Buying Amazon Kindle books? Amazon may take books you "purchased" away from you. (backup) From the article, "As one of my readers noted, it's like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we've been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table."

Amazon can take your books away from you. In the future more and more books will be published in online form only, and if they all have DRM systems like Amazons, a book can be unpublished. It's as if you never had it. You can learn about the dangers of a society where history can be rewritten in this way in Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. But don't look for it on your Kindle, since that's one of the books that was unpublished.

Amazon claims the books were never legal in the first place. They were essentially digital bootlegs. However, if Barnes & Noble were sloppy and accidentally sold bootleg books to customers, they would have no right to break into your home and take them back.

If you purchase something locked with DRM, you don't actually own it.* You have a license to access it. That license can be revoked for a variety of reasons, all out of your control.

* To be clear, if you buy a random book off the shelf at Barnes & Noble, you legally own that specific copy. You do not receive, nor do you need a license to read it, lend it out, resell it, quote from it, or use it as bird cage liner. Copyright law limits your right to make copies, it does not eliminate ownership.

(2009-07-24: Typo fix.)

It's been a while since we last heard about legal customers being screwed by DRM, but Amazon and Microsoft have stepped up to the plate to help.

Turns out that Amazon's Kindle ebooks will lock you out after you replace your Kindle a few times. Exactly how many times you're allowed to replace your Kindle is a secret, and varies from book to book. A book could be locked to a single Kindle. But if you get onto the Kindle train, eventually you'll upgrade and one or more of your books will no longer be available to you.

Microsoft won't stand to be outdone. Microsoft has gone further and taken paid for music away from a customer. Microsoft lost the license to distribute some music and reached out to destroy copies on their customers devices. This particular user had "purchased" $100 of music. Now it's gone. Microsoft didn't even give him a refund, although presumably he doesn't want $100, he wants the music he paid for.

In both cases we are reminded: if you download an illegal copy from the internet, not only is it free of charge, but it's free of these encumbrances. That HTML copy of a book from Usenet, or that MP3 from P2P will continue working just fine. This is the DRM model: offer you crippled goods are a higher price. I'm in favor of copyright and paying creators, but I'm also in favor of not kicking the customers in the face.

Who is hatin' on the Kindle? Me.

Actually, none of this is Kindle specific. It just gets singled out as the most successful ebook reader.

So, what's wrong with ebook readers?

1. Electronic ink isn't here yet. It's damn good. The first time I saw an e-ink reader, I thought I was seeing a fake screen display. Discovering it was a live display was mind blowing. Essentially zero power. It's not quite as easy to read as paper, but it's so close that I'm okay with it. It's not color, but color is overrated. Only the minority of my wall of books are color inside. So that's fine. But the flicker, egad is that bad. Every electronic ink screen requires a full screen wipe, black, then white, to change its display. Failure to do so leads to ghost images being left being. The wipe is jarring, and relatively slow. The best defense I've heard is "you get used to it" and "you learn to plan ahead." That's not evidence that e-ink is ready. Those are coping mechanisms for something that isn't ready. And it's not good enough if I need to pop back to re-read the start of a sentence. (The color and wipe problems are solved by other display types, but those types chew up power and don't read as well as paper. e-ink is the most promising option right now.) I believe this will be fixed, but we're not there yet.

2. DRM. Sure, I limit myself to DRM-free works, but where am I getting my mass market books legally? If I'm stuck with only a subset of published works, ebooks clearly aren't ready. If I want mass market works, I'm buying DRM encumbered works. Many books cannot be borrowed from the library because of publisher restrictions. I'm not aware of any book DRM system that lets me loan a book to a friend without loaning my entire library. I'm not aware of any book DRM system that lets me sell a book I no longer want. I'm unlikely to be able to will my "library" to someone else. If an ebook provider goes under, I may lose access to chunks of bought and paid for library. If I jump from ebook reader to ebook reader, I'm going to lose access to some of my purchased works. Maybe book publishers will get the hell over it, like music publishers got over DRM on music, but we're not there yet. (Props to Baen for already being here. Everything they sell (and give away!) is DRM free.)

ebook readers are the future. I look forward to it. But the future isn't ready yet. Kindle buyers are early adopters, and early adopters occasionally get burned. Call me when this isn't such a mess, and I'll be first in line to buy an ebook reader. Maybe even the Kindle 8.

