General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWarning: this book is for your personal use only. You may NOT share it in any way.
So says the Amazon e-book warning.
Which got me to thinking..
1. how soon before the music and television industry figures out a way to outlaw more than one person at a time listening to music or watching tv???
2. and why is there an E-book warning to not share a book
but no warning on a hardbound book?
3. Just how far can corporations go to limit what you do with something you have purchased?
What do you think?
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Octafish
(55,745 posts)The Warmongers at War Inc especially hate it.
Regarding Amazon, FWIU, they can sell you a book and then take it back.
Amazon Removes Books From Kindle
When war trumps peace, consumer trumps citizen. So, what's not to love, besides money? Power? Freedom?
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Could not be more ironic if they tried.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)They can take the electrons off my 'puter, and try to pry 1984's pages from my cold dead fingers, but, they will never take the memories out of my brain or the feelings from my heart. I will never love Big Brother.
Absolutely, dixiegrrrrl. Goldic.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)"You may not disribute this book in any way" is another sentence.
Found it on Amazon site when I was "previewing" a kindle version of a book.
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)I worry about the same thing. In the end, this model of artificial scarcity (DRM) to protect current revenue streams couldn't possibly be sustainable, even with draconian enforcement.
Richard Stallman (yes, I know he can be a bit over the top) wrote this in 1997. You can't deny the man had some foresight.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Sounds very doable these days. The tools exist.
wonder if that part of the agenda of de-funding libraries?
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)history usually goes even more over the top, a while later...
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)via torrents.
Hayabusa
(2,135 posts)this was written in 1997? That is amazingly prescient and gels with several fears about copyright in modern times.
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)is telling you that you aren't allowed to copy the book. At least that's the way I've always read it.
I really think it really should look more like "You are not allowed to copy it in any way", it might make more sense". Sharing has become a common and misused (IMO) synonym for copying in the virtual environment.
There is a warning on hardbound books and it's basically the same rule. The situation would involve photocopying books and supplying the pages to everyone you know. Copyright law is pretty clear on that.
If you want to loan your e-book reader to a buddy so they can read the book you bought you're more than welcome to do so but you can't make a copy of the book and loan it out.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)
DavidDvorkin
(19,477 posts)antiquie
(4,299 posts)I was disappointed Kindle books can only be loaned for two weeks and each only one time. The difference, I'm told, between ebooks and hardcopies is that the hardcopies wear out and need to be replaced. That is also the reason I was given why I have to use the wait list at the library for ebooks -- only one "copy" at a time.
I check out the Amazon daily deal and these onehundredfreebooks.com .
BumRushDaShow
(128,969 posts)it does let you download it to other devices registered under your account (up to 5 IIRC).
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)or after you read a line outloud on accident.
or quote it in your journal.
or tell someone the title of the ebook you are reading because, well, that's part of the ebook too, you know, so you can't even say it's name.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Normally they do it by using advertisement to create demand, but when that doesn't work they use state power to protect their profits.
I'm surprised they don't go after used bookstores and thrift stores for selling used books.
bigmonkey
(1,798 posts)Peoples who's lives or work focus on greed keep getting the same ideas.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)
Alduin
(501 posts)So I always ignore those "warnings."
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)and click on the " Click to look inside"
when the book view screen appears you will see TWO warnings, with the language I posted up above.
http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Beside-Me-Junie-Moon/dp/1937520560/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345737981&sr=1-1&keywords=a+sociopath+beside+me
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)The right to read is a battle being fought today. Although it may take 50 years for our present way of life to fade into obscurity, most of the specific laws and practices described above have already been proposed; many have been enacted into law in the US and elsewhere. In the US, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) established the legal basis to restrict the reading and lending of computerized books (and other works as well). The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copyright directive....
In 2001, Disney-funded Senator Hollings proposed a bill called the SSSCA that would require every new computer to have mandatory copy-restriction facilities that the user cannot bypass. Following the Clipper chip and similar US government key-escrow proposals, this shows a long-term trend: computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentees with clout control over the people actually using the computer system....
The Republicans took control of the US senate shortly thereafter. They are less tied to Hollywood than the Democrats, so they did not press these proposals. Now that the Democrats are back in control, the danger is once again higher.
In 2001 the US began attempting to use the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) treaty to impose the same rules on all the countries in the Western Hemisphere....
One of the ideas in the story was not proposed in reality until 2002. This is the idea that the FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for your personal computers, and not let you have them.
The proponents of this scheme have given it names such as “trusted computing” and “Palladium”. We call it “treacherous computing” because the effect is to make your computer obey companies even to the extent of disobeying and defying you. This was implemented in 2007 as part of Windows Vista; we expect Apple to do something similar. In this scheme, it is the manufacturer that keeps the secret code, but the FBI would have little trouble getting it... This enables Microsoft, and potentially any web sites that cooperate with Microsoft, the ultimate control over what the user can do on his own computer.
