Widening attention to Kindle DRM problems

[woodjh]

I'm not sure if this has been posted yet (I haven't seen it)...but this is very interesting..

http://www.geardiary.com/2009/06/21/kindlegate-confusion-abounds-regarding-kindle-download-policy/

[Kathy]

Very interesting. I'm getting worried because I have now reached 6 devices on my account, although 2 of them have been sold and are deregistered. I know that you can have them take off the items from your account to free up the 2 slots for new devices, but it is not easily done. I'll just have to wait and see what happens if I add another device to my account.

[koolmnbv]

Gosh at least the final CS rep gave a little light to the situation. It sounds like eventually they will get it figured out. I think by the time most people get to a 6th gen Kindle they will have this sorted away. (I hope)


Also times like this it makes me even more happy to be a member of this board. I think over here we learn and get alot more general knowledge than the average consumer. If one of us here doesn't know the answer or hasn't had that problem before than I don't think anyone could answer/help. 

[Greg Banks]

You are able to redownload your books an unlimited number of times to any specific device.

Any one time the books can be on a finite number of devices. In most cases that means you can have  the same book on six different devices.

Unfortunately the publishers decide how many licenses, that is devices, a book can be on at any one time. While most of the time that will be five or six different devices there will be times when it’s only one device.

At the present time there is no way to know how many devices can be licensed prior to buying the book.

According to the customer rep, there is a project to try to get that information available to the customer but it’s not yet available.

Finally, when you have reached a limit of six devices and you swap one older device for a new one, it does not automatically reset the number of licenses so you can add the new one. Amazon can release all of the licenses which will remove any given book from all of the devices and then allow you to re-download it that same number of times.

This is pretty much what I had decided was the truth, so hopefully now we have the true understanding of the situation.

[angelad]

This is pretty much what I had decided was the truth, so hopefully now we have the true understanding of the situation.

That sounds quite a bit better than what I read earlier.

[Rasputina]

This is crap. If publishers have the right to limit me having a book on only 1 device I should know this before purchasing. At minimum I should be able to have a book on my K and my iphone at the same time. Otherwise whispersync is useless. Plus I want to know which publishers are limiting access this much so I can choose to boycott them or at least write them nasty letters or choose not to bother buying the book.

[ak rain]

it is a real down side of upgrading to that new device - dx or iphone -if I have to think that may be my last copy.
sylvia

[Anju No. 469]

Yes, I want to know the publisher's as well, we can flood them with e-mails and let them find out just how valuable the kindle customer base is.

[MAGreen]

This is why I think that as soon as you decide to remove a device from your account you should call CS and have all the licences removed. That way you don't have licenes tied up on devices you no longer have.

[Neekeebee]

If they are limiting a book to below the usual 5 or 6 downloads, Amazon should make it known prior to purchase.  I can imagine there would be books that people are purchasing on the Kindle just so that two people on the same account can read it on separate Kindles at the same time.  Hubby doesn't have a Kindle, but there are going to be books that we would be willing to pay more for the Kindle version just so that he can read it on his iTouch at the same time.

N

[Rasputina]

These extreme limits are going to cut down on sales of kindles. Notice how many people here posted in the music thread that choose to buy CDs instead of DLing music specifically because they want a hard copy so they don't have to worry about backups or limits. Personally if they don't loosen these restrictions I'll just end up buying more second hand DTBs than I already do. A lot of the time I can get DTB hardbacks for between 1 cent and a couple bucks.

[Carol Hanrahan]

I don't recall Amazon asking me about how many downloads I would allow when I published my works.  Maybe there is a default number?  Greg, maybe you have some insight to this as well?

[mwvickers]

I don't recall Amazon asking me about how many downloads I would allow when I published my works.  Maybe there is a default number?  Greg, maybe you have some insight to this as well?

I hate to say it, but this sounds like another instance of everyone blaming someone else (not you specifically Carol). 

Amazon says the publishers set the limits, but the publishers will probably say they have no idea.  The same happened with pricing, I think.  Both Amazon and publishers blamed each other for who set what prices. 

It gets frustrating after a while.  LOL

[Chad Winters]

Seems strange of Amazon to make it difficult for people to upgrade their Kindle....

[Rasputina]

I hate to say it, but this sounds like another instance of everyone blaming someone else (not you specifically Carol). 

Amazon says the publishers set the limits, but the publishers will probably say they have no idea.  The same happened with pricing, I think.  Both Amazon and publishers blamed each other for who set what prices. 

