[kstrauser]

I adamantly believe that this is morally and ethically OK in all situations. If you buy a copy of a book, it's your right to read it on any device of yours you want, even ones that haven't been manufactured yet. I bought a copy of Stephen King's "The Stand" 30 years ago and it's still on a bookshelf here ready for me to read at any time. If I'd bought an ebook copy of it instead, I'm just as ethically permitted to read it however and whenever I choose.

Before anyone bothers "correcting" me with nonsense about buying a license instead of a copy, don't bother. As we speak, the Amazon page for that book says "buy now", not "buy a license now", or "license now". By any reasonable interpretation of reality, I'd be buying a copy of it. That doesn't mean it would be OK to share that copy outside my household, any more than I could photocopy a physical version and pass it around. It's impossible to convince me that it's wrong to share a copy with my wife, any more than it'd be wrong to lend her my physical copy after I'm done reading it.

[freedomben]

> Before anyone bothers "correcting" me with nonsense about buying a license instead of a copy, don't bother.

> It's impossible to convince me that it's wrong to share a copy with my wife, any more than it'd be wrong to lend her my physical copy after I'm done reading it.

I completely agree with you on this issue. I think it's grotesque the way digital "purchases" work, to the point where I am boycotting Kindle and every other place that has DRM (and while it's a drop in their ocean, it does cost them probably $500 to $1,000 per year in sales from me. Though I have no illusion that it's making a difference, but it matters to me).

But that said, I think closing your mind so completely before you've even heard a counter-argument is irresponsible and anti-intellectual. I doubt anybody is going to change my mind either, but I would like to hear the strongest possible arguments against my position so I can evaluate my correctness. If my position is solid, then it will be hard to make a great argument against it. If my position isn't solid, I would like to know so I can get on more solid rational ground.

[kstrauser]

You're quite right. It's just that I've had this specific argument before, I've heard the arguments, and they're unconvincing. The first few times -- yes, I talk about this kind of thing more often than you might imagine -- it was intellectually challenging in the way you describe. Are my own points valid and reasonable? Do they bring up new points I should consider? It gets tiresome after a while, though. No one ever brings up novel ideas or even interesting ones. Every single time it's more like this:

Me: I bought a {ebook, movie, video game} the other day, and...

Unclever person: GOTCHA! You bought a license! There, do you feel better for having been corrected by my superior pedantry?

That nonsense ads nothing to the conversation except for me blocking the person as a pain in the ass if I'm on a platform where I can block people. If someone has an actual argument stronger than the Terms of Service printed in 3 point type on the back of a store behind the bathrooms, I'd love to hear it. I couldn't care less about the gotchas.

[pfortuny]

Actually: can you share the license more easily than the whole book? Then you did not buy a license either. The “license argument” is silly and contradictory.

[bee_rider]

I think you are ethically correct to do so. I even think you would be ethically correct to lend out your only copy (as long as you really were certain that it was and would remain the only copy, so, lending it out to somebody who was completely trustworthy).

The only thing I question about all this ethics-wise: is it really ethical to purchase the item in the first place? I feel bad about all my Amazon books at this point, I’ve spent a bunch of money supporting an ecosystem that harms people who aren’t technically savvy enough to break DRM (actually, technically this includes me, I’m sure I could, but I haven’t looked into it or put the software together!). I do worry that solutions like this make the whole bad situation more bearable for the most-engaged segment, who could otherwise be leading the charge to something better.

[rroose]

Same here. I try to avoid Amazon as much as possible. In the Netherlands we do have 'Bol' but it basically boils down to the same thing: giving your money to one big player.

Another option is getting it at the Dutch Online Library but they have a limited selection.

In some cases you can buy the book directly from the author (like Derek Sivers) but that's more an exception than the rule.

I really wished there were more small e-book stores. Maybe focused on specific genres but so far I have been unsuccesful finding any.

[WolfeReader]

(Devil's advocate here)

When you made an Amazon account, and each time you purchase one of their ebooks, you agree to their "Terms of Service", which states that you won't do some of the things you want to do with your ebook. Amazon wouldn't sell/license you the book if you told them you were going to break the DRM and read it on a Kobo.

In effect, you're lying to Amazon in order to use their property in a way they specifically don't want you to.

(Devil's advocate done)

Can I ask you to consider buying your ebooks from a better vendor? Kobo is a good choice; they state whether or not a given book is DRM-free or not; if it's DRM-free, that's a clear win - and even when they do include DRM, it's Adobe, so you can load it on any e-reader (except Kindle (except if you use KOReader)). Google Play Books are basically the same as Kobo, but they don't state up-front if a book has DRM or not.

Also, it's pretty common for technical books and some fiction presses to sell e-books directly on their site, and those never have DRM in my experience.

On the other hand, supporting Amazon is supporting a company who wants to promote DRM aggressively. And you can almost always find the same books elsewhere.