Added February 12, 2009:

The Ars Technica article on ebooks rang very true to me.

While I still hold that current e-ink technology requires a number of crappy coping mechanisms, the reality is that if we can solve the content/DRM issue, I'd probably learn to cope for the benefits. On the up side, looking at the video demonstration of the Kindle 2 it looks like the page change speed is actually fast enough from me, but the flash remains really annoying. So, progress is being made.

Also, being able to use my Palm or iPhone makes a compelling argument. Neither has the battery life, but both have good enough displays and I'm already carrying them around. Having my library, or at least a big chunk of it, always available would be a huge win.

Finally, something I forgot: publishers need to get past exact page layouts for text-heavy books. If I'm going to read the exact same ebook on my iPhone, my Palm, my laptop, and the Kindle, it needs to flow differently for each platform. In particular, this means PDFs and anything else with a page oriented model is full of fail. I've read PDFs on my Palm (props to the most excellent PalmPDF), and the experience is painful. Smaller screens require narrower columns and need to give up on floating images beside text. Fixed width not only causes problems for small screens by being too wide; it can also be too small, reducing the text per screen in a clumsy and inevitably failed attempt at beauty. I need to be able to adjust the text size, trading off between eyestrain and text-per-screen. Multiple columns are a terrible idea unless I can see the entire column; anything that makes me scroll upwards to see later text fails instantly. Go simple. HTML with CSS is plenty good enough, and portable to boot.

(I replaced "eink" with "e-ink" to be more clear.)

(2009-03-04: Fixed link to Ars Technica)

This is an old one, but I somehow missed it.

Sony shut down thier music store last March, and any music tracks you purchased from them can no longer be moved between machines.

The current tally of companies to screw their customers over by shutting down DRM authentication services servers is Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Major League Baseball, Google, and Yahoo.

If you can't trust these major corporations, who can you trust? Authenticated DRM will screw you eventually, it's only a matter of when.

In screwing their customers over, Wal-Mart joins an illustrious club, including Microsoft, Major League Baseball, Google, and Yahoo.

When you "buy" activation locked content, you will eventually lose access to it. Maybe the company will go bankrupt and no buyers will want to assume that liability. Maybe the company will switch to a new DRM system, meaning the old activation servers are simply an expense with no matching income. Maybe Microsoft Windows 2012 will be released, and updating the DRM to still work will cost too much. Whatever the reason, it's when, not if. Companies that promise long term access are either lying or clueless.

(Thanks to Brian De Smet for sending me the link.)

Did you legally buy music online from Yahoo? At the end of September, you won't be able to move it between machines anymore. You've lost control of the music you "purchased."

In screwing their customers over, Yahoo joins an illustrious club, including Microsoft, Major League Baseball, and Google.

When you "buy" activation locked content, you will eventually lose access to it. The question is when, not if. Companies that promise long term access are either lying or clueless.

Bioshock has unacceptable DRM. If the publisher ever folds, or decides to stop supporting the authentication servers, the game will lock up and never legally work again. They promised they would eventually remove it. They have now admitted that they lied. The authentication system will be in place forever. They now claim that if they stop supporting Bioshock, they'll remove it. Riiight. They're going to stop supporting and making money on a game, but they'll spend a bit more to unlock it?

As is usually the case, if you pay for a legal copy of something with DRM, you get crippled functionality. If you download an illegal copy, you get full functionality.

I previously mentioned that when Microsoft sold the world music that would "Play For Sure," they lied. It's two years later and it's about time to finish the betrayal. In a few months those PlaysForSure songs you have won't work on any new computers you get.

Of course Microsoft now has the Zune store to replace PlaysForSure. And you can trust Microsoft to not screw you this time, right?

On Vista, however, you get this error when you try and look at the stack for threads in the System process:

[Unable to access thread]

The System process is a special type of process on Vista called a “protected process” that doesn’t allow any access to its threads or memory. Protected processes were introduced to support Digital Rights Management (DRM) so that hi-definition content providers can store content encryption keys with a reduced risk of an administrative user using DRM-stripping tools to reach into the process and read the keys.

