Amazon Uses DMCA To Restrict Ebook Purchases 409
InlawBiker writes "Today, Amazon invoked the DMCA to force removal of a python script and instructions from the mobileread web site. The script is used to identify the Kindle's internal ID number, which can be used to enable non-Amazon purchased books to work on the Kindle. '...this week we received a DMCA take-down notice from Amazon requesting the removal of the tool kindlepid.py and instructions for it. Although we never hosted this tool (contrary to their claim), nor believe that this tool is used to remove technological measures (contrary to their claim), we decided, due to the vagueness of the DMCA law and our intention to remain in good relation with Amazon, to voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it.' Ironically, the purpose of the script is to make the Kindle more useful to its users."
Progress (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Blank Reg: This is a network linker. It's a bit out of your league, idn'it, Paula? ... What's that?
Paula: So, whatch'll you trade for it?
Blank Reg: It's a book!
Paula: Well, what's that?
Blank Reg: It's a non-volatile storage medium. It's very rare. You should 'ave one.
Paula: Stuff it!
Re:Progress (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone [wikipedia.org]
Okay, it isn't a book, and it sure isn't intact, but I'd be willing to bet no ebook file bought today will be readable at all in over 2000 years (not sure how you'd collect on that bet). The more portable and convenient we make information, the easier it is to lose it. It seems the way we combat this is to make many copies and put them all around, but that defeats at least part of the purpose of make it take up so little room.
But I suppose when a large amount of the
Way to let a company (Score:2, Flamebait)
trample you.
Stupid sheep.
Re:Way to let a company (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Way to let a company (Score:4, Insightful)
Or printers/ink or razors/blades. The big difference with e-books is that you have to create a shortage of product while it's a natural side-effect for ink or razors. You can't just download new razors.
I seriously disagree it is supply & demand (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the difference between
the protection of the law which both razors and kindles have,
and protection "realistic barrier to entry into the marketplace"
The thing keeping the razor blade model propped up is the design of the connector between handle & blade
A Gilette Mach XXX* has a very specific design and legally protected-physical connection
to enter the market/compete against this product requires large capital infusion, on a business level that can easily be knocked down in the court systems
if anyone could legitimately connect to that- then there would damnfinesure be some competition with generic knockoffs
Region Free DVD roms' Ebooks, wii's, xbox's jailbroken iphones-- the resources required to do these things are small by comparison
the fact is, the electrical goods as discussed here (e book files) and elsewhere can be modified on a per piece basis for far less.
Demand is not a factor-- ease of modification is.
Re:Way to let a company (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you run and hide from a pack of wolves doesn't mean you are a sheep. While you might wish them to martyr themselves for your principles, if they don't have the resources to fight, or if a win would not accomplish anything for anybody else, why shouldn't they act in their own best interests?
Re:Way to let a company (Score:4, Insightful)
Becasue even fighting it loudly could casuse Amazon to back down. Best case, Amazon loks like a bully, and people hate that.
IT also loudly shows the problems with the DMCA.
And if you make your fight in the arean of public opinion, you have strong allies. Based on cost, you qwould probably end up needing to do that.
Personally, I would post the letter on a blog. Pay a few hundred dollars to get a lawyer to draft a response.
The rest acan eb a public fight, for little cost.
So, while running and hiding from something you can't defeat is on thing, running and hiding when you ahve other cation to take is being a sheep.
You let the fear of the person with the stick cause you to run like everyone else.
This behavior should be avoided whenever possible because you can have all the rights in the world, but if you refuse to defend them, then really you have no rights at all.
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony's got to be kicking themselves, wondering where they went wrong. When they released a portable digital Walkman without native support for .MP3s, people just laughed at them.
Yet when Amazon releases a portable reader without native support for .PDFs, people trample their own mothers to get in line to buy one.
Can you imagine the derision people would have for Apple if you had to email your .MP3s to convert@apple.com to put them on your iPod or iPhone?
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Where did you hear that there is no native support for PDF's?