[VS1999]

Whenever someone invokes the "terms of service" I just get annoyed. I live in the US where we have absolutely no consumer rights and every company can put anything they want in the ToS or EULA, and if it violates the law they aren't punished (such as illegal warranty restrictions). Most EULAs even have a clause that says something like "if any part of this contract is illegal, ignore it and the rest is still enforced". If companies can put anything they want into it and aren't punished for breaking the law, it's 100% up to consumers to ignore the ToS and ignore the EULA as much as possible.

And if you're really paying for a limited license to use their property, they should have to call it that. Amazon calls it a "store" where you "buy" the books. They'd make a lot less sales if the "buy now with 1 click" button said "purchase a limited license to access this book for some period of time".

[freedomben]

I agree with your points here, but this seems like a two-wrongs-make-a-right type of argument. Basically, companies (like Amazon) don't have to honor their agreements, so neither do I.

I agree that's a fair standard, but it does feel a little ... suboptimal to say "I can and will lie because I expect that they are lying."

[plorg]

It actually does not sound like that argument - that sounds like an argument you are making up.

The argument is, "I have no meaningful choice in the terms that I agree to, hence my agreement to those terms cannot be freely given. But I do have choice in whether to follow those terms and a means by which to operate outside of them. So I will ignore the terms that I find unnecessarily restrictive (subject to assessment of risk) and that may be the only actual influence I can exert in the situation."

[codegladiator]

> because I expect that they are lying

because I /KNOW/ that they are lying

[freedomben]

Can you cite an example of one of the lies that you know about?

If not, then you can't KNOW they are lying any more than all the religious people who claim they KNOW that their church is true (which they all can't be, since they have contradictory beliefs).

Unless you've read The terms for the thing you are agreeing to, and have identified contradictions (lies) for which you have hard evidence to the contrary, you don't KNOW. This must be done for every company that you agree to, not just a single one. If we know that person a killed someone because we have it on camera and proved it in court, that obviously does not mean that an unrelated person b is also guilty of murder.

Short of that, you don't KNOW, you just expect.

Apologies, I didn't intend to lecture on this, it just touched a nerve I have with the overuse of the word know, and the negative effect that has had on science. Also maddening to be debating religion and have the person claim to know something that they clearly don't, such as that God exists and/or that he loves us, etc. The correct word they need is "believe"

[kstrauser]

The devil doesn't need an advocate. You think he's running low on lawyers?

But I agree with you about buying from Amazon. I haven't bought an ebook from them in at least many years, perhaps not ever that I remember. I've never owned a Kindle and I'm not sure I could even load one of their books on my Kobo (or the Nook I owned way back when). I buy most of my books from Kobo's store, but also check out a lot from my library via Libby. I recently bought a bundle of Cory Doctorow's books from Tor (through Humble Bundle), and I downloaded plenty from Standard Ebooks.

If there's a book I'd like to read that's only available from Amazon, I haven't stumbled across it yet.

[codazoda]

Self-published author here—I agree with these points and I hate DRM myself.

I write DRM free books and I publish them on Amazon for the Kindle. Since they ask authors, I presume they share the DRM status too, although maybe not as prominently.

I recently decided to buy another Kindle. I prefer paper books but I’m running low on space. When I looked at my library I realized the Kindle app has faithfully kept a list of all the Kindle books I’ve read over the years. I was surprised to find a pretty good collection of books in my library. So, it feels relatively evergreen at this point.

Most recently I purchased a Kindle tablet with a stylus to save myself from the collection of paper notebooks I’m starting to collect. You can read more about how I take handwritten notes on the Kindle in the post below.

https://notes.joeldare.com/notes-on-the-amazon-fire-max-11

I would certainly consider other options but Amazon is making it convenient for me and they make a decent product at a pretty good price. Maybe one day I’ll give the other players a try but for now I’m okay with the limitations of Amazon’s ecosystem.

[freedomben]

This makes sense, but what happens when the new Kindle sucks and you want to switch to the new super cool $startup e-reader? Can't take any of your books with you, so you have to hope that Amazon write an app for your new platform and that that app doesn't suck. So you're essentially trading long-term/future capabilities for a better short-term user experience. That might be worth it, after all it's hard to predict what will happen in the future. But I don't want to worry that someday I might not like the new Kindle and mine breaks, and I want to switch platforms and lose access to my whole library.

Are you able to save/export your own notes to PDF or something? (genuinely asking) I would be maniacal if I lost my handwritten notes to that! (I love my Remarkable tablet for it's ability to easily upload notes as PDFs to Google Drive).

I don't know how you feel about privacy, but behind that reading history data that you can see is details about exactly which pages you read, when you read them, where you read them, how long you were on the page, anything you happened to touch there, and more. Have you read any books that you would be embarrassed to admit to publicly? I have never had to worry that my paper book was spying on me, nor the epub version of the book.

[goosedragons]

Amazon will put DRM on a "DRM-free" book if it's using their new format KFX.

[freedomben]

Yeah I know somebody who has been buying kindle books for years planning to remove the DRM at some point, but it's never a great time. It finally was a good time for it and he discovered that he no longer can (even though his proof-of-concept test years ago worked fine). I would be beyond irritated if I had to isolate my Kindle from the internet and hope a vulerability is found that I'm capable of using, just for the chance to liberate books I purchased.

