Slashdot Mirror
Lose Your Amazon Account and Your Kindle Dies
Mike writes "If you buy a Kindle and some Kindle ebooks from Amazon, be careful of returning items. Amazon decided that one person had returned too many things, so they suspended his Amazon account, which meant that he could no longer buy any Kindle books, and any Kindle subscriptions he's paid for stop working. After some phone calls, Amazon granted him a one-time exception and reactivated his account again." Take this with as much salt as you'd like.
This is just another reason why DRM is not a benefit to the consumer and why consumers should *not* support DRM.
Myth:
If you buy a Kindle, you are locked into Amazon's Kindle store.
Truth:
There are many sources for books that can be read on the Kindle.
Some Free Sites (Public Domain / Creative Commons)
MobileRead.com (look for .mobi books you can download to your computer or download the MobiGuide
and get your books via Whispernet)
Feedbooks.com (books can be downloaded to your computer or if you download their Kindle Guide
you can get your books via Whispernet - they even have a video on how to use the guide)
Manybooks.net (when you download to your computer, look for Kindle format or Mobipocket)
1001Books (download books to your computer or directly from your Kindle browser)
Some Pay Sites
Fictionwise.com (look for .mobi books but NOT Secure Mobipocket books)
BooksonBoard.com (register your Kindle's PID and you can download any .mobi from their Overdrive servers -
to learn more about this see the Visual Kindle Guide wiki)
Baen.com (great site for Sci-Fi books which offers free as well as low cost books)
So your Kindle is still somewhat useful. I would hope that more competition arises and Amazon removes its Kindle services from its e-book services so as to avoid a nasty inevitable anti-trust suit.
My work here is dung.
So you are saying if I buy a lawn mower from Home Depot and then I go in the next day and streak the place and get banned, they should also have the right to re-possess the lawn mower I legally purchased?
How is this any different? He bought a kindle, he bought books for it, then did something totally unrelated Amazon did not like, and they essentially remotely deactivated his device.
This makes me wonder what would happen with my G1 if for some reason I lost access to my Google account. (You basically can't do anything on the phone without being signed in, though you can create a new account from the phone itself.)
I suspect I could just link it to another account and re-sync contacts, calendar, etc. But then there's the question of purchased apps. Are they linked to the phone, to the cellular plan, or to the Google account? It's something I hadn't thought about before.
Sw-indle?
He clearly states that he regularly returns big ticket items because they're 'defective'. I know a number of people that utilize this same exploit on a regular basis. They only shop at places with excellent return policies. They order big ticket items and when they realize they maxxed their CC or decide the novelty has worn off, they return them because suddenly they notice a defect. Most of the time this defect was either imaginary or simply the result of several days/weeks of playtime.
As this becomes a hit to company profits, they will have to be much more careful on returns....making it much harder on those of us with valid returns. Too bad they reinstated his account.
register your Kindle's PID
How do you find your Kindle's PID when Amazon makes sites delete information about KindlePID?
If your account is flagged for returning shit, you're just dumb. Don't buy crap and then return it and expect to stay in a company's good graces for long. I think I speak for all people who ever retail when I say this to people who return more than 1 item every 6 months: Eat Shit And Die. You wouldn't abuse your friends and family like that, so why harrass stores and their employees, even if they're owned/employed by a soulless corperation. Something like 15% of items are returned (dollar amount perhaps), which significantly cuts into profits and drives up prices for everyone else. Fuck You.
/rant off.
i would kill myself before working retail again.
moox. for a new generation.
He returned items to Amazon.
Amazon banned his Amazon account.
The Kindle is tied to an Amazon account. If the Amazon account to which the Kindle is tied is banned, then you lose all download access to Amazon, including the ability to download the books you have already purchased.
Basically, the guy claims to have returned only defective items - none related to the Kindle - to Amazon. They banned his Amazon account, which also happened to cripple his Kindle.