Vista also gives Microsoft additional powers; for instance, Microsoft can forcibly install upgrades, and it can order all machines running Vista to refuse to run a certain device driver. The main purpose of Vista's many restrictions is to impose DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) that users can't overcome...
When this story was first written, the SPA was threatening small Internet service providers, demanding they permit the SPA to monitor all users. Most ISPs surrendered when threatened, because they cannot afford to fight back in court. One ISP, Community ConneXion in Oakland, California, refused the demand and was actually sued...
The SPA, which actually stands for Software Publishers Association, has been replaced in its police-like role by the Business Software Alliance. The BSA is not, today, an official police force; unofficially, it acts like one. Using methods reminiscent of the erstwhile Soviet Union, it invites people to inform on their coworkers and friends. A BSA terror campaign in Argentina in 2001 made slightly veiled threats that people sharing software would be raped....
The battle for the right to read is already in progress, The enemy is organized, while we are not, so it is going against us. Here are articles about bad things that have happened since the original publication of this article.
- Today's commercial ebooks abolish readers' traditional freedoms.
- A "biology textbook" web site that you can access only by signing a contract not to lend it to anyone else, which the publisher can revoke at will.
- Electronic Publishing: An article about distribution of books in electronic form, and copyright issues affecting the right to read a copy.
- Books inside Computers: Software to control who can read books and documents on a PC.
If we want to stop the bad news and create some good news, we need to organize and fight. The FSF's Defective by Design campaign has made a start — subscribe to the campaign's mailing list to lend a hand. And join the FSF to help fund our work.
The administration's “White Paper”: Information Infrastructure Task Force, Intellectual Property [sic] and the National Information Infrastructure: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property [sic] Rights (1995).
An explanation of the White Paper: The Copyright Grab, Pamela Samuelson, Wired, Jan. 1996
Sold Out, James Boyle, New York Times, 31 March 1996
Public Data or Private Data, Washington Post, 4 Nov 1996.
Union for the Public Domain—an organization which aims to resist and reverse the overextension of copyright and patent powers.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)
jsr
(7,712 posts)June 29, 2012, 1:39 p.m. ET
Your E-Book Is Reading You
Digital-book publishers and retailers now know more about their readers than ever before. How that's changing the experience of reading.
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
... The major new players in e-book publishing—Amazon, Apple and Google—can easily track how far readers are getting in books, how long they spend reading them and which search terms they use to find books. Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers open the app and how much time they spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books.
Barnes & Noble, which accounts for 25% to 30% of the e-book market through its Nook e-reader, has recently started studying customers' digital reading behavior. Data collected from Nooks reveals, for example, how far readers get in particular books, how quickly they read and how readers of particular genres engage with books. Jim Hilt, the company's vice president of e-books, says the company is starting to share their insights with publishers to help them create books that better hold people's attention...
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Books will become the new Nielson ratings and reading choices will end up as vapid as television is now.
In fact, carried to the logical extreme, I can see that in the near future, possessing any reading material that is not under the control of the booksellers would be a crime.
Hell of an article...
and how exactly is my Nook transimitting all this info back to B&N???????????????
jsr
(7,712 posts)What can you do?
Every device I have encountered required you to connect to a vendor’s server in order to register it and allow its use. Once this happens, they automatically start keeping track of things such as which videos are rented, which magazines you are subscribed to, what websites are visited, and what your searches are about. Once you start reading, they track the last page you read, what text you highlighted, how many bookmarks you made and what they are, and how much time you spent reading a book.
If you don’t want anyone to know this information, there are several things you can do. Use your reader offline. Turn off the wifi. Purchase your books on another computer and transfer them to your reader. You could even stop buying books from these vendors.
Nearly all ebooks sold are encumbered with some type of DRM, which enables the tracking of reader behavior. If you don’t wish to have your reading habits tracked, you need to rip out the DRM. Not only does this future-proof your book from disappearing, it allows you to read your book how and when you want without the fear of anyone looking over your shoulder. Calibre is probably the best program to do this. Not only will it strip the DRM, it can convert to other formats and maintain a list of the books you own.
It is one thing for a company to know what books you buy. It is another thing entirely to delve into how you read them. This is part of the reason why librarians refused to give up checkout histories to the government. With electronic devices becoming more prevalent, we are also seeing the advent of devices that we don’t have any control over. Now is the time to tell every single company from ebook vendors to Facebook that enough is enough. We don’t want to be tracked, we don’t want to be in anyone’s database, and we don’t want advertising shoved at us. If we don’t start acting now, our options to opt out of such tracking will be gone.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I haz the Calibre. ( now, how do I tell it to strip??)
VERY informative article and I thank you bunches..pls. feel free to PM me with any other related articles if you want to. I am HUGE on privacy.
retread
(3,762 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Everything I read only talked about Mac and Windows..
however, I also have the Nook on OFF wi-fi mode and never download anything from B&N for it, so I am good.
retread
(3,762 posts)
Hydra
(14,459 posts)They're starting to make games that require you to be online and connected to the publisher's server whenever you play it.