[chx]

> Google Play Books are basically the same as Kobo, but they don't state up-front if a book has DRM or not.

they absolutely do. https://i.imgur.com/VA3G54Z.png

[freedomben]

Very nice, I'm beginning to have a very high opinion of Google Play Books. The fact that I can upload my own epubs and use their product with them like first-class content is really damn cool. I didn't know about this aspect, but this makes a major difference to me. Thank you!

[phonon]

You can do that with Kindle as well...?

[freedomben]

I've been boycotting Kindle for quite a few years now, so I genuinely don't know what that experience is like now. At least the last time I used it though, there was a pretty clear difference between my epubs and Kindle-provided content in the way the UI treated it and the user experience when consuming it. Are they fairly equivalent experiences now?

[phonon]

I use the Android phone app for Kindle. Sending an ePub to it using the Windows "Send to Kindle" program[0] is really easy, and I don't notice any different user experience in the phone app when I pull up my library.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle/pc

[baby_souffle]

> Are they fairly equivalent experiences now?

Yeah. It’s been improving slowly for a while but it did seem to pick up just before they announced the scribe. Uploading your own documents to be able to mark them up is a key differentiation and it would have been panned if that wasn’t synced

[prmoustache]

> In effect, you're lying to Amazon in order to use their property in a way they specifically don't want you to.

Well they aren't their property in the first place. Amazon is just the middleman who facilitate the exchange of goods/services.

[airstrike]

Civil disobedience can be valuable. TOS are often FOS

[HeatrayEnjoyer]

There's a reason it's important ethics and humanities are mandatory parts of education. Without them people end up blindly following whatever rules the powers that be have set.

[daveoc64]

>Can I ask you to consider buying your ebooks from a better vendor? Kobo is a good choice; they state whether or not a given book is DRM-free or not

Amazon also does state when a book is DRM-free, but you might have missed it as it's not clear.

Kindle Books that are DRM free will show "Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited" in the "Product details" section.

Books with DRM will either not list this if they have the default DRM device limit of 6, or will list a specific number if the book has a specific limit set by the publisher (usually expensive textbooks).

Example of DRM-free book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088P9Q6BB#detailBullets_feature_d...

Example of book with DRM (default limit of 6 devices):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B7NPRY8#detailBullets_feature_d...

Example of book with DRM (publisher-set limit of 3 devices):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UGE1DGA#detailBullets_feature_d...

[mvkel]

Well said. The inherent flaw in anything digital is the inevitable bit rot. 30 years from now, it'll be interesting to see which ancient file formats can still be read by anything.

Or maybe it won't matter by then, because it'll all be accessible in our BrainLib persistent memory chips.

[tsegratis]

How about: you are paying Amazon to lie to you by giving them your money

Or: You are validating Amazons actions by saying if they can do that then i can too. The initial premise of doing is business with them is you saying "They can do that"

I don't think saying "If Amazon can do that..." is a good foundation for ethics

[zaptheimpaler]

Pretty sure everyone agrees with that, even the DRM makers. It's just that in practice there is no way to allow a user to fully own a file, allow sharing that file with a few friends but disallow uploading it to a torrent site and sharing with the whole world. I get HN hates DRM and for good reason but im sympathetic to the problem the ebook distributors are trying to solve. It only takes 1 person uploading a file to the internet to cost the author thousands of sales. Some people say there is no evidence that piracy costs the content creators money which just sounds unbelievable for most content outside of a few mega hits.

[kstrauser]

> Pretty sure everyone agrees with that, even the DRM makers.

You’d think so, but that’s not the case. Here’s an example of a Canadian artists group that wanted “format shifting” to be explicitly illegal: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/10/copyright-collec...

In their opinion, if you buy a book on Nook, then switch to a Kindle, you should be legally required to buy another copy if you want to read it again.

[matwood]

DRM is security theater at this point. It's easy to find any book in any format on the internet. Amazon perpetuates this myth to authors and publishers that without DRM their book will be everywhere for free (which it already is), but all it does it keep them locked to Amazon out of fear.

The problem for the vast majority of authors isn't theft, it's that no one ever discovers their book at all.

[happymellon]

Considering that the DRM is so simple to strip, even from Kindle books, it's not a high bar for anyone even remotely interested in uploading it to a filesharing site.

The DRM is not saving any of these authors sales. I buy books because I want to not because DRM stopped me.

[ssklash]

I disagree that there is a problem to be solved here. If you do not like the reality of digital media and the ability for media to be copied indefinitely, find a different business model, instead of trying to get your preferred restrictions placed on everyone.

The MPAA/RIAA spend millions of lobbying dollars on trying to preserve their business model, to the point where non-US countries are required to follow their self-interested, business-model-preserving rules or be excluded from international trade deals.

If physical booksellers did the same thing, they would be ridiculed into silence by the sheer absurdity. But because it's opaque technical measures, backed by mega-corps, it gets a pass.