You can easily load PDF's to the Kindle. Not only can you mount the Kindle as a drive and copy the file that way, but when you buy a kindle, you get a something@kindle.com email address which you can email txt, htm, and pdf files to (as long as it's from a From address which you have whitelisted) - they will load it automatically to your kindle over its built-in 3G connection.
I loaded several Cory Doctorow books to mine this way.
This python script creates a hash to make the Kindle think that .mobi files (Secure Mobipocket books, a competitor of Amazon's for this market) are native Amazon books. After you get a hash from kindlepid.py, you run kindlefix.py on your .mobi file with your hash, and it produces a .azw file which the Kindle then thinks is one of its own book formats.
GP is almost certainly right, I find it unlikely that Amazon makes a profit on the Kindle device itself, they are relying on $10 books to cover the cost of the hardware and the contract with Sprint whereby they give you free 3G access. If you're buying your books elsewhere, Amazon's going to take a loss on the whole shebang, and that's most likely what they're trying to prevent (while counting on the fact that you can't get non-drm'd copies of most books such as in .txt, .pdf, or .htm format).
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
When I read a PDF I need quality image support for interpreting graphs and other types of visual data. The Kindle doesn't come close. Yes, Amazon offers a PDF "conversion" service. In the process, formatting and image support is either lost or horribly mangled.
Never mind the total lack of touch support for eink annotations makes the thing worthless for serious use. Fine if you want to spend $350 for a device to read novels on the train. But if you want to read technical papers and annotate in math, the Kindle doesn't come close to being a useful device.
The only thing out there that does meet that need is:
The IREX Digital Reader 1000:
https://www.irexshop.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_35&products_id=69 [irexshop.com]
That is the first device to come on the market which exceeds the eReader feature set available on the Apple's old Newton MP2x00 from 1998.
Pathetic.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing out there that does meet that need is The IREX Digital Reader 1000:
This is true, but more so because of its larger screen. Reading PDFs on a 600x800 screen of Kindle is not a good idea regardless of software features.
Also, iRex costs twice as much as Kindle and other readers with similar screen (Sony, Hanlin).
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
It also supports eink annotation and native PDF rendering.
PDF rendering is supported by virtually all devices on the market, including the more recent Hanlin Jinke models and Sony PRS-505. Annotations are supported in PRS-700 (which has a touchscreen just for that purpose). Really, the only thing that's unique about iRex offerings is the 768x1024 screen - but that is a big deal (and also why it costs so much - from what I heard, those screens are made exclusively for iRex, and not mass-produced as those for Hanlin/Sony/Kindle are).
Even so, when comparing products, it's always worth to mention all the differences, including price.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're buying your books elsewhere, Amazon's going to take a loss on the whole shebang, and that's most likely what they're trying to prevent (while counting on the fact that you can't get non-drm'd copies of most books such as in .txt, .pdf, or .htm format).
I still don't see why you or ANYONE can claim this is an OK thing
Amazon has no right to spew libel AND slander towards anyone by claiming they broke laws that clearly they didn't.
Seriously, a DMCA take down? the DMCA protects EXACTLY THIS!
What will it take for you people to see this as bad??
Amazon issuing "We claim you are a murderer and demand you take down a webpage or we turn you in!"
This guy clearly did not commit murder anymore than he violated the DMCA.. When does this excusing amazon for lies stop
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
'course, who would want to direct render a PDF on a device like the Kindle in the first place?
Someone with a metric assload of scanned documents, with formatting that needs to be preserved. That would be me.
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone with a metric assload of scanned documents, with formatting that needs to be preserved. That would be me.
Then Kindle isn't for you.
For actual, serious e-book reading, PDF is an inferior format. Period. What you're doing sounds like it involves reading scanned technical manuals or other documentation. For that purpose, you probably want something with higher resolution, and even better, colour. Either way, Kindle isn't the best choice. I'd suggest something along the lines of a tablet PC.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Try PDFTOHTML [sourceforge.net].
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, here's a catch.
Some PDF creators link the character for each font to the internal representation in order of character appearance, not in Unicode order. This means that things like pdftohtml, screen reading or even plain copy/paste no longer work, as they yield gibberish instead.
For example, the string:
"This is a PDF test."
