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Kobo Customers Losing Books From Their Libraries After Software Upgrade (teleread.com)
Reader Robotech_Master writes: After a recent Kobo software upgrade, a number of Kobo customers have reported losing e-books from their libraries -- notably, e-books that had been transferred to Kobo from their Sony Reader libraries when Sony left the consumer e-book business. One customer reported missing 460 e-books, and the only way to get them back in her library would be to search and re-add them one at a time! Customers who downloaded their e-books and illegally broke the DRM don't have this problem, of course.From the report: A Kobo representative actually chimed in on the thread, telling MobileRead users that they were following the thread and trying to fix the glitches that had been caused by the recent software changes and restore customers' e-books. It's good that they're paying attention, and that's definitely better than my first go-round with Barnes and Noble support over my own missing e-book. Hopefully they'll get it sorted out soon. That being said, this drives home yet again the point that publisher-imposed DRM has made and is making continued maintenance of e-book libraries from commercial providers a big old mess. About the only way you can be sure you can retain the e-books you pay for is to outright break the law and crack the DRM in order to be able to back them up against your company going out of business and losing the purchases you paid for.
who would buy proprietary technology and drm 'protected' content, and voluntarily be at the mercy of decisions and mistakes of owners?
born idiots!
they deserve the suffering they get !
The publishers were really lucky this time that the bug only deleted books. It could have been far worse. You couldn't have imagined the losses for the publishers if the bug for example would have allowed the normal sheeple customers to circumvent the intellectual property protection mechanisms. That would have been really bad.
</sarcasm>
Ah yes, the old BTO vulnerability... where pirated versions are Better Than Original.
Said nobody ever. This is why I didn't buy many ebooks until I could strip the DRM. First thing I do is strip the DRM and save a copy to an external drive. Then I put that copy on any device I want to use without having to ask permission. Usually my phone. And it doesn't matter if the company that published the content goes under and stops validating my purchases.
Who the fuck is Kobo?
The books probably referenced unpersons.
Funny how all this DRM actually motivates people to 'piracy' (== unauthorized copying of an electronic file). We all saw this coming ten years ago, but apparently the public happily swallowed the whole thing, fish-hook and all.
Why the fuck would I ever "buy" a digital copy of something. It is not a purchase of an item, but of a limited license, which can be revoked at any time if corporate problems arise with the controller. As in this very case, and others, as various 'digital retailers' go belly-up.
Anyone 'purchasing' anything by digital download/access, with a DRM restriction, is really only purchasing a limited license of use, and nothing more. By doing so, you have given up your rights under the Doctrine of First Sale. That is, when you're done, you can't loan it to a friend, sell it, or even give it away.
Buy real books. et cetera.
Thing is, there actually are people who choose their reading based on content, not on what format the content comes in. If I want or need a book that's only available electronically with DRM, I surely won't let the digital rights mafia and the restrictions they impose on people keep me from reading what I want or need to read. Stories like the one in TFA simply confirm that my established procedures for downloading purchased e-books and for organizing my electronic library are perfectly appropriate.
Many years ago, there was a law in Germany, and I believe it is still effective, which explicitly allowed people to break the copy protection of a legitimately bought software product (like CD-ROM copy protections or dongle enforcements) if necessary for being able to put that software to its designated use. Unfortunately, as far as I can see there never even was a discussion whether such law should apply to digital content, too, and the current ruling in Germany is, while to make a limited amount of personal copies, e.g. for family and friends, actually is protected by law as a basic consumer's right, it is defined as criminal as soon as copy protection has to be cracked or circumvented to do so...
to put all your data at risk of:
- loosing everything because your Cloud-Provider was hit by a ransomware attack
- loosing everything because your Cloud-Provider was overtaken by another company that gave you a two weeks notice and your were on your three week vacation.
- loosing everything because your Cloud-Provider didn't do backups and now the company is bankrupt and the damage is "Ltd."
