@@fizzydrink9647 It's ironic because it's _1984_ and arguably the most significant part of the book has to do with changing what was written in the past order to change people's perception of what is true.
You should never confuse ´unmanifest tech´, with the real thing. Kindle sellers keep telling you that you can download things on them and keep them. That is simply not true. Unmanifest tech is tech that is sold as if it is the real thing, when the reality is, it is not. The devices are real, what people are told they can do is bullcrap.
I’ve tried to “lease” books from my local library but each time I’ve been told I would have to wait several months before it would be available for me.
I'm starting to buy old books I believe will be rewritten in the near future (If I happen to see one in a thrift store). I want the original not 'the party's' version.
Christopher Nolan spoke about this in relation to owning films. The studios can’t take away your physical DVDs or BluRays, but digital downloads can disappear overnight
That's exactly what I keep telling to people, movies, music, video games, books, streaming and other platforms are owning what we think is ours, leaving us with less and less power over contents, changes in privacy policies but also our use of it, nowadays you can't even lend a video game you buy with your own money!!
Remember to unlock your bluray player so it can't lock you out of certain discs too. I got burned because I bought an anime bluray which was arbitrarily locked by some lettering system that I could undo with an hour of work on the computer :)
These companies should not be allowed to describe the purchase button as "Buy now" etc. They should be required by law to state something like "Lease" unless the digital content has the ability to be independently owned like a normal file. This would be a huge win for real books. Also it would make a major change in the contracts authors and publishers. Not sure what term you would use though.
Agreed. The corrosion of consumer rights is an ever-growing issue across all media and even physical products. On the gaming front at least, there is a movement called Stop Killing Games aimed at curbing these practices. Such movements need to become more widespread across different media.
The Kindle works more like a library than a bookshop. You are buying the right to go and borrow particular books, but own them outright. Any library can pull those books, or even update them.
I used to pirate a lot more than I do nowadays, but I still feel completely okay pirating stuff that I've "bought" through Amazon, Steam, etc. If I ever lost access to any of my stuff there, I'd pirate it in the same moment. But to be fair, 99.9% of people aren't gonna have issues using these services and I don't think it's worth inconveniencing yourself too much just out of principle (e.g. buying only physical books when you like ebooks and audiobooks). Both Amazon and Steam still offer by far the best service in my experience for digital products they sell, and Steam especially is absolutely top-notch.
Even if it was, it doesn't change the fact that piracy offers a better experience than actually paying for stuff, albeit at the cost of writers and other creators.
Pirating books is stealing and it's taking away from authors who are the creators and that is deeply wrong. Shame on you. Support authors. It takes thousands of hours to put a book out. I know it takes me that long.
Never buy digital content. Not unless it's a file you download and store independently yourself. There's literally no point in buying digital books unless they are stored on your own hard drive and not as part of an app or service.
Fun fact: If you go onto your Audible account on the webpage, you can download a copy of the file. It's encrypted but their is plenty of software out their to decrypt it. I download the files regularly to make sure they can't delete my stuff!
You can do that with Kindle books and remove the DRM using Calibre for free. Been doing it for over 10 years. I read them on my Kobo now. I'm actually surprised this is not common knowledge, since I'm generally pretty IT-inept. But it's good that people find out eventually.
@@mysticmind7392 terms of service is not law. Companies do get sued and sometimes lose, even when terms of service have been agreed to. Look at the adobe lawsuit going on.
Amazon did refund all customers who bought the illegal 1984 ebook. They also settled the 2009 class action lawsuit by agreeing not to delete ebooks without customer consent, unless it contains malicious code.
My mom was a prolific reader. She would always have serval books on the go and likely finished five or six books a week. Anyway, she had a Kindle and had bought a large library for it. She really enjoyed it too. At some point Amazon accused her of piracy, which was absolutely absurd, and deleted all her books. She was devastated. She stopped using her Kindle obviously. I have never had one nor would I ever own one. What they did to my mom is, for me, unforgivable.
Buy other e-readers (I have a Kobo and the production quality is great and the software is amazing, but there are others), which use open formats (namely Epub: the Amazon format is just an Epub with some code on top to make it proprietary) and normalize keeping your collection in a folder on a hard-disk or, even better, on a folder in some form of cloud drive, and sideload what you need when tou need it. Calibre is a great piece of free open source software that organizes your books into a beautiful and functional digital library. No more Amazon
That doesn’t make any sense. I wonder how they thought she was pirating. I know people with thousands of actually pirated books on their Kindle and this has never happened to them.
That's horrible! It's usually bots that flag and take down accounts for "piracy," so sometimes, talking to a live CS rep can help sort out the mistake. Did she challenge the decision? I'd be devastated to lose my digital library. Your poor mom.
@@tarabooartarmy3654 Yeah, sure, IDK what happened either. All I know is that there is no way she pirated anything. She wouldn't have even known how to pirate.
People have become way too complacent with not actually owning anything. Almost everything we buy today is a subscription, tied to a revokable license, or has planned obsolescence (and/or is unrepairable). This needs to stop. It is bad for the consumer, the environment, and historical preservation. We need to fight back by actually _owning_ the things that we choose to purchase with our money instead of just leasing them until some CEO decides we need to pay them more money. If not, this problem will only continue to get worse until the masses finally wake up.