It gets frustrating after a while.  LOL

If authors here are saying that they weren't asked how many licenses they allow it could be a situation where Amazon doesn't bring it up but the publisher does? I don't know? I'm just guessing that if it was standard to offer a choice on licenses that they would know. Maybe the publishers are saying they won't release books in .amz without the limit? If that is the case I'd like to know.

[Greg Banks]

I don't recall Amazon asking me about how many downloads I would allow when I published my works.  Maybe there is a default number?  Greg, maybe you have some insight to this as well?

I think the point here is that there is a different process and procedure for publishers than us DTPers, which is no different from the difference between how I might upload a book to Amazon through CreateSpace and how a big publisher would get their books on Amazon by entirely different means. In other words, I'm sure the manner in which commercial publishers get their books on Kindle is different than how we Indie Authors do. So it stands to reason that they would have more options and control than we do.

[coyote]

The author of the Gear Diary blog has written a long article about his travails with the Kindle DRM policy, and his attempts to find out what the heck the policy is, anyhow.  He seems to have gotten an answer on how the DRM works, and it's not as bad as I'd originally thought.  (You can have a book on 6 devices at once, but if you uninstall from a device or get rid of a device, you have to call Amazon customer service to manually reset your license count.)

I can't imagine Amazon continuing this as a manual process, especially when there are so many better ways to do things.  Hopefully they'll fix this at some point so that it just works.

This was picked up by Megan McArdle of the Atlantic, as well as Andrew Sullivan.

Dan Cohen of Gear Diary also wrote an Open Letter to Jeff Bezos.  Let's hope it gets some attention.

coyote

[Ann in Arlington]

merging this with previous thread on the topic. . . .

[twist0105]

Does it bother anyone else that the language almost everyone uses for the "what we think we know" description - "5 or 6 devices" - is itself horribly vague? I mean, we're talking about a 17 percent difference here!

[koolmnbv]

Seems strange of Amazon to make it difficult for people to upgrade their Kindle....

I think that is when you will see some real action,answers and changes.

When amazon starts hearing and seeing a decline in their sales because no one can upgrade without losing their current books then Amazon will realize the problem. Right now most people haven't came close to the license limit yet so Amazon hasn't had to address this very much yet.

[Scheherazade]

I heard that all you need to do is make sure the books are removed from the device and then the license is freed.  This may or may not have to be done along with a deregistration of the device.  If it doesn't need to be deregistered and simply removed from the Kindle that would be nice, but I'm not really sure how they would even track the removal if you did it with whispernet off.  And even if whispernet is on, is this something that they constantly ping our devices to check?  Maybe you do need to deregister it if that's the case.

[Ann in Arlington]

As I understand it, the licenses are not freed automatically, even if the device is returned under warranty.  Heather (luvmy4brats) had an issue after having several devices returned.  She had to figure out which books had been on all devices and have Amazon manually release the licenses for the devices that she'd returned as defective in order to free them up for other devices.  The lesson is: do keep track of which books have gone to which device -- I don't think the media library on Amazon necessarily has that information -- so that if the issue arises you can figure it out quickly to have it taken care of. 

I would expect some automation in the process eventually -- I think maybe they didn't figure people would have so many devices potentially sharing, and of course the returned ones are an 'oops, forgot about that' problem.

If WN is not on, and you delete, it shows as gone from the device but until you turn WN on, Amazon doesn't register the deletion.  I think if you deregister, all the content is still there.  I don't believe there is anyway, even via WN, for Amazon to 'inventory' a device and see what it's content is and does that match the library it's registered to.

[rho]

As I understand it, the licenses are not freed automatically, even if the device is returned under warranty.  Heather (luvmy4brats) had an issue after having several devices returned.  She had to figure out which books had been on all devices and have Amazon manually release the licenses for the devices that she'd returned as defective in order to free them up for other devices.  The lesson is: do keep track of which books have gone to which device -- I don't think the media library on Amazon necessarily has that information -- so that if the issue arises you can figure it out quickly to have it taken care of. 

I would expect some automation in the process eventually -- I think maybe they didn't figure people would have so many devices potentially sharing, and of course the returned ones are an 'oops, forgot about that' problem.

that is what I am thinking too - that eventually you will go to your digital library and it will show what books are on what devices so they will be able to free up your license on say Athena when I get rid of her - maybe a way that when I deregister Athena all her licenses are then freed up - and the books are automatically deleted from her somehow...... I'm sure it can be done - they have geniuses working there after all

[MAGreen]

Deleting it from your Kindle does nothing about the licence. You can still re-download it any time because it is still licenced to that device. The only way to release the licence is to call CS and have them do it by title. I suppose you could give only a partal list of the titles on a device and free up just some of them, but I think Amazon only wants it done for devices no longer in use or transfering hands.