While this is nothing new, let's be perfectly clear what he said: An administrator, trying to fix a problem on an operating system he paid for, is being locked out of functionality that would make his job easier. This lockout is new functionality for Windows, they had to spend money to add it and test it. This sort of functionality makes Windows bigger. Any time you make software bigger, it provides more possibilities for bugs to creep in. So the administrator paid more for Windows and got less functionality. This is to please "content providers" who didn't pay for the damn software. This is what DRM is about: less functional and more expensive hardware and software. DRM is Digital Restrictions Management, and it's Defective By Design.

(backup link to the Russinovich article.)

(2008-04-08: perfect to perfectly)

So you buy some online content for your Xbox 360. It works great in your account (the online one), and it works great when you kids use their accounts (which aren't online). All is well. Then, because the hardware is famously flaky, it dies. You send it in for waranty repairs. It comes back, you re-download the content. All is well. Except, your kids can't play the content anymore. Oh, and when your internet access is down, you can't play it either. When you contact Microsoft, they give you the runaround, and only after several months admit they can't help you. But maybe they'll fix it sometime this year. Yet again, DRM screws honest customers.

DRM means the things you paid for can be taken away from you. Microsoft did it before with music, Google did it, Circuit City did it, and Major League Baseball did it. Anyone who promises that DRM won't be a problem in the future is ignorant or lying. DRM that only stops bad guys but doesn't hurt honest users is a fairy tale.

Apparently if you upgrade your computer monitor, the Netflix/Microsoft DRM could lock you out of other DRMed media you've purchased. Showing that yet again, if you get an illegal copy off the internet, it will work great, but if you try to stay legal you'll be treated like a criminal and have endless problems.

DRM means the things you paid for can be taken away from you. As previously covered, Microsoft did it, Google did it, and Circuit City did it.

Now Major League Baseball did it. Hundreds of dollars of purchased videos? Suddenly useless.

"Buy" DRM locked content at your own risk.

(Update 2008-05-22: Fixed link to Major League Baseball screw job.)

Some pro-DRM people figure that all of the worries are just whiners. After all, if they "buy" lifetme access to a video from a big company, say, Google, there is no realistic risk that they'll lose access to the thing they bought. Except when Google decided to shut down the program. Sure, you'll get a refund but you didn't want a refund, you wanted the product you thought you bought. Furthermore, it's not a real refund, instead you're getting credit on Google's online payment system. Like Divx (the DVD competitor, not the video compression format), people had only "bought" lifetime access to sometime suddenly discover that lifetime actually means "until the provider decides to stop supporting it."

DRM and closed standards put you at the mercy of your provider. Google screwed their customers. Microsoft screwed their customers.

So I purchased Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened online. In doing so, I'm supporting small game companies, as the game isn't, as available at retail. I did so without the benefit of the demo, buying blind. I paid $30, more than I'll usually pay for a small game. I'm going out on a limb here, trusting a company I really know nothing about. And what do I get in exchange for my trust? A fresh Starforce infection. Installing a game shouldn't necessitate installing a device driver (potentially making my system less stable, as with any driver), and rebooting. I trusted you, Focus and Frogwares, and in exchange you treat me like a criminal who needs a tracking bracelet; a tracking bracelet that occasionally malfunctions and fucks up my computer. For bonus fun, I only get to "activate" the game three times. So if I reinstall it a few times, it will stop working. Worse, if Focus goes out of business (which seems likely, given that they're a company I've never heard of and who hold their customers in such low resolve), the authentication system will simply stop working. I regularly reinstall old games I've enjoyed, but that's not likely to be an option for this game. I'll keep this in mind in the future: Frogwares and Focus don't trust their customers, infects their games with malware developed by unethical Russians who encourage illegal copying of games. I sure as hell don't trust them. (Edit: It's Frogwares, not Frogware)

My girlfriend subscribes to NetFlix. NetFlix now offers a video-on-demand option that's pretty cool. You get an hour of streaming video for each dollar you pay for your subscription. So we finally give it a try.

Oops, doesn't work on a Mac, my girlfriends primary computer.

Doesn't work on Linux, my primary media center.

Right, I happen to keep a single working Windows box in the apartment solely for playing games. It's connected to the TV so my girlfriend and I can play Lucasarts adventure games from the sofa. It's not as elegant or convenient, and the PC is really loud, but it should work.

