A Whole Lot of Words About How I Just Got 33 Books For Free (Legally)Posted by dhoffman on March 17th, 2009
There’s a brouhaha going on right now involving Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle 2 devices. Essentially, some programmer out there wrote a Python script (read: a programming thing I’m not enough of a nerd to manage) that lets you either strip the DRM from legitimately-purchased Kindle books, or add DRM to non-Amazon-purchased Kindle books (which is necessary if you want to read them on the Kindle).
The complaint is that Amazon is forcing people to buy books through Amazon.
“Oh, but we want to convert library books to read on the Kindle,” people say.
“Oh, but we want to buy things from Fictionwise or Mobiread,” they say.
Well, okay, that’s fine. What gets me, though, is that it’s a hack. When you buy a Kindle or Kindle 2, it states rather explicitly that they expect you’ll use it to read Amazon-purchased books.
More, if you want to add a non-Amazon document to the device, you can either (a) send the file to Amazon, who will convert it and send it back to you, or (b) send the file to yourself, by way of Amazon, and they’ll convert it for you for $0.10 a file.
To clarify, I suppose, I don’t believe you can send eBooks purchased from other eBook retailers through that system.
What you can do — and what I have done — is get yourself eBooks that come in .TXT-formatted files, and shoot them off to yourself. Works like a charm and really, a dime isn’t a bad price for that sort of service, eh?
But folks are outraged that Amazon wants you to buy books from Amazon (or, transfer books through Amazon) to read on the Amazon-branded device you bought from (you guessed it) Amazon.
To me, it sounds like the sort of carrying-on you heard when folks wanted to be allowed to download whatever music they wanted to — for free. And whatever movies they wanted to — for free.
I get the argument, of course: content is everything. And no matter how much folks carry on about library eBooks and buying from other retailers online, I just keep coming back to the fact that I think they’re lying.
They want to steal books.
They want Amazon to let them do it. Or, turn a blind eye from their doing it, at the very least.
And hey, you know what? They’re GOING to steal books. And movies. And music. No matter what Amazon does to keep them from hacking the devices, people are always going to find a way to make the code sit up and dance for them.
I’m alright with that, actually.
But what pisses me off is when folks who steal content get self-righteous about it. Like, yeah, I’ve downloaded some music in my time. Who hasn’t? When Napster and the other Peer to Peer clients hit the street, OF COURSE you gave them a shot, and marveled at how the music just . . . came to you.
But, at least owe up to the fact that you’re stealing. Owe up to the fact that you’re breaking the rules. Nobody owes you free content, and a hardware manufacturer whose looking to sell both hardware and the content to read/watch/listen to on it is not being evil and soulless when they expect you to, um, read, watch or listen to that content on the device you willingly purchased from them.
Nobody’s giving away free Kindles and nobody’s handcuffing them to people’s wrists and forcing them to buy books at gunpoint. And whether you think you have the RIGHT to use a device you bought however way you want to use it, or not, you simply don’t have that right.
The sad thing is that DRM isn’t an actual, effective means of protecting content from being stolen. It just isn’t. And the number of folks who might use a Python script to pilfer a few books is probably quite a tiny (but oh-so vocal) number.
Amazon could probably stand to open the Kindle up to other formats, and it probably wouldn’t hurt their business too badly. But they need to show some sort of controls or the publishers aren’t going to be too keen to have their content on the Kindle in the first place.
Apple recently announced that the stuff you buy on iTunes is either currently or soon-to-be DRM-free. That’s a good thing. I’d say Amazon will get there too, someday. It’s only natural. In the meantime, though, I think if folks want to have a Kindle, they should resolve themselves to using them the same as anyone else: tools will be created that let you bend the rules and, if you choose to bend those rules, don’t get bitchy when Amazon comes up with a way to bend them back.
Get over it. That’s how the game is played.
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Oh, and what started me on this longer-than-intended rant is that I just finished downloading thirty-three classics of literature absolutely free over Kindle’s free Whispernet connection onto my Kindle 2. Frankenstein, The Jungle Book, The Scarlet Letter, The Fall of the House of Usher, even Mark Twain’s, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, a book I read in college but didn’t really appreciate until I read it again some years later to help my little brother with a report.
I love the Kindle. I love that I’ve got something like 100 books I can carry around with me wherever I go. I love that I can use my iPod Touch to read, too, if I like. I think eInk is great technology and I also think it’s a YOUNG technology. It’s only going to get better and, as the tech gets better and eBook readers become more widespread, I think you’ll start seeing a relaxing of some of the DRM rules.
But, I also accept that the books come to the Kindle by way of Amazon. I’ve got enough books on there right now to see me through well past the end of the year. Are there books I’d like to read that aren’t available? Of course. But I can busy myself with what I have and satisfy myself that, eventually, they’ll likely show up for me to legally purchase.
Early adopters always get our asses kicked by stuff like this, you see. And while it’s one thing to be ticked when they break your way to break their ways to make you pay for content, it’s quite another thing to act like it’s your God-given right to steal stuff.
At the end of the day, the single best recourse folks have is simply . . . buying another eBook reader. But if you’re going to have an Amazon Kindle (or Kindle 2), I think you should at least resolve yourself to not complaining when you have to be creative about how you steal books to read on it.
Hell, I can remember being a teenager and borrowing cassette tapes from friend to copy. Every now and again you’d get one that was just a pinch too long for the standard tape length. Call it 80′s DRM, if you like, but we didn’t go ranting and raving about how they’d worked out a way to make our copies inferior to the purchasable versions. It was fair play and we moved on with our lives, and maybe the eBook complainers should do the same.