Would get stored as something like:
0,1,2,3,4,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,4,9,10,3,9,11
And pdftohtml yields something like:
!"#$"#$%&'($)*#)+
Oh, and each typeface gets a distinct ordering, so the same string in different typefaces would probably get encoded differently...
In order to decode this you have to both read the actual graphical characters AND know which typeface is used in each segment of text. Which is a PITA. Otherwise, you're lost.
OCR may or may not be of any help, depending on the typeface used...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't say i've encountered this myself though it doesn't surprise me.
iirc there are libraries for working with pdf ( the name itext springs to mind) so it should be possible to make an app that displays each typeface table and lets you specify how it should map to unicode then uses that info to convert the pdf to text.
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Neato! And xpdf is already installed on this machine, but i only used the viewer :-)
You learn something new every day when you are a thick git!
First Sale My Ass (Score:5, Insightful)
How dare anyone attempt to enable users to do as they please with Amazon's personal property! Kindles and all their associated contents are the intellectual property of Amazon in perpetuity and just because you paid money for one and are in personal possession of it, that does not entitle you to do with it as you please.
I mean, where would we be if people could do as they liked with the things they buy?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like you feel you have the right to do whatever you want to stuff you buy, businesses feel that they have the right to protect their business model. They expect to make money not just on the initial sale of the item, but on the ongoing support of the item (through games or ebook sales).
I understa
Re:First Sale My Ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
100% wrong.
Amazon is doing the exact same thing Apple did until just recently with the iTunes store and the iPod:
What this script does is address the third issue - it allows yo
Re:First Sale My Ass (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your analogy is HORRIBLY flawed. First of all there were a multitude of reasons why the original Xbox was retired early, and the hacking potential was WAY down the list.
#1 reason why XBOX was retired semi-early is to beat Sony to the market in next-gen.
#2 the 360 was ALOT easier to hack then the original xbox, jsut flash the DVD drive firmware using a standard sata equipped PC.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>Remember the XBOX? It was hacked wide open and no longer was profitable (Technically it was never profitable) so they abandoned it and went with the xbox360, which has been much more resistant to hacking.
Bzzzz.
Every five-to-six years, the old console is phased-out and a new console introduced. That's the natural cycle that has evolved in videogaming and had nothing to do with hacking. Take the Gamecube as example: It was locked-down and essentially pirate-proof but Nintendo still got rid of it
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First Sale My Ass (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd gladly pay retail price for my phone if it meant no contract. I'm highly allergic to service contracts in general, I will pay more up front to avoid them subsidizing me with tie-ins. When there's a service contract, they have no motivation to provide good service past the contract signing.
Before I got an iPhone, I was on Verizon Wireless for quite a few years. Once my initial contract expired, I started getting frequent calls from VZW which went something like:
"The plan you're on right now is no longer offered, but we can grandfather you in if you'll agree to a renewed contract."
"What happens if I don't agree to the new contract?" said I.
"You'll continue with the same features, at the same rate as you're paying now, but it won't be part of a plan," was the response.
"What's the advantage of being on a plan if I get the same features for the same price without being on a plan?" I countered.
"Without a plan, you... I'm not... well you would be planless! You would not be on a plan!"
"So what reason would I have to renew my contract, if I could avoid renewing my contract and get exactly the same thing?"
"I really suppose there's no reason you would want to do that," was the actual response one person gave me. I hope she didn't get in trouble, but I sincerely appreciated her candor.
These calls happened weekly, and each time they got more aggressive. One person suggested that I would lose my service if I didn't agree to a new contract. When I asked her in direct terms, "Is it true that if I do not re-up my contract, I will continue with the same features as I have now, at the same price, and that there is no reason to suspect this would change any time in the foreseeable future?" she responded, "No sir, your service will be cut off." I said, "Then please disconnect my service as of tomorrow, I will go out this afternoon and find a new carrier." It turns out this was a third party company who was only authorized to renew my contract, not cancel my service.
Previously when I had asked them to stop calling me about this, they had assured me they would.