Any device which comes with this much DRM should be prefixed with "i".
I believe they suspended his Amazon account because he had returned several purchases made on Amazon.com, not because he wanted to return eBooks. Since his Amazon account also serves as his Kindle account, he was then locked out of purchasing books for his Kindle.
Poor policy on their part but if you are really worried about this you could always just set up a separate account for your Kindle. If you never use it to make regular purchases I don't think you would ever have to touch it except to update your payment information when necessary.
To me this demonstrates the tradeoff between the convenience and concepts of 'property' issues that emerge when content is moved from a real-world media (book) to a digital one. Where in this transition is it implied that the original content creator has the right to demand how the product is to be used? If I buy a [real] book from Amazon, am I to expect that if Amazon cancels my account--for a legitimate reason or not--they have the right to come to my house and take back all the books I've bought (or been gifted by friends/family) from them? That word "unacceptable" is not near forceful enough to express how wrong that is. But somehow if I buy an e-book for the Kindle, suddenly that same exact behavior is greeted with, eh, whatever, it's just DRM.
My parents actually ordered me a Kindle for a graduation present, but fortunately it had not arrived in time for them to give it to me at graduation. I had them cancel the order. (They got me an iPod Touch instead.) There's no way in hell I'm willing to accept ridiculous levels of DRM for the benefit of being able to read a book on an electronic device. BOOKS ARE CHEAP and they do not NEED an electronic delivery mechanism! I don't quite understand why on earth a product like the Kindle needs to exist.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Saying the relationship is voluntary is meaningless. I buy a lot of stuff from Target. If the manager follows me out into the parking lot, claims that I've been returning too much, then snatches my purchases out of my hands and runs back into the store, it's not enough to say "Oh well, if they do it to enough people, people just won't shop there anymore.". No, in this case a customer's rights are clearly being violated and action beyond market forces needs to be taken.
I can completely understand cutting him off and not selling to him anymore. Disabling his previous purchases crosses the line though.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
If there was any one still believing that any media that includes DRM is anything but a rental, take note. This should be even more fear inducing as this isn't an issue over a 3 or 4 year old game, this is just a customer that the seller decided they didn't like anymore.
Because there are sharp sawblades, knives, chisels, and all kinds of other genital-unfriendlies in the Tool Department!
coding is life
Like takedown notices have ever stopped information from getting out, before..
But Amazon's attempt to cover up KindlePID does signal Amazon's intent that owners of Kindle devices not buy DRM works from other providers.
I'm using Amazon EC2 and S3, and I've specifically separated the amazon 'buy-books' account from the 'do-web-stuff' account. It's annoying, but worth the possible issues when something happens with one or the other service so that it doesn't bleed over. I can see Amazon using leverage from one side on the other. Same with Gmail and Google AppEngine, since I use my Gmail account to store stuff.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
The title of this article is very misleading. If your amazon account is cut-off your kindle would not die.
What would happen is that you wouldn't be able to access the newsfeeds and you wouldn't be able to redownload books you've purchased from amazon.
You would still be able to ...
Read any amazon books still on your kindle or that you've backed up to your computer.
Read any non-DRM books (I've read as many DRM free books on my kindle as I have DRM books bought from amazon).
So, that's a long way from your kindle dieing.
If you're talking about periodicals or school textbooks then e-book readers make sense to me, but if you're purchasing a piece of literature that you're going to keep beyond next week, then I think e-books are more trouble than they're worth, especially if someone can arbitrarily decide that you shouldn't be allowed access to something you've already paid for, regardless of whether the person mentioned "should have made backup copies". I'd feel less strongly about this if there was no DRM involved, but as is, I say "no way".
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I think having the ad for the device on a page that generates negative press for the item would almost certainly generate more click-through traffic than a random ad would on the same page.
