Amazon

Digging Deeper Into Amazon’s Orwellian Moment

July 20, 2009 by Kirk Biglione

When media historians write the history of DRM they may well devote a whole chapter to the day that Amazon customers awoke to find that their Kindle editions of “1984” had vanished into a memory hole and that Big Brother Bezos had apparently turned George Orwell into an unperson.

You would be hard pressed to invent a more apt or ironic example of the dangers of DRM. Surely this will be the incident that finally raises consumer awareness of the risks involved in buying DRM protected media.

And yet, after digging deeper into this story, I’m not convinced that this was a DRM issue at all. At least, not in the truest sense.

Further, this incident raises a host of interesting rights related issues that have largely gone unexplored in the days since.

Consider the following: [Read more…] about Digging Deeper Into Amazon’s Orwellian Moment

Why Kindle’s DRM Free-for-All Is Bad for Consumers and for Amazon

June 23, 2009 by Kirk Biglione

The Kindle is popular for a reason.

Amazon has created the most painless ebook experience any consumer could possibly ask for. No other system makes the discovery, purchase, and transfer of ebooks so frictionless. As a result, Kindle has become the standard everyone else in the ebook business will have to match just to compete. So far no one comes close.

But Kindle has a dark side that is starting to emerge with startling regularity.

This past weekend Dan Cohen was surprised to find that he could not re-download some of his Kindle books. After several lengthy exchanges with Amazon customer support Cohen was informed that some (but not all) Kindle books have download limits. Or maybe it’s a limit on the number of devices they can be transferred to. Or it might be both…

To be honest, Amazon’s customer service department isn’t entirely sure of what limits are imposed on DRM protected Kindle books. [Read more…] about Why Kindle’s DRM Free-for-All Is Bad for Consumers and for Amazon

Amazon’s Kindle Disclosure Policies Could Attract FTC Attention

April 17, 2009 by Kirk Biglione

Any way you look at it, the Kindle is a remarkable reading system. Amazon has managed to capture massive mainstream attention for an electronic reading device that combines seamless wireless content distribution with a purchasing process that is so transparent you’d be forgiven for not realizing you’ve actually paid money for a book.

Equally remarkable is the fact that Amazon sells DRM-restricted ebooks side-by-side with DRM-free ebooks while making no distinction between the two formats. From the consumer’s perspective there’s no way to tell which Kindle books are locked down by DRM before purchase.

Over the past week, Teleread has been orchestrating a consumer driven tagging effort to tag DRM-free books in the Kindle store. While I think the project is a brilliant use of crowdsourcing, it also reveals just how bad the problem really is. In order to accurately tag a Kindle ebook as DRM-free, Amazon customers must first buy the book, then go through a somewhat involved process to test whether or not the book is locked down. [Read more…] about Amazon’s Kindle Disclosure Policies Could Attract FTC Attention

The Authors Guild vs. Kindle 2 — Could Users Be Held Liable?

February 26, 2009 by Kirk Biglione

Kindle 2 shipped this week, and all over America ebook lovers are gleefully tweeting the arrival of the new reading device.

That’s all well and good, but those excited new Kindle owners may want to proceed with caution when it comes to using one of the device’s most highly publicized new features. In fact, they just might want to consult a lawyer before pressing that “read aloud” button.

The Authors Guild believes that Kindle 2’s text-to-speech (TTS) feature is an infringement of audiobook rights. In fact, the Guild contends that because of this new feature, every Kindle book sold is not only an ebook, but also an audiobook. Never mind the fact that Kindle 2’s voice has been described as sounding “oddly norwegian” or that Jeff Bezos recently joked with John Stewart that the read aloud feature sounds “a little freaky.”

When the Smell of Books Becomes the Stench of DRM

February 22, 2009 by Kirk Biglione

By now it should be clear that ebooks are more than just a passing fad. That digital reading revolution we’ve been hearing about for over a decade is finally starting to take shape. Amazon has sold over a half million Kindles, Sony has moved several hundred thousand digital Readers, and Stanza, the free reading app for the iPhone, has been downloaded over 1.3 million times.

