[Web4lib] Amazon's Kindle e-book reader

[Pons, Lisa (ponslm)]

You know, to me it's the same thing: the same media companies that are
forcing draconian DRM on music, movies, etc... Are requiring this of
amazon. They try it with books: ever see the notice on paperbacks: "If
you bought this book without a cover, you could be..."?

When I worked at a bookstore, we were required to throw away paperbacks
after stripping the cover; couldn't give them to nursing homes,
hospitals, etc.. Under threat of being fired.

See:

http://www.stopbigmedia.com/chart.php?chart=radio


 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org 
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hankinson
> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 12:18 PM
> To: web4lib
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Amazon's Kindle e-book reader
> 
> It's not the form factor, or the price that's a problem for 
> me.  Yes,  
> eventually books will go digital, and yes, the price will 
> come down.   
> That's inevitable.
> 
> It's the DRM that they're putting in there, and the fact that 
> they're artificially limiting it.  It's EVDO, which is not 
> WiFi, so expect to pay a monthly fee just to have the 
> wireless connection.
> 
> Mark Pilgrim has another take on it on his blog post, and I 
> think his leading 'act' sums it up best:
> 
> "When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to 
> resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if 
> they want.  
> Everyone understands this."
> 
> 	--Jeff Bezos, Open letter to Author's Guild, 2002
> 
> "You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, 
> sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital 
> Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may 
> not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital 
> Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not 
> encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, 
> modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect 
> the Digital Content."
> 
> 	--Amazon, Kindle Terms of Service, 2007
> 
> (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading)
> 
> So, yes, while Jeff Bezos may be a really nice guy, with the 
> direction his company is taking with Kindle we're setting 
> ourselves up for another RIAA/MPAA DRM nightmare with book 
> publishers now.  That's not something that I'm particularly 
> comfortable with encouraging.
> 
> -Andrew
> 
> On 20-Nov-07, at 11:28 AM, Leo Robert Klein wrote:
> 
> > Roy Tennant wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >> The other reason is more substantive. First Blackberries 
> and now the 
> >> iPhone have demonstrated the kind of unification of functions that 
> >> has been predicted for many years -- you will no longer have a PDA 
> >> and a phone and a music player and perhaps even a laptop 
> as separate 
> >> devices -- they would be all one. And the fact that the 
> same amount 
> >> of money will buy you either a book reading device or a 
> phone and a 
> >> music player and a web browser and a ...makes the Kindle a 
> complete 
> >> non-starter in my book (sorry for the pun).
> >> And to think folks were complaining about the price of the iPhone.
> >> Roy
> >
> > I think this unit makes sense only if you ignore the vastly 
> > successfully alternatives now available to people.  People 
> want Nokias 
> > and SideKicks.  They use their phones to text-message, take 
> pictures 
> > and surf the web.
> >
> > Amazon has made a single-purpose device and it's pretty 
> obvious from 
> > their standpoint why they did it.  It's less obvious why 
> people should 
> > suddenly dump their smart phones for this.
> >
> > It just doesn't make sense.  It's like thinking people are going to 
> > dump their color tv's for b&w units because the WWI 
> documentaries look 
> > so much better.
> >
> >
> > "Richard Wiggins" <richard.wiggins at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >>> I think there is no doubt that the purpose-specific e-book will  
> >>> come into
> >>> its own as well, and I think people who nay-say it 
> without seeing  
> >>> it,
> >>> touching it, feeling it, and using it will someday look 
> foolish.   
> >>> They may
> >>> not look foolish with this attempt, but someday they will.
> >
> > I'm perfectly happy to look foolish!
> >
> > LEO
> >
> >
> > -- -------------------
> > www.leoklein.com (site)
> > www.ChicagoLibrarian.com (blog)
> >
> > aim/msn/yhoo/goog: 'leorobertklein'
> > -- -------------------------------
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