Even if it didn't result in a sale of the advertised item, it is still traffic to the seller where the result might be sale of a different item.
e.g. Kindle sucks, but I go to read Amazon's kindle spiel, since I see the ad right there, but then decide to buy the latest Star Wars/Harry Potter/whatever book since I was going to anyway and now I just happen to be on Amazon. Win for Amazon (as seller), win for Google (as referer).
My desire for a Kindle just dropped from "It's really cool and I am going to eventually have one!" to zero.
The main reason I have not cared for e-books is that I want ownership - I want to keep my books. Until now, I assumed I would with a Kindle, obviously not.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Guess what? You can do exactly the same with the Kindle.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Banning false descriptions is neither anti-business nor unfair.
In fact, there is precedence for this. The FDA is constantly regulating what words can be used where - as a result, Kraft Singles are referred to as "Cheese Product", not "Cheese". Cocoa Puffs are not "Chocolate", they are "Chocolate flavored". Pop Tarts are "Made with Smucker's RealFruit (TM)". Of course, the terms are close enough to still be deceptive, but they enough to make people who look carefully think twice.
Open to the public is not the proper definition. This would put most businesses in the category and that is not the case. Case law on this mainly surrounds private shopping centers. There is a narrow standard that SCOTUS defined. Each state may widen that standard based on their own constitution. A business in a center is still free to restrict access for any reason unless state laws provide protected classes or specific prohibitions.
...but those same businesses must not advertise or serve to the public, they loose rights to limited liability, and many tax breaks / incentives.
That statement is incorrect. Stop playing an armchair lawyer, you are bad at it.
Slashdot - The great and glorious cluster fuck of Internet wisdom.
I'm unclear how the existence of non-existence of DRM on the Kindle makes any difference in this case. He can't buy from the Amazon store. Okay. If Amazon only sold un-DRMed ebooks, then he still wouldn't be able to buy from the store. Further, the Kindle doesn't just display books purchased from Amazon. Any non-DRM ebook can be read on the Kindle. Further, he says that he can still read his purchased books on his Kindle. The main thing I dislike about the situation is the fact that he can't move his DRMed books off of the Kindle (say, in a few years when he wants a new ebook reader).
From the slashdot summary: "and any Kindle subscriptions he's paid for stop working." Where does it say that in the article? (Or is the Slashdot submitter's dislike of DRM causing him to interpret this as another "bad DRM" story?)
sure, it kills tress, but it's MINE ALL MINE BABEEE!!!
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Clearly this hasn't been Amazon's best week. They've really put their foot into it twice already, and the week ain't even over yet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hanlin:
USB 1.1
large PDF files don't work
limited font sizes compared to Sony, iRex and Amazon.
takes 4 seconds to turn pages for jpeg mode, more for pdf mode.
doesn't support mobibook (no big loss IMO)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
1. The Kindle books will still work if you make your own backups.
2. The books on my Kindle do not have any DRM at all.
So, you don't have any point.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
No, you're wrong. I own a Kindle 2, and I copy books to it via USB with the wireless totally disabled.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
After reading that post and subsequent comments including the Amazon letter he received, there is no question in my mind: Amazon is guilty of theft.
The facts are these: He returned some items (that were not books or e-books) and had his account banned. Along with his purchase account, his Kindle account was also banned. If that meant he could continue using the books he already had, fine. But because of DRM, he cannot access the books he already purchased!
Ian says:
By making legitimately purchased information unavailable to him, Amazon is stealing (this is traditional theft -- taking something away from someone without the person's permission). If you do not agree with this, consider this scenario: Barnes & Noble is dissatisfied with your behaviour as a customer, so they ban you from all of their stores. And then they come to your house and take away all the books in your library because they claim you no longer have a right to access them.
Be very afraid of the cloud. Companies will be able to do anything they want with your information.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
So this is like Home Depot sells you a faulty lawnmower, and replaces it with a string of other faulty lawnmowers, then bans you from the entire store because you bothered them too much with returns.