Boy, you guys have too much time on your hands. The way you all are reacting, you'd think that Amazon just committed genocide or something. I honestly don't think that Amazon acted in a bad way -- the removal of the books from the Kindles is mildly questionable, but everyone got their money back. It's not as if anyone got ripped off.
Let's face it: Amazon is at the mercy of the publishers and their whims. Without their support and approval, Amazon (or any online ebook retailer) would have no ebooks to sell. A bootleg copy of a book appeared on Amazon, the publisher kvetched about it, Amazon had to remove it.
I think if we get honest, what everyone is REALLY complaining about is the nature of DRM and Amazon using it. Well, guess what? If there weren't so many pirates out there downloading copywrited material on torrent sites and whatnot, maybe retailers like Amazon and Apple wouldn't feel as compelled to have DRM on their files. I'm sure just saying that makes me the most unpopular guy in the world (and the fact that DRM even exists makes pirates feel justified in their actions -- and thus, the vicious circle continues), but Amazon and the publishers of the ebooks they sell are just trying to protect their merchandise. I'm sure everyone out there has downloaded something illegally in their time (lord knows I have many times), and it's not the end of the world, but if have, don't be a hypocrite and complain about stuff like DRM.
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Boy, you guys have too much time on your hands. The way you all are reacting, you'd think that Amazon just committed genocide or something. I honestly don't think that Amazon acted in a bad way -- the removal of the books from the Kindles is mildly questionable, but everyone got their money back. It's not as if anyone got ripped off.
Let's face it: Amazon is at the mercy of the publishers and their whims. Without their support and approval, Amazon (or any online ebook retailer) would have no ebooks to sell. A bootleg copy of a book appeared on Amazon, the publisher kvetched about it, Amazon had to remove it.
I think if we get honest, what everyone is REALLY complaining about is the nature of DRM and Amazon using it. Well, guess what? If there weren't so many pirates out there downloading copywrited material on torrent sites and whatnot, maybe retailers like Amazon and Apple wouldn't feel as compelled to have DRM on their files. I'm sure just saying that makes me the most unpopular guy in the world (and the fact that DRM even exists makes pirates feel justified in their actions -- and thus, the vicious circle continues), but Amazon and the publishers of the ebooks they sell are just trying to protect their merchandise. I'm sure everyone out there has downloaded something illegally in their time (lord knows I have many times), and it's not the end of the world, but if have, don't be a hypocrite and complain about stuff like DRM.