After this most recent interaction where I was threatened with disconnection if I didn't re-up, I called Verizon Wireless customer service directly. I asked to cancel my service, and I was transferred to the cancellation department. I told them that if I received even one more call about renewing my contract, I would cancel my service immediately. They said something about "30 business days to process that request," (keep in mind, I had been getting the calls weekly). I repeated, "I don't care how long you're told to tell me that it takes to get me off that list, if I get such a call in even five minutes, I'm calling you back immediately to cancel. If you guys can get me off the list before the next time your contracted company gets to my number, then you will keep me as a customer; if you can't, then you lose me."
I never got another such call, and had service with them for probably three more years.
Now bear in mind whatever subsidization of initial costs they required had already been covered. I had made no indication that I wanted to stop my service with them, and fully expected to continue my service indefinitely, but here they were trying to pressure me into a commitment with absolutely no benefit to myself. If I had kept them happily for ten years, and they had called me again for this purpose after all that time, I would have fulfilled my promise and canceled my account immediately.
So, sorry for the long anecdote, but I'm one of those people who detests service contracts; I'll definitely cover any subsidization costs myself in order to avoid them.
Re:First Sale My Ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for the anecdote. It illuminates why laissez-faire capitalism fails again and again: market capitalism works flawlessly in theory. This theory, however, rests on the assumption that all market participants are rational actors, and that these participants have access to all the information they need. This assumption does not hold in real life.
In real life, even relatively intelligent people only have 24 hours a day in which to make decisions, and nobody has the time to obtain all the information he needs to make rational decisions about everything. Most people will not have the skepticism or the presence of mind to question the service representative the way you did. Slick marketing exploits this weakness by pushing incorrect information that average people, pressed for time, will take as fact. Neither will most people use the courts to have contracts like this canceled, even if they become aware they were cheated: a lack of time again neuters the tools that capitalism in theory gives us to counter these abuses.
This is why we need explicit market regulation: to compensate for human inefficiency and weakness in the market. Cell phone contracts should be made illegal outright, the way they are in parts of Europe.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>even relatively intelligent people only have 24 hours a day in which to make decisions.... This is why we need explicit market regulation
"People are ignorant" is a poor excuse to turn-over the markets to politicians. Politicians are no better at making decisions that the average person - probably less so, because politicians don't give a damn about us; they merely pretend to do so. I can run my OWN life far better than same corrupt suit in D.C.
Anyone who would give up essential liberty for tem
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know damn well that most people won't do research no matter how much you yell at them. You know damn well cell phone companies will exploit slick marketing to make people make decisions that aren't in their own interests. You can't change this. It's human nature. Even the best of us are sometimes fooled. We only have 24 hours in each day, and I for one don't want to spend my life doing market rese
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Regulation makes the market work better.
See the standard form that credit card companies have to include with any offer (which displays in a neat table your APR, Yearly Fee, Penalty APR, etc). Why can't we have something like that for phone service? A neat table, monthly plan, minutes, termination fee, contract length, etc.
Now as has been pointed out by several posters and Consumer Reports, despite the fact that a contract rate is supposed to subsidize the cost of a handset:
1) providers won't let you buy your own phone and sign up w/o a contra
Link (Score:3, Funny)
Post the link here otherwise I can't make an informed opinion.
Lets boycott the thing I was never gona buy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lets boycott the thing I was never gona buy! (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the same thing about ebook readers, but then I enrolled in an online degree program (from a real school). Since it's CS, most of the professors are rather clueful and the lecture notes (which tend to be even more complete than the textbooks) are all in PDFs.
Not having to have my laptop with me at all times to study made it worth it to get a PRS-505 (and it's a tax deduction since there's nothing else on it!)
Fuck the Kindle though.
Re:Lets boycott the thing I was never gona buy! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Tried that, on an old clie, my moto phone, etc... They couldn't handle the diagrams, and I was trying to actively REMOVE the computer from the equation.
Not saying it's right for everybody. Just saying it paid for itself when I got to skip the textbooks for 2 classes.
Re: (Score:2)
I also read nearly nonstop after I got my reader.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Stealing food from the Authors... Tisk Tisk Tisk... Those were obviously four sales that were going to happen that you took away from them.