People are not complacent, people just cant do shit about it. We will NEVER own land, a car, a home, nothing ever we will ALWAYS be renting int he form of taxes. What can we do??
Buy an ereader that works off EPUB format books, e.g. a Kobo. The EPUBs sold in stores are still DRM'd but it is easy to remove and then you can maintain a back up of that book in Calibre that you can load on any device at any time without worrying about what store you bought it from, or your activation license count, or the app/device you use to read it or anything else.
Is Kobo easy on your eyes? How does it compare to Kindle which I have never had either? I need to find something to read pdf files and also ebooks that is more like paper visually, as I hate reading on my Mac or Ipad.
@@lopezb Kobos use e-ink displays just like Kindle and they have backlit and colour ones. So basically they are as readable as a Kindle with equivalent specifications.
1. Use Calibre to remove all of the DRM from your Amazon books 2. Grab a Kobo Clara (or Libra if you like buttons) 3. Drag and drop your collection onto the Kobo 4. Profit
The button you click to buy the eBook on Amazon literally says "buy." It doesn't say license. It doesn't say rent. It doesn't say borrow. It doesn't say any of the many other words Amazon could have chosen to differentiate what they're actually offering from an offer to let you BUY the book. But they didn't, and that's intentional. If they're going to try to deliberately trick you into thinking you BOUGHT something by taking your money, then as far as I'm concerned, you bought it. Forever.
@@Hellmark It's silly they need a new law to cover what it plainly theft. They were selling something they didn't own, just like me selling my neighbor's truck. I really don't understand why people think it's different when a computer is involved. Why aren't current laws good enough here? Why do we need to wait for 49 other states to pass this before they stop?
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984
I've noticed that happening more and more often as I get older and new editions of things come out. Some of it might be just my imagination, but some of it clearly isn't. I have a copy of the original theatrical cut of Star Wars and I'm very much aware of who was shooting whom in that cantina. My copy of For Your Eyes Only, does differ from the broadcast version from the '80s and '90s in that they took time away from that creepy bedroom scene and gave it to the hockey scene. In that case, it's arguably the way it always should have been as too much time was spent establishing Bibi as a predator that even Bond was uncomfortable with and not enough time was spend setting up the fight in the hockey rink. But, this stuff does have a tendency to warp perceptions as which character shoots first in the Star Wars cantina does fundamentally change how Han is viewed by the audiences. Whereas replacing the cardboard cutouts in the medal ceremony at the end doesn't fundamentally change anything other than make the shot look a bit more realistic. And, the problem is probably going to just get worse as it's easier and easier to have a computer remove and add things to scenes in ways that are very hard to detect if you don't know to look. It's one of the big reasons why I've been going back to DVDs as that gives me a guaranteed copy that will be the same forever.
A chilling reminder of what 1884 was really about. Ironic that was the title under contention at the time. It never occurred to Amazon to REFUND THE PURCHASE PRICE OF WRONGFULLY SOLD GOODS, DID IT????
Thank you for schooling me on this issue. I started using Kindle years ago, mainly because my obsession with physical books had gotten so out of control I was running out of space to store them. Then along came Audible and now I’m able to listen while I move around the house, cooking, doing chores, etc. The convenience would be very difficult to give up but I also HATE being taken advantage of by large corps who never seem to be satisfied with the exorbitant amount of money or control they have. I would be very interested to hear your continuing thoughts on this subject. Namaste’ 🙏🏽
In 2007 I was reading an old copy of 1984 I got an a used book store from 1960s. I worked across the street from a book store so I thought I would grab a copy off the shelf and pick up where I left off while I ate my lunch. I grabbed that copy with the big blue eye and quickly realized something was off. The next day I brought my copy to compare to the new copy to confirm my suspicions. The narration, verbiage and chapters were reworded, rewritten and NOT the original 1984. Apparently after George Orwell died the rights were sold and passed off several times. Not only was it passed on but at some point they changed it. It was then I realized. Nothing is sacred. I will only buy the oldest copy of classics now.
Tbf this is a double edged sword. Some changes can literally be the authors intention. Not in this case obviously but later editions arent always because of malicious reasons Language change can also be a way to try to adapt to new readers if the book is significantly old enough or like those "easy to read" editions But they should be advertised as such and be transparent about it ofc
@@ThirrinDiamond yeah but we dont like, sell the Mona Lisa and update the fashion to fit the times. Sometimes books and art are a pillar of the era. Important the way the author wrote it. Important not to lose our past. As you said, obviously the author had no say in this case. There is something so invading to change someone else's work of art after they died and release it under their name. I back what you say about needing to name updates. They didn't even revise the bible without naming it the "new testament". I don't disagree if the artist wants to change or revise their own art its not malicious. But I dont think that is the same subject Im talking about here. Thanks for your input!
@@ThirrinDiamond I read ender's game. truly a great book. my kids read it but as we were talking about it, i realized it wasn't the same. i later found out there were at least 4 editions. I am a bit sad since some of my memorable moments from the book were not in the copy my kids read.
