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Remote Kill Flags Surface In Kindle
PL/SQL Guy writes "The Kindle has a number of 'remote kill' flags built in to the hardware that, among other things, allow the text-to-speech function to be disabled at any time on a book-by-book basis. 'Beginning yesterday, Random House Publishers began to disable text-to-speech remotely. The TTS function has apparently been remotely disabled in over 40 works so far.' But what no one at Amazon will discuss is what other flags are lurking in the Kindle format: is there a 'read only once' flag? A 'no turning the pages backwards' flag?"
Sometimes I wish Slashdot had a "baseless speculation" flag.
The article doesn't talk about the Kindle's other technological back doors at all, so colour me disappointed.
Still, as a parent of an autistic child, I know how valuable the TTS function can be in our computer programs. As an author, I'm saddened that Amazon's rolled over on this for the publishers' and Author's Guild panic. TTS is not the same as an audiobook performance, nor does it have that possibility any time soon.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
I pre-ordered a Kindle DX. Thanks to the information in this article I have changed my mind and I'm now canceling my order. I would be stupid to pay $500 for a device that can be remotely crippled, when cheaper ebook readers give me full control. What was I thinking?
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
(the Kindle could automatically correct errors in books as they are found).
Yeah, especially the inconvenient ones in history books.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You don't think that having functionality removed from something you've bought, after the fact, is a problem?
This is a law suit waiting to happen if there is no disclosure that the books will have these "flags" at the time of purchase.
Big fucking deal. If history is any guide, the affected consumers will get a credit for $0.99 off their next purchase from Amazon while the law firm who initiated the lawsuit will walk away with millions. Amazon will just write it off as a cost of doing business and go right on screwing their customers, albeit this time with a disclaimer about the DRM flags clearly displayed in a 2pt font.
Call me cynical.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No shit.
I have not bought a Kindle. This nutter thinks that newspapers could "save" by distributing over Kindle instead of on paper.
Guy down later in the forum has it exactly right. You can't put a Kindle in your waiting room. If your "copy" of the paper is on a Kindle, you can't read the sports page while someone else has the world section or the comics. You can't hand "your copy" of the paper to someone else, or leave it behind once you're done with it if it's on a Kindle (something I do regularly - hey, I don't know the next person coming by, but I imagine they might want to read something too).
Hell, if it's on a Kindle, we lose yesterday's newspaper - so how will we wrap today's fish?
In all seriousness, that's the problem with DRM. It's never about "protecting copyright." It's always about some more nefarious purpose, like destroying the doctrine of first sale. Remember how $ony patented a method to have video games "signed" by the first console they were put in, and subsequently refuse to run on any other console? That was just one of them.
Oh, give me a break. It has little to do with working better and more to do with people not having to pay for stuff and little chance of getting caught or punished. Copyright laws may be flawed, but they are not completely unjust. The people who use things without paying their fair share are the unjust ones...not rebels against an unfair law.
And I find it a bit ironic you trust pirates of all people to deliver you a product free of root kits and trojans.
I don't totally disagree with you, though. We do give the middle man too much and the artist too little. But pirating gives the artist less.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
AFAIK Amazon clearly wants to have text-to-speech enabled for all books. It's the publishers (and their threat to remove works if speech is enabled) you should be mad at. Amazon is trying their damnedest to make a compelling ebook product, and like Apple with iTunes, trying to drag the publisher's kicking and screaming onto the internet.
Like music, I expect once the market is there, people will demand the functionality (or pirate for it, or sue for it) and it will become commonplace.
If Amazon took a high and mighty moral stand, they would just be killing the market (and their own business opportunity) and letting another eBook maker who WILL compromise their morals take over the market.
At least we know Amazon is trying to open things up as much as they can.
And I find it a bit ironic you trust pirates of all people to deliver you a product free of root kits and trojans.
Like Securom or Sony's crap? Yeah, I trust the pirates more than the original.
If you're really worried, look at the feedback for the torrent. Or look for names of groups who pride themselves on the quality of their cracks. There's an entire subculture based on that.
And if the whole release is a .avi, there's not much to talk about anyway.
AFAIK Amazon clearly wants to have text-to-speech enabled for all books. It's the publishers (and their threat to remove works if speech is enabled) you should be mad at.
If Amazon wants us to direct our ire towards the publishers, then they should have come clean about these flags before selling the Kindle. Except, wait... then it would have flopped, and hard. Instead, they pulled a bait and switch fraud on their customers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"may have a clause in his contract saying he cannot accept money directly for his music."
Or maybe because he has some integrity?
I know when I was a performing musician, we could buy extremely discounted albums from our label, but it was considered by most to be slimy to go to the local duplicator and get a thousand or two printed up for your tour. Yet, some thought they could be a little cheaper by doing so.
It also means that everyone that worked on the album and were not paid outright get screwed...often times, if you only pay the artist, folks like the songwriters and the producer and even the little guys that did something for substandard pay because they believed the work was good and would eventually get paid for it -- those folks get nothing when you send them the money directly.
