The interwebz are in a collective tizzy over the case of Linn Nygaard, a Norwegian woman who bought a Kindle in the United Kingdom and took it home with her. Her crime? She bought books through the UK store. (Horror!!!) Last week, Amazon disabled her account and wiped the 40 books on the Kindle without explanation, and refused to answer her questions as to why. Unfortunately for the Bezos Bunch, the UK and UN haven’t managed to lock this pesky internet thing down, and word spread around the world. Result: Amazon relented and reopened the account.
Ars Technica has this little tidbit: “Many other websites also lamented that many digital retailers (Amazon, Apple, and plenty of others) are not selling digital goods, but rather license them. It’s a distinction many Ars readers may already understand, but it’s less apparent outside the ranks of the tech-savvy. (After all, those purchase buttons usually say BUY, not BUY A LICENSE.)”
I don’t know about you…when I buy a product I expect that I’ve bought a product. Well, Ars Technica also comes through on that point, with a post on how to strip the damnable DRM (which I refuse to use; if you want to steal my stuff, cool, but I’d appreciate a check) out of those Kindle books using Calibre. Now, under no circumstances should you even strip the DRM out of your books, music, or films that you purchased. It’s very illegal (the Digital Millenium Copyright Act here in the US), immoral, violates the Amazon Terms of Service, and lead to the deaths of kittens and impoverishes those big publishers. (Save the Publishers!)
If anyone knows a way to do the same for other e-reader platforms, please shoot me some links so we can pick on the other e-publishers, and not just Amazon (who, frankly, has been better to me than any other outlet.)