As one person pointed out, "Didn't I buy an unlimited use license for my personal use?"
The answer that came back was, "Not really, that's sort of an outdated concept."
Basically, we're moving towards intellectual property ALWAYS and in every form being the property of the publisher, and you get a kind of controlled limited use out of it. At some point, I'm sure they'll put a timer on it so that you are only "renting" it for a year or less, for the same price.
Intellectual property as a concept pisses me off to no end. You cannot "Own" a thought or discovery. Once it's out there, it belongs to anyone who can understand it(I know, they're working on that too). I think there are better ways to support artists, writers and scientists than patents and copywrites.
Maybe someday we'll get there.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)before Microsoft really took off.
It was in a business publication and talked about how the new business model was going to be (I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the details) that you never really "owned" anything, you just leased use rights.
That bit stuck in my head all these years because it seemed so unimaginable at the time that it could work as a widespread model.
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)Maybe return our "borrowed" food to companies like Monsanto, etc...
cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)Most software then was sold to large institutions (corporations, banks, governments, etc.) and was built to spec with service agreements and formal, signed contracts. Clauses like the "leasing-not-owning" ones were built into the contracts because the software vendors wanted to create a long-term business client, instead of a one-time sale. (Plenty of software is still created & sold on this model). But when PCs came around and companies started selling off-the-shelf retail software in the 70s-80s, they left in these restrictive licenses, even though they were of dubious legality in a retail context, and there was no practical way to enforce them anyway.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)model, a 'new economy'.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)and not signing with publishers. They have found that asking for fair contributions actually gives them more money than any contract with a publisher.
Max Keiser had a discussion of this on one of his shows.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)I'm a big supporter of freeware and learning how to program it myself. I'd be nice if I got something for it, but I'd rather put something innovative out there that someone can use and enjoy for free and keep my day job(or what's left of it) rather than it be my living.
I'm glad to hear that out of the system efforts are working.
randome
(34,845 posts)Technology allows anyone to send millions of digital copies of something all over the world. Frankly, I'm surprised the music business is still breathing. And now that books are going digital, too, they will forever find themselves up against the same barriers. How do you make money if the moment you release something, millions of people have it for themselves without putting out a dime?
You can say all you want about offering free stuff and depending on the charity of fans but I truly doubt that brings in enough money in most situations.
I have sympathy for the publishers but I also download tons of stuff for myself. And no matter how much we talk about ethics, reality is that millions of people get digital stuff for free any time they want. That's not going to change, IMO.
hunter
(38,311 posts)... and I don't buy, read, or share copy-protected electronic books.
I don't have any money for that sort of thing anyway.
When I do have money I buy paper books or e-books that have no "digital rights management." I don't like DRM because it causes problems when I backup or upgrade my e-readers and computers.
I often share or give away paper books, but not e-books the publishers don't want me sharing.
There are plenty of sources for books that can be shared, many, many lifetimes of reading material...
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Free_eBooks
The basic question is, how does a society support authors?
In my high technology utopia everyone earns a comfortable living working maybe twenty hours a week, with two month vacations, health care, and all that, doing those things machines can't do. In this society anyone who wants to write, edit, publish, and promote e-books has plenty of spare time to do it. A paper "fine art" book publishing industry might arise from this.
We're still backwards from this model, and "making a living" is difficult because the distribution of wealth is not fair. People who might otherwise become great artists are consumed keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads.
I think the very wealthy people with all the power want to keep it that way. Creativity unleashed threatens their business models.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)So that they can eliminate loaning or borrowing or reselling. The other major reason is to cull the stacks of books and music of pieces that they find offensive, subversive, or simply not profitable.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)as in V for Vendetta...
of course, there will be exception for the "have yachts" to own libraries of rare books.
Rare being anything prior to the year 20.whatever.
And reading will be for "special" groups of people.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)
MineralMan
(146,307 posts)At every one of those classes, someone always asked how they could protect their writing from being stolen.
As a successful writer, who has made a living with my words since 1974, my answer was always the same: "It is not a matter of people stealing your writing. The real difficulty is in getting someone to pay for your writing. It's hard enough to get people to want to read what you have to say, that stealing someone's writing is almost vanishingly rare.
I'll put putting an e-book on the market sometime next year. I will be overjoyed if anyone pays for it. The ones who get it without paying for it are of no concern to me. If it's good enough, people will buy it in whatever quantity they buy it, and I'll make a little money. That'll be a good thing.
If you write, the problem is in finding readers of any kind. Getting paid is icing on the cake, and that comes from someone who has been well paid for his writing for a long time. Find readers. Don't worry about people stealing your "timeless prose."
I figure anyone reading my book for free probably will help me out. Sharing and passing on your book to others generally is considered free advertising. Or at least it use to be or radio would have died along time ago.
On the other hand you aren't suppose to just allow your copyrighted material to pass around freely. Hence goofy disclaimers. It's like the fence at my work. You have to show the bare minimum that you are doing the obvious.
