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Jeff Bezos Offers Apology For Erasing 1984
levicivita writes "From the down-but-not-out NYT comes an article (warning: login may be required) about user backlash against Kindle's embedded DRM: 'Last week, Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, offered an apparently heartfelt and anguished mea culpa to customers whose digital editions of George Orwell's "1984" were remotely deleted from their Kindle reading devices. Though copies of the books were sold by a bookseller that did not have legal rights to the novel, Mr. Bezos wrote on a company forum that Amazon's "'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles."' Bezos's post is here."
If there were no DRM on the Kindle, all the users complaining about their copy of 1984 being deleted wouldn't have ever had a copy of 1984 on there in the first place. The choice is not between "content with DRM" and "content with no DRM", but "content with DRM" and "less content with no DRM". DRM allowed (and still allows) the users to have books on their devices, as it allows rights-holders to feel secure that their works are protected. It'd be great to have no DRM anywhere, but until the rights holders appreciate that, if you want decent content, you're going to have to have DRM.
If you didn't think it was fair, you should have kept your wallet closed.
'market value' is set by transactions, full stop.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.