Honestly, this would be like stealing a Mac and sending Steve Jobs a check for the price of the machine...he is the one with his name out front, but it takes a LOT of work to bring something to market and with rare exceptions, it is not a one man show.
Doesn't really seem possible. If they are wrong then that is the last thing that history will judge them as. If they are right then history won't remember them at all.
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If I choose to obtain a digital copy of a work I would never pay for, I am not actually depriving the creator of anything. It doesn't matter why I would choose not to pay. It might be because I am cheap, poor or lazy. It might be because I find something about the creator or publisher to be morally objectionable (like say, abuse of copyright). As such, I find no moral objection to obtaining an illegal copy, often made illegal through a law I find morally objectionable.
You don't think that having functionality removed from something you've bought, after the fact, is a problem?
This is the big issue for me.
Say I'm shopping for a new toaster. There's all sorts of toasters on the market, lots of good models to choose from. Ultimately I decide to buy one specifically because it has a built-in bagel slicer... But not just any bagel slicer - it's some kind of high-powered laser bagel slicer.
But, after I buy the thing, lawsuits start cropping up. Kids are sticking their fingers in the thing and getting them sliced off. Traditionally manufacturers have done a recall if something like this happened... Or issued a warning... Or designed new packaging that indicates it isn't kid-safe... Or redesigned the product so that kids can't stick their fingers in it...
Not anymore though. These days they'd just send the kill signal and disable the laser bagel slicer. Suddenly my toaster, which I bought specifically for the bagel slicer, has no bagel slicer.
A key feature that made me buy that product, instead of another, is gone. A feature that may have made one product cost more than another, is gone. A feature that I liked and used, is gone.
I definitely have a problem with that.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
You realize that you lose half of the audience every time you write "M$" or "$ony" in a post right?
I read the internet for the articles.
You think this is funny, but I'm not laughing. Right now, in my mind, amazon is no better than Mr. Soprano.
I bought a bunch of books to use the "text-to-speech" software while driving to work, and now suddenly that's been disabled, which makes those particular books practically worthless to me. Is Amazon going to issue a refund? No, because just like every other media company, they think it's okay to sell goods without warranty. Hell even the lowly food industry says, "We hope you are satisfied with you're candy bar, but if you're not, return unused portion for refund." Only the iuck-lcikers in the rcord companis, game cmpanies, and book sotress think it;s perfectly acceptable to FORCE customers to keep a product they don't want. No returns.
If they go out of business, it will be their own stupid fault due to ignoring that age-old rule, "The customer is (almost) always right." Screw your customer by selling them product as "text-to-speech" and then disable that product, and you've effectively screwed yourself. Customers have a long, long memory. They will not come back for further frakking. Even the most rudimentary business class teaches you this.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I need less people thinking they can freeload off creative works because they rationalize that they "never would have paid for it."
If you won't pay for it, don't take it. It's not rocket science.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Nobody is "offended", rather they look at the post and see a 35 year old with a neckbeard in his mother's basement railing against the machine.
I read the internet for the articles.
It has nothing to do with depriving the creator of anything. It has to do with the creator's rights to have his creations distributed on his terms.
It's not a "natural" right in any way shape or form, it is inherently an unnatural right. You're not depriving the creator of any liberty, you're only going around the purely legal bargain between the people, and content creators, to give them this unnatural "right" with the hopes that in the end it will benefit us more than if we didn't relinquish our own natural right to do whatever we wish with our own possessions.
Since the whole concept behind this bargain is that the copyright will help the creator make money and thus be incentivized to create, but in the case in question the person is most definitely not depriving the creator of any money, where exactly is this moral issue that you're so upset over?
Is it simply that this is the law, and breaking the law is amoral? I certainly don't agree to that, but I will as always agree to have you be the first one subject to the world you wish for, and encourage you to eat a bullet the next time you break any law at all. Since you've certainly already done so willfully, I expect no further posts from you.
The enemies of Democracy are
The entire reason we bought Kindles was the text to speech function. Our school teaches dyslexic kids and any technology that allows these kids to read ANY book, whether or not an audio book version is available, is extremely useful.
Without unlimited text to speech kindles are reduced, from a useful teaching tool, to simply a nifty gadget. Without TTS, there is very little to justify the cost of these over other e-book readers.
Good job Amazon! You've just allowed your book publishers to kill a potentially HUGE market for these things - schools.
-ted
I think he's smoking the Constitution.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
As I stated above, I have no use for marijuana. I don't care one way or the other if marijuana is legalized. All I care is that people are not allowed to drive or operate machinery under the influence of it. After that I don't care.
Our problem is that so many other people care enough that they will smoke the stuff without your permission, or my permission, or the State's permission, or the Federal Government's permission. Regardless of how you and I feel about it, THEY feel it is unjust, and by sheer force of numbers (that is what counts in a Republic, right?) THEY are correct! The law is unjust.
Same applies to illegal downloads. You and I may not like them. It doesn't matter. Enough other people have a different opinion, and by sheer force of numbers they are correct!
We have always been at war with Eurasia!