Huh? (Score:2)
I have been converting PDF's since i got my kindle I.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
IANAcryptographer, but public key cryptography is a no-brainer for this scenario. Amazon should have created an RSA keypair for each kindle sold. Amazon would keep the private key and put the public key on the Kindle. When selling an E-Book, Amazon would just encrypt the Mobi file with its private key. That way, it wouldn't matter if some third party obtained the RSA public key for a specific kindle --- all he could do with it pound sand, since Amazon would keep the private keys secure and internal.
Granted, I think the DRM is vile. But I can't understand why Amazon also implemented DRM so poorly.
(If you want to be able to let multiple people read the same Mobi file, do this: generate a random symmetric cypher key (K) and encrypt the E-Book with it, resulting in ciphertext B. For each Kindle you'd like to be able to read the E-Book, let its key be M1, M2, and so on. The file you send out contains K itself encrypted with M1, then K encrypted with M2, K encrypted with M3, etc., and then finally B. A kindle would try all the keys in the E-Book file and just use the first one that successfully decrypted B.)
More useful? To whom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have to hand it to Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
Consoles (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Have to hand it to Amazon (Score:5, Funny)
Ironically? (Score:2)
Ironically, the purpose of the script is to make the Kindle more useful to its users."
I'm sure that their motive has nothing to do with whether it makes the kindle "more useful". This threatens their market for the books.
I must say I had been quite pleased with my Kindle and generally impressed with Amazon... until just now. Perhaps I'll return it.
What a relief... (Score:2)
Good thing this one didn't involve any numbers - saved T [monkey.org] from another embarrassing user-prodded edit.
Irony? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, the purpose of the script is to make the Kindle more useful to its users.
Nothing ironic about it. Amazon doesn't want the Kindle to be more useful than they've designed it to be. They've spent a great deal of money and effort making this platform, they don't want to have to compete with other people selling books for the thing.
Isn't Kindle a Loss-Leader? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the relatively low cost of the device and the fact that access to Sprint's EV-DO network is free, I would assume that the kindle is a loss-leader for Amazon.
They're counting on making their money back and more selling the e-books over that network. And that only works if Kindle users get their books exclusively from Amazon. So clearly it's in their interest to limit the Kindle's capabilities in this way.
Having said that, it's not clear that the DMCA actually applies in this case. Though since the law is written so that large IP holders can bludgeon smaller entities, I'd say it seems to be working perfectly.
Re:Isn't Kindle a Loss-Leader? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Amazon would like to try this approach, that's fine. But our personal right to do what we will with our property trumps Amazon's business model. If Amazon's business model won't work in a free society, it has no business working at all.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If Amazon would like to try this approach, that's fine. But our personal right to do what we will with our property trumps Amazon's business model. If Amazon's business model won't work in a free society, it has no business working at all.
That's a neat theory. But the courts will likely disagree with you, and they have the police to force your obedience.
I think most people on /. would be willing to tell the government to get stuffed regarding the DMCA. However, few or none of us are willing to suffer the consequences.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I really wish that were the case, but the congress critters who passed the DMCA, and the president who signed it, didn't see it that way.
Re:Isn't Kindle a Loss-Leader? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's already a perfectly good legal mechanism to amortize high up-front costs over a product's lifetime: it's called a lease [wikipedia.org]. If a company wants to restrict how a product is used, the company and the customer can sign a lease agreement. Xerox very successfully used that business model for its early photocopies.
The problem we're seeing today is that companies want to have their cake and eat it too. They want customers to feel like they're making a purchase, but act like they're under the terms of a lease. That's fucking bullshit, and runs counter to personal property rights at the core of Western civilization.
In short, if you want to tell me how to use your widget, you'd better lease it to me. No way in hell should you be telling me how to use property I've purchased outright without signing any kind of contract with you.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your analogy to cell phones doesn't work, though, because Kindle users don't (as far as I know) sign any sort of contract with Amazon.
