DRM and amazon's policy on ebooks

[Empress, Seeker of wonders]

You don’t buy ebooks, you rent them.





Norwegian technology blogger Martin Bekkelund describes how his friend Linn Jordet Nygaard found that her Amazon account had been shut down and access to all of her Kindle books (about 60 of them) had been blocked.

"This shows the very worst of DRM. If the retailer, in this case Amazon, thinks you're a crook, they will throw you out and take away everything that you bought. And if you disagree, you're totally outlawed. With DRM, you don't buy and own books, you merely rent them for as long as the retailer finds it convenient."

According to Amazon's Kindle Store terms of use, "Kindle content is licensed, not sold".

Source


From Amazon's terms of use:

You may not move the textbook out of the state to which it was originally shipped. If you wish to move the textbook out of that state, you must first purchase the textbook. You can purchase the textbook by going to Your Textbook Rentals to view your rental library. Select the textbook you wish to purchase and then proceed through the checkout process. You may also contact us to purchase the textbook. When you purchase the textbook, we will charge you the buyout price of the textbook, and the textbook will be yours to keep.

If we determine that at any time during the rental period you have moved a textbook rented from Warehouse Deals, Inc. out of the state to which it was originally shipped, we may in our sole discretion charge you the buyout price of the textbook and transfer title to the textbook to you, retroactive to the date you moved the textbook out of that state. In such case, the textbook will be yours to keep.

[Jackie - Fire & Ice Book Reviews]

What is DRM?

[Empress, Seeker of wonders]

DRM = Digital Rights Management


Electronic books read on a personal computer or an e-book reader typically use DRM technology to limit copying, printing, and sharing of e-books. E-books are usually limited to a certain number of reading devices and some e-publishers prevent any copying or printing.


In one instance of DRM that caused a rift with consumers, Amazon.com remotely deleted purchased copies of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm from customers' Amazon Kindles after providing them a refund for the purchased products. Commentators have widely described these actions as Orwellian, and have alluded to Big Brother from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. After Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos issued a public apology, the Free Software Foundation wrote that this was just one more example of the excessive power Amazon has to remotely censor what people read through its software, and called upon Amazon to free its e-book reader and drop DRM.

Source: Wiki



5 reasons why DRM is bad:

1: Leave the country, lose your ebooks
2: Anger Amazon, lose your ebooks
3: Own too many devices, lose your ebooks
4: Switch to a different book store, lose your ebooks
5: Bookstore shuts down, lose your ebooks

[Empress, Seeker of wonders]

Baen Books statement on DRM

Digital Rights Management (DRM) and our reasons for not implementing it

Digital rights management restricts the number of formats in which you can enjoy electronic media you have purchased. At Baen, we believe that when you purchase an Ebook, you should be able to access that book however you choose. For that reason, we sell only DRM-free Ebooks -- when you purchase one you have access to any and all formats we offer.

What does that mean for you? If you get a new eReader that uses a different format than the one you had when you built your Baen Ebook library, you can download your Ebooks again in the new format for no additional charge. If you have several eReaders, you can download your books to them all; this lets you read your favorite Baen Ebooks when you're at home with your favorite reader, on the go with your mobile device, or anywhere with any other device.

Once you've purchased the Ebook, you've paid for your right to enjoy it. We try to make it as easy to do that as we can. As long as you purchased it through our website and it shows up in your My Books list you can download to your heart's content.


Enjoy.

Smashwords is another publisher that offers DRM-free books:

What does Smashwords offer readers?
Smashwords is a virtual playground for those who love the written word. Readers can sample most works for free (and in many cases, read up to half of the book before they commit to a purchase decision); read in multiple DRM-free formats; create digital libraries of purchased and sampled works; publish reviews (including YouTube video book reviews); and “favorite” their favorite authors, publishers and works.