My girlfriend adds me as another profile to her NetFlix account. Profiles let multiple people share an account, so parents might give their kids one and let the kids have one of their three slots. My girlfriend sets it to 0 disks for me, since I don't need that. We're using a profile should mean I can stream video without her password.

Oops, no video streaming for profiles.

Okay, great. So we log in as her and try again.

Looks like I need to download and install their software. Fine. I try to install and...

Denied; I need Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. Except I've got the automatic updater running and I install updates as they arrive. Shouldn't I already be at SP2? Indeed, when I visit Microsoft's site, it says I'm running SP2. Still, Windows tells me I'm missing a few updates despite having the automatic updater running, so I install then, necessitating a reboot. Rebooted, I try again.

Denied. I still need SP2. Fine. I download the entire SP2 package and run it. I enjoy another reboot. Rebooted I try again.

Things look promising. The software installs. Back to the Netflix site, I try to watch some video. The video screen appears; it downloads, and then a dialog box pops up, asking about installing some security stuff. Erm, okay... I click "learn more" and nothing happens. Whatever. I agree.

I try again. The video screen appears; it downloads, and... nothing. Just a black window.

Maybe I need to restart after updating the mysterious whatever I just updated. I do so and try again. Video screen, downloading, and... an error message.

Okay, I search NetFlix's help section for the error message. No clues. I search Google and I find a single mention that doesn't appear helpful or promising.

well, I call up NetFlix's 1-888 number, which is staffed 24-hours. I appreciate that. I'm put on hold for about 10 minutes. Grrr. When I do reach a customer support representative, the experience is positive. She's fluent in English and easy to understand. She immediately checks "the database" and tells me the error message I just saw. I must give them this, they've got good support. The rep says I need to install Windows Media Player 11. I agree to give it a try.

My first thought is, isn't WMP part of Windows? Why didn't it upgrade as part of SP2? I launch WMP, and sure enough I'm running 10, which SP2 did just install. I visit the website the rep told me, download another installer and run it. Finally, I'm ready!

Back to NetFlix, back to the video and... something is wrong with the media player. I'm directed to another web site. Okay, I click the link and new window to Microsoft opens, asking me to update my certificate revocation list. Simultaneously the original window says I have to call tech support. Nice confusion. Off to Microsoft's CRL page where the upgraded and super-secure Internet Explorer warns me that there is an Active X control. Okay, but it's from Microsoft, so I click to allow. What control is it? Why, it's named "mf". There is no other information. If I click mf, I'm taken to MF Communications, which is quite clearly not Microsoft. Well, whatever, I've installed all sorts of crap I don't understand tonight, what's one more...

There is no immediate response but the window goes away. I try "Update" and it seems to work. Back to NetFlix again.

Finally, it works!

Elapsed time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

If this is instant gratification, I think I'll wait for delayed gratification, thanks.

Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) are being replaced with DVRs, Digital Video Recorders. It's a logical progression; instead of recording to tape, you now record to a hard disk. You get intelligent automatic recording, you don't need to remember what show is on which tape. It's all good stuff, although more expensive.

Now, the DVRs frequently have DRM, Digital Rights Management. The content industry insists that DRM is absolutely necessary, without it they'll go broke and there will be no more television. Unsurprisingly, they're lying. They also claim that DRM won't have any impact on you, the random consumer. They claim that only would be pirates will be harmed by DRM. Again, they're lying. Here's just one more example: if you have a DVR system based on Microsoft's Windows Media Center, you can't play back some shows you might record off HBO or AMC. That DRM support cost money, money the purchaser of Windows Media Center paid. In exchange for that more money, the purchaser got a less functional system.

Well, it's too late now to return the game. (Of course, it was too late the moment I bought it.) I hope the game's good and that I can clear the infection when I'm done. I guess I was considering a reinstall of Windows anyway.

So Steve Jobs wants us to know he feels for us. DRM is a bad idea, all around. It's not about locking users into Apple products. He'd love to turn it all off tomorrow, if only the big, bad, wrong record labels would let him. He's being kept down by The Man.

I don't believe a word of it. Talk is cheap, and that's all we've gotten.

( Here's why )