Legit what happened to me a while back and when a scandal hit in the U.K. about a company wanting to change words in a very popular authors books as they had the rights to it. I started picking up classics in second hand stores etc to keep and preserve just incase you know something like 1984 did happen in the future 😅
@@GeekyC. exactly. Some people might call it paranoia but 1984 is not in a realm of fantasy, and something similar could happen. Occasionally, I’ve screenshotted some news stories that I think worthy of saving, just in case someone tries to tell me it didn’t happen😅
As a bookseller: 1: Thank you! 2: If we don’t stock a book most bookshops will more than happily order it for you if it’s still in print (and we love seeing what people order- we’ll often get two in if it looks interesting so you’re supporting the author twice!) and 3: libro is amazing! Not only does Jeff not get a cut, but if you nominate your local bookshop we do- so you’re supporting local businesses anyway!
so the public should loose rights bc you personally sells books? what a way to punch down like the owner class you are apart of. why not be apart of greater change. shame
@@thegrazingapprenticevery confused as to your reply? I’m in support of people divesting from Amazon and supporting small businesses… the authors make more money (which is already so so hard in this industry) and a hundred other small businesses make a living along the way, instead of Jeff continuing to hoard wealth and power?
I Like physical BOOKS in my hands to read! Most of the time, I will donate the books that I buy to a local library. Maybe it will spread the word about an author and other people will get interested and buy books by the author? I can only hope?
There is nothing in this world more cozy and comforting than a small business book shop 💘 My eyes cannot stand reading electronic books. But this video brings up some of the other hesitations I feel towards the new trend of not actually owning anything. I won't have much to pass on but I'll have volumes of books! Something most before the printing press invention couldn't hope for.
Everyone that was paying attention knew that if you buy a book on Amazon, you're not buying a book. You're buying a license to a book. That's a huge difference. And the problem isn't the kindle, it's Amazon. I 'buy' ebooks from elsewhere, save them on my computer, and email them to my kindle. This circumvents Amazon and you own the book, they have no control over it. I also do this with my own work. I put it into whatever format I want, PDF, ebook, etc. and email it to my kindle. Physical books are great, but they take up too much room. I was drowning in books at one point. I prefer living with less 'stuff' and ebooks help immensely. I also travel often, and ebooks are priceless in this respect.
"This circumvents Amazon and you own the book, they have no control over it." - It doesn't though. I did this for a while then accidentally turned off airplane mode and they wiped all the books. Happened to a lot of ppl.
My entire library is on Calibre for Windows, stored on personal storage. I send whatever I want to read to the Kindle. No Amazon or audible purchases after my first generation Kindle was made obsolete when they blocked it from logging in to Amazon due to security. So now I learned to use Calibre and DRM-free books on my personal storage ... even after buying a new Kindle.
Yup. I own all my e-books. There's no DRM, no cloud service, no big brother that can remotely edit/censor/remove them. I read em as they are, whenever I want, wherever I want.
"you will own nothing, and be happy". This here was precisely the reason I never wanted to own a Kindle. When I warned people about this, I was always met with the same old line. "Oh, they'll never do that!" It's almost as if people don't understand the purpose of a corporation, and the fact that they all end up changing things over time to make more money for themselves, even though every company has done it, and will continue to do it.
@@voradorhylden3410 I had forgot about Ultraviolet. Even when I did own a computer or laptop that could do that, I never did. Just too redundant of a product, especially with news of streaming being a future thing, if it didn't already exist when Ultraviolet was a thing.
We got kindles so we could easily access all the free classic books and like a few or so collections that were three dollars for nine books each...also free Wikipedia.
If a company deletes content that you have bought, as opposed to rented, they should refund your purchase in full when they do so. That is what Microsoft did when they ended up deleting content a number of years ago.
That's already happening with printed editions lately. I'd imagine that digital versions can be "modified" without notice. And to me that's beyond diabolical.
@@innercynic2784 Yes but not copies you have already bought! Yes they can change books they are publishing now and do it all the time but they can't change the ones on my bookshelf.
@@markpostgate2551 Altering content to fix typos or pagination isn’t a problem but I do agree that they should not make substantive changes without obtaining consent.
Not sure if you'll see this, but as a shop/site owner the biggest issue is search engines as they funnel people to major sites like Amazon. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but on the topic of books, for a while we were getting people coming into our shop and asking us if we mispriced a book on our shelves, when we told them no they seemed confused how we had so many copies of this book. Asked why they were so confused they showed us the digital search for this item and while we sold it both in store and online for under ten dollars, the cheapest listing was ebay at thirty and Amazon at forty, we did not even show up in search but many other big sites had the book listed for more. This was not a rare book, this was an in print mass produced paperback we reordered each time inventory got low and continue to reorder to this day but now that the manufacturer listed the book on their site others seem to have corrected the issue.
@@lopezb It's a very rough market out there for digital sales as you really have to fight to get your name out there if you're not paying for top search results. Though to be fair the pricing issue isn't even the worst of what happened due to paid search.
A good lawyer could probably win