page