- loosing everything because your Cloud-Provider did do backups - even encrypted ones - but forgot to check if the encrypted backup data was decryptable
- having your data mined and analysed by advertisers & three letter agencies
At what point will legislators protect their constituents? We are long past the time when we consumers need to fight back with class-action law suits. Enough is enough.
*** Don't be dull.***
Aside from the Mickey Mouse perpetual extension is somehow limited time plan,
The law protecting Copyright holders is permanent. They don't have to go back to Congress and beg for provisions every 3 years.
The law protecting Fair Use exemptions is temporary. Users have to go beg to the Library of Congress every 3 years.
Is it just me or does it seem that the implementation of the bargain struck in the Constitution is seriously flawed?
Write your Congress critter and ask them how this seems right.
...One customer reported missing 460 e-books, and the only way to get them back in her library would be to search and re-add them one at a time!...
Vendors should make it easy for paying customers to use their product, and not punish those paying customers.
.
It is becoming more and more apparent that the media industry is using DRM to punish its paying customers.
That is just backwards.
This could be solved by a version controlled filesystem. Lose all your music because iTunes sucks? No problem, revert to the previous change. Lose some ebooks? Revert. Wonder if you've lost anything important? Just look through the change history for a given directory.
I keep all my books in physical form, but that is because it is more expensive for me to buy an e-reader and buy books then to just buy the physical book.
My conscience is clear, even if the law technically says I'm doing something wrong.
Depends. In some jurisdiction, this can be grey-zone, or even be considered legal under Fair-Use.
(Most of these jurisdiction are on our (European) side of the Atlantic pond)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
https://xkcd.com/488/
My first ereader was a used Kobo touch. I found I liked it, including that I could just plug it into my Linux workstation at home, and copy stuff on - it *does* run Linux.
Eventually, it started freezing, and I had to power cycle it to get back to reading. So I got myself a Kobo Glo (or whatever the low-end one with a backlit screen is). One week later, after spending several *hours* to read THIRTY OR SO PAGES, I started working on returning it.
Including a support-directed upgrade of the software (which I'd already done), this is what was happening: I'd read 3-5 pages, and suddenly a circle, which I imagine is supposed to be a magnifying glass, suddenly would appear, I couldn't make it go away, and after about 10 sec, it would resize the whole page to about 2 or 3 pt type. I had to go into the menu and resized it. Finally, I went into the options, and set it to not happen - I forget what the option was called), and it a) took several tries to get it to take, and b) I went out, then back in to make sure it was still the setting I wanted (I *am* a programmer and sysadmin), went back to reading... and the SAME THING HAPPENED AGAIN. And again. And again.
So, I called to return it. And got a runaround. I called the next day, asked for a manager, and I'm 95% sure it was "hey, does someone here want to play manager for this customer?") and was asked to send some info, which I did. And heard nothing, A third call, and asked for a mand was told sure, I would hear from someone, probably by Tuesday (this was a Friday). Tuesday came, and that evening I called again, and was given a runaround. Clearly, they did *not* want to accept a return.
Finally, on that Thursday - this is 6 days now - I took a break from work, and called, and demanded a manager, and "they're all in a meeting"; at this point I started talking about contacting the Better Business Bureau, and snail-mailing the head of the company, and talking to my lawyer. She gave in at last. Took some info, told me she was forwarding it to the department that dealt with returns for *cash*, as opposed to replacement, and I'd hear in an hour or two. It did, in fact, happen in about 1.5 hrs. I finally got my refund.
I tried for a while to find the email for their CTO, because he has *FAILED* in his asserted job of "bringing the best technology". Given what happened with the options, if was clear that the turkeys, probably Hot Stuff Just Out Of College, NEVER CHECKED to see if the option was set or unset before performing the action.
I won't buy Kobo again, not with serious bugs in the code, which seriously my ability to use the thing, and with the vehement "we will do anything but give you a refund" attitude.
And I *REALLY* hope someone here does have an email, and forwards this to them.
mark
For casual reads, it equally doesn't matter if the paper book spine falls apart, or if the service eventually goes out of bussiness. For something you are planning to keep in family library and read to your grandchildren - buy an actual hardcover book.