As consumer adoption of digital reading devices accelerates, publishers are grappling with the impact that digital distribution will have on existing business models. It’s hard not to feel a certain sense of déjà vu as we witness yet another form of mass media completely remade in the digital era. And it’s hard not to feel just a little bit sad that publishers are making many of the same mistakes we’ve seen made in other industries — most notably by the recording industry.

Medialoper’s 2008 Ducking The Shoe Awards

December 17, 2008 by Jim Connelly

“Ducking the Shoe” is a phrase coined by Daniel Fienberg a couple of days ago on Twitter to mean “escaping even the most minor of punishments for extended errors or misdeeds.”

Well, yeah.

So in the spirit of George W. Bush’s ninja-like ability to duck a shoe thrown at him from point blank range, the following people and things spent 2008 getting away with shit that they really should have been busted on.

My Beer with Bezos — The Shocking Truth About The Kindle

December 7, 2008 by Kirk Biglione

It was the night before SXSW 2008 kicked off, and Kassia Krozser, Erik Hersman, and I were hanging out at the pre-party at the Six Lounge in Austin. Erik was explaining that the guy in the corner who looked remarkably like Jeff Bezos, actually was Jeff Bezos.

The truth is, there are a lot of guys at SXSW who look like Jeff Bezos. That might be why Bezos wasn’t attracting much attention. He blended seamlessly with the crowd of Web 2.0 geeks, and he looked absolutely in his element.

Eventually, word got out and a small but disorganized receiving line began to form around Bezos. Partygoers were eager to approach him for an autograph or photo op, but everyone seemed to be cautions about making too big a deal about it.

At some point, I realized that we were being sucked into the Bezos Vortex and were actually in line to meet the man. I remember thinking that it was not unlike waiting in line to meet Santa Claus, but better, because Amazon already has my wish list on file. I was certain that when I introduced myself, Bezos would shake my hand and say, “Yes Kirk, you’ll be getting that plasma TV for Christmas. As long as you remember to take out the trash and clean your room.”

How The Music Industry Garnered Record Profits in 2008

December 5, 2008 by Jim Connelly

With Chinese Democracy topping 1.5 million in CD sales and downloads in its second week — for a two-week total of 5 million, the best ever — it is now official: the American Music Industry has never been healthier. Even in what is easily the most crippling recession most of us have seen in our lifetimes, people are buying music at a record pace.

How have they done it? According to Frederick Stamphammer, the RIAA’s Vice-President of Digitization — and the man seen by most insiders as the key figure behind the transformation of the music industry into a virtual profit machine — it was by seizing the opportunity afforded by the internet nearly 10 years ago.

Waiting for Google’s Kindle Killer

October 30, 2008 by Kirk Biglione

During an onstage interview with Chris Anderson at this year’s BEA, Jeff Bezos described his vision of a world where any book ever published would be available anywhere, at any time. At the time it seemed like one of those distant fantasies that might be decades away. Bezos acknowledged that there was a lot of work to be done before that vision would ever become a reality. Little did he know at the time…

With the Google Book Search agreement Bezos’ vision has come much closer to being a reality. The problem for Bezos is that he was hoping that vision would be realized through the Kindle. While the Kindle promises to put a whole bookstore in the palm of your hand, a Google powered reader could put the Library of Congress in the palm of your hand.

Kindle’s 190,000 available titles pale in comparison to the millions of titles Google has just been granted access to. But Amazon still holds a couple of obvious advantages over Google: [Read more…] about Waiting for Google’s Kindle Killer

Why I Won’t Miss iTunes

October 1, 2008 by Jim Connelly

So here’s the deal: The National Music Publisher’s Association has said that they want to increase the royalty rate for each legal download from $0.09 to $0.15 per song. Apple has responded by threatening to shut down iTunes.

I assume that “iTunes” means “iTunes Music Store,” and this has nothing to do the the TV Shows, Films and Applications that also go through iTunes, because, well, that would just be stupid.

I’m not here to argue the merits of what one side will say is only a six cent increase and the other side will say is a 66% increase, nor am I going to point out that this is Apple’s way of saying that if they don’t continue to get exactly what they want, they’re going to take their ball and go home.

But I will say this: if the iTunes Music Store went away tomorrow, it wouldn’t even be a blip on my radar.