It would be one thing if you signed a two-year contract with Amazon that guaranteed you the free wireless access so long as you did not purchase books elsewhere. That's not what's happening. Rather, they've tried to use a technical measure to control a related aftermarket, much like Lexmark did with toner cartridges. They're free to do that, but invoking the DMCA to protect t
Link to Script in Question (Score:5, Informative)
Link to the author's reverse engineering blog and script description:
Here [blogspot.com].
Link to just the scripts Here [googlepages.com].
Anonymous to avoid KarmaWhoring(TM)
Only affects DRM crippled ebooks (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no problem putting books I buy elsewhere on my kindle, because none of the 200+ ebooks I have are DRM'd. If Amazon wants me to buy books from them, they'll drop DRM too.
Whoops (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
The funny part is that many people like me will never have even heard of the script until Amazon made a fuss about it. I found it with a simple google search. Same with how-to instructions.
Hi, Amazon. I'd like for you to meet a very dear friend of mine, the Streisand Effect. You two are going to really get familiar with each other.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. I'd never heard of it either. Now I've got a copy, in case anyone I know ever wants it. Thanks, Amazon.
It's a good thing DMCA takedown notices aren't applied with gag orders like "National Security" Letters.
I got the distinct impression these guys wanted exactly what happened to happen, and wanted to disavow responsibility for legal reasons. "It's not here, so don't ask". Nothing about "don't look elsewhere for it, or ask elsewhere."
Screw that (Score:3, Insightful)
Switching from Kindle (Score:3, Interesting)
What are the best open ebook reader options out there?
My opinion, Iliad (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, what I think will end up being it's biggest strength is currently it's biggest weakness, it's OS is Open Source. Near as I can tell, IRex basically launched the product with only the bare minimum features and is looking to the Open Source community to help polish it off. Though they do h
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The iLiad Book Edition [irextechnologies.com] is a good choice. The hardware is nice and the firmware is open source. It's also very expensive.
You could also look at the BeBook [mybebook.com]. It uses the same 6" panel as everyone else, has excellent wide and open format support and the firmware is open source. It's also sold under many other names, Hanlin V3 being the most common.
I've bought a BeBook. It should last me long enough that a better and probably cheaper generation of devices will come out. There's no need to go for the top of the l
Its an industrial standard (Score:5, Insightful)
Car makers can't do that (in the USA) (Score:3, Informative)
Car companies often control the supply of replacement parts.
Car parts for newer models are often only available from the Original Equipment Manufacturer for a limited time due to licensing agreements between the car maker and the parts makers and the fact that aftermarket parts manufacturers have to tool up to make the new parts.
In the USA the Federal Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 made tying of the parts to the warranty illegal. The car maker cannot require that you buy their parts or supplies (like Toyota-brand oil or wiper blades for example), and they cann
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But I can get another one for my car where I control the software.
Clearly I void the warranty, but that's where the manufactures influence stops, they don't try and put me in jail.
Amazon is wrong on the law (Score:5, Informative)
Leaving aside the issue of users' rights, as far as I can see Amazon is just plain wrong on the law and lacks legal justification for the takedown notice. What the DMCA prohibits is the distribution of tools for overcoming technical measures for protecting copyrighted materials. The first program generates a MOBI ID from a kindle serial number. The second program rewrites a non-Amazon ebook so that it contains the id that will allow it to work on the Kindle with the given serial number. Neither program modifies or copies the Kindle's software. Since the ebooks in question are not produced by Amazon, no material whose copyright belongs to Amazon is affected in any way. In other words, this software does not defeat any technical measure of Amazon's for protecting copyrighted material since Amazon has no copyrighted material at stake here. The DMCA is inapplicable, and the takedown notice invalid. Indeed, it is so clear that this software does nothing to defeat protection of copyrighted material that I would say that the takedown notice was issued in bad faith.
What this software actually does is allow for interoperability, which is explicitly protected by the DMCA.
Very nice (Score:3, Interesting)
Well said. You get a complimentary lawyer cap for the day.
I hope the script writer sees this, as it's a very good response to their takedown.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It appears the "MOBI ID" of the kindle would also allow the stripping of amazons DRM using the same software that strips DRM from mobi books.
So while the intended application should be DMCA safe, having the MOBI ID is one step closer to stripping DRM from amazons books. (still not a clear DMCA violation, but I can see some point)
Big Ado About Nothing (Score:5, Informative)
The purpose of the tool is not to allow non-Amazon content into the Kindle. Instead, it is to allow non-Amazon eBook sellers to be able to sell content for the Kindle. It has NOTHING to do with your ability as a user to bring content into your Kindle without paying Amazon.
I should know, I owned a Kindle 1 for 7 months and currently own two Kindle 2s (hint: if you only have one Kindle, don't show it to your wife and go LOOK HONEY, SEE HOW COOL THIS IS!!! because she'll immediately take over it and you'll end up buying a second one). I have had no issues bringing content into any of my Kindles:
1. Any content that I can read with Stanza and/or Mobipocket Creator (both free) can be converted into formats that can be read by the Kindle.
2. Amazon provides you with a unique email address to email content to be converted directly into your Kindle. 10 cents per conversion.
3. Amazon provides you with a second unique email address to email content to be converted, then emailed back to you for free. Yes, free.
4. Using the basic web browser, you can pick any web-based file that is compatible with the Kindle and it will download it just like if you purchased it from Amazon. There are plenty of websites that cater directly to the Kindle, and there is a huge drive to make Project Gutemberg and others fully compatible with the Kindle.
5. Amazon charges you for subscribing to feeds. Or you can use the free tool at Feedbooks. These clever people figured out a way to package an RSS subscription as an eBook, and it has an auto-update link. Open the book from your Kindle, click on Update and it downloads a new version of the file. Tedious? Sure, but it is free.
6. Annoyed about having to connect to your PC just so you can move your content into your Kindle? Don't feel like paying the 10-cent tax? Easy, simply dump your eBook files into a folder in your website, password protect it if you are paranoid, then open it from your basic browser. You can now download your own books from anywhere, which is great if you don't like clutter or in case you delete the wrong book by accident.
Now, of course, it sucks if you are trying to make a buck selling eBooks for the Kindle outside of Amazon and you are using a format that requires the ID of your device. If all you want to do is sell the content, then you might as well go to http://dtp.amazon.com/ [amazon.com], list your books for free and let Amazon do all the work in exchange for a cut of the action. Amazon will not charge you for access to the DTP area, or for listing your books, they only take a cut of your sales.
I emailed Amazon's Kindle Feedback address earlier this week to complain about not being able to upload my own files to the storage area (one of my favorite features is that I can re-download my content at will), expecting to get a canned response. I actually got a person to reply to me, so it looks like at least some of those emails are being read. The person that replied hinted that maybe I wanted to send my files through the 10-cent tax generator, but he would still pass my message to the powers-that-be.
The one thing that is still completely unacceptable is that the Kindle client for the iPhone only works with purchased work, you can't add your own books (yet) unless you jailbrake your phone.
Amazon illegally tying Kindle with Amazon eBooks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon sells the Kindle. Fine. Amazon sells eBooks. Fine. Amazon wants to restrict what a Kindle OWNER can do with his own hardware? Not fine.
Either Amazon should back down on this or they should discontinue the Kindle. They can't really do what they are doing without running afowl of some legal crusader in the near future.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The big deal is corporate oppressive behavior. They are abusing the DMCA trying to tell people what they can and can't do with the hardware they own. That would be like buying a car in the U.S. and the car maker trying to tell you that you cannot fix it yourself or rig it to be a hybrid or to use other alternative energy sources or supplements. Or how about Dell telling you that you cannot run Linux or they will file some sort of lawsuit against you?
When companies can dictate how you use your own stuff,
Re:Amazon illegally tying Kindle with Amazon eBook (Score:5, Insightful)
Threatening legal action against people who want to use their own property in any way they like is not oppressive? The DMCA notices are just the beginning stages before they start filing lawsuits. This makes me wonder if I am actually feeding the troll...
Re:Amazon illegally tying Kindle with Amazon eBook (Score:5, Insightful)
You own the Kindle. You are not breaking Amazon DRM to put anything on the Kindle. Amazon can sit and spin.
Just say NO to DRM... (Score:3, Insightful)
remind me again why I should buy a product that doesn't do what _I_ want???
Remember Kids... (Score:3, Funny)
Remember kids,
"Don't swindle that Kindle!"
Re:Kindle is a piece of shit (Score:5, Funny)
and so are you slashdot fags!
Grow up and quit name calling, we're not in kindlegarten anymore!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You must be new here. (etc)
DMCA TAKEDOWN! (Score:5, Informative)
Code is here:
http://skochinsky.googlepages.com/azw-0.1.zip [googlepages.com]
Mirror:
http://rapidshare.com/files/76138900/azw-0.1.zip.html [rapidshare.com]
Add your own!
Re:DMCA TAKEDOWN! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kindle is a piece of shit (Score:4, Informative)
I'd leave it at -1 if I were you...sure, there's a bunch of racist and homophobic trolls, but there's also some insightful flamebait that Slashdot mods get too touchy about. Also plenty of hilarious random shit like cookie recipes and weird stories.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kindle is a piece of shit (Score:4, Informative)
And THEN you go out of your way to piss off the purchasers by screwing them from using anything but your overpriced content AFTER they just handed you money? Yeah, good luck ith that.
I haven't read TFA, of course, but I know for a fact that you can use any content on the kindle as long as it's in one of several formats. Something like html, txt, prc, and mobi, the latter both being ebook formats available from many places. What you can't do is use DRMed content from places other than Amazon, which is what you should expect anyway.
What this script allows you to do is buy Mobipocket books with DRM from places other than Amazon.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you.
Worldwide distribution is now underway.
In Praise of Real Books (Score:3, Insightful)
I love the sound a new hardcover makes when you open it for the first time; I love being able to take a book camping without worrying that it will be crushed. I love being able to physically browse through everything on my bookshelf and pick something that interests me. Oh, and I love being able to make margin notes and dog-ear pages. I love that I can feel a book's right side become smaller and smaller as I read, and how I can become excited (or nervous) about feeling the ending being near.
There's just som
Re:In Praise of Real Books (Score:4, Interesting)
It's funny, because for me, my ereader (Sony though, not Kindle) has mostly replaced paper books precisely for "narrative" literature, not technical - simply because you really don't need all those fancy extra features such as touchscreen or annotations there, and something simple and relatively cheap, such as PRS-505, does the job very well. And I get to carry my entire library with me, and whenever I'm stuck in a queue or on the bus, decide what I want to read depending on the mood.
Like it or not, but everything that you've listed is not relevant to the "core" concept of the book, which is really just about text. I fully expect paper books to become luxury items in the next 20-30 years, where you'll have to pay quite a bit of extra for the privilege of "feeling".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hardcovers will still be around: in fact, I suspect we'll see publishers start to include e-book copies of the text as a way to entice people to buy the very profitable hardcovers.
They already do that to various degrees. For example, a "C# Programming Language (3rd edition)" hardbook I've purchased recently came with an access code for a free 2-month subscription to that particular book on O'Reilly Safari [safaribooksonline.com]. Sometimes it's the other way around - I recall purchasing a few technical ebooks where they give you a discount if you later purchase the printed version.
Re:Torrent? (Score:5, Informative)
kindlefix.py
Re:Ah, Python! (Score:4, Insightful)
The whitespace is present in the source.
Perhaps more accurately demonstrates why restricted-html web pages as code repositories suck.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just to clarify: You are NOT locked into getting all of your reading material from Amazon. You can basically read ANY non-DRM'ed e-book on Kindle, regardless of where it comes from.
There are probably a hundred thousand DRM-free books that you can get and load to your Kindle, if not more. Sure, a lot of it is public domain but there are publishers like O'Reilly that are putting e-books out there with no DRM. There are also DRM-free e-books you can get from Tor or Baen, some of which are "no cost" free as
Re:I love my Kindle (Score:4, Informative)
No it doesn't. You can buy DRM-free e-books from fictionwise.com in Kindle-compatible .mobi format that you can just copy onto your Kindle via USB.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)