Hi James.
I am beginning to consider that as an option, I'm looking at all my options
right now. I can accept that Amazon don't want to do business with me which
is their perfect right, however when you've invested thousands of pounds in
content, you naturally expect that content to be accessible to you. It's
like filling up your house with valuable works of art, furniture and other
pieces only to have Amazon take the keys from you, locking you out of your
home and denying you access to the content you rightfully own. It's only
when it hits you do you realise what a catastrophe it is. Whenever you
write to Amazon's account specialists, you get pro former emails, obviously
scripted with no recourse. You don't get a name, the agent who sends out
the email doesn't even introduce themselves, it's shocking impersonal
dehumanising service.
Anyway, I need to rest this sleepy head of mine. Take care.
-----Original Message-----
From: James English
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 1:02 AM
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: DRM is Evil! an observation
Hello,
You should certainly pursue legal action against Amazon. This is a
breech of the consumer rights act, and is fundamentally against the
law.
Sincerely,
-James English
(Practising lawyer)
On 2/16/16, Ibrahim Gucukoglu <ibrahim_gucukoglu@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Everyone.** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
This little piece was written about me by my brother, it discusses the
consequences of digital lockouts. I was unfortunately enough to loose
access to my Amazon account last week, and the likelihood is that I will not
be able to have it reopened. This wouldn’t be a serious issue if it weren’t
for the enormous audible library I thought I owned:
Amazon have closed my brother's account because he was returning too many
articles to them. He'd apparently crossed some sacred threshold or
other--presumably one calculated to be the least profitable to Amazon--with
the result that he can no longer log in to his account.
And you'll never guess what that means for his very handsome collection of
Audible books.
Go on, take a guess. You'll probably get it first time ...
The DRM on Audible content requires that any device obtain a key from
Amazon, after logging in to an account. Any device already possessing that
key can of course continue to download and play any content, but without
logging in, a new device cannot obtain the key. Amazon have made it very
clear to my brother that they have no intention of allowing him further
access to his account. So Amazon has put an effective end-of-life date on
all of my brother's Audible "Purchases"; as soon as he resets the devices,
sells and replaces them, etc., his Audible collection will be no more.
I'd just like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that DRM is
thoroughly and fundamentally evil. It's wicked. It's corrupt. It's
iniquitous. And it's not about piracy at all, it's about control. You don't
own the things you "buy" if the content is locked with a key you don't have
and can't get. The true owner is simply parting you from your money with the
vague promise of letting you use the key, which they endeavour to keep you
from discovering, lest you use it in ways not approved by the owner--for
instance by unlocking your digital content permanently and thus freeing
yourself from the owner's grip--but which they will make available to you
while using software that they trust to protect their, and not your,
interests. And of course, the owner always has the option of not letting you
use your key at all, by telling the server not to give it to the software.
While your decryption key is in their hands, anything might happen to your
content, at any time, even if the owner promises to the contrary.
This racket is only possible because we give these content distributors the
money to enable it--to write the software that keeps the keys safe from
discovery while in your hands, to write laws that prohibit people from
breaking the software to access the content without use of that software,
and to criminalise perfectly legitimate uses of content that are
inconvenient for the bottom line, but that are recognised by copyright and
common sense as being reasonable and fair. I sincerely hope you take
something from this incident, as I surely do, with something like this so
close to home happening, and I hope you'll be willing to think carefully
about whose business practices you'll be willing to support if you have the
choice. I understand that we don't all have the choice to exercise all the
time, and that it's easy to make up excuses and pray that it never happens
to us. I'd say that this was particularly true for blind people and those
with other reading challenges, because the selection of material is already
very limited. Audible makes a fantastic, sometimes exclusive collection of
audiobooks available.
But they, and any other DRM peddler, simply cannot be trusted. I have made
it a habit never to value any protected content too highly, and I'm
gratified to see the truth in it, sad as I am for my brother's plight. For
your own sake, wherever possible, you should make arrangements to avoid DRM.
Try not to purchase anything you wouldn't keep from a DRM merchant. You
never know, it could be you this happens to, and you might be the next
person to own a handsome collection of strongly encrypted, utterly useless
files that you have no hope of playing, and who will be out of pocket for
the amount you "Bought" them for.
Hope this encourages some debate on the issue and those who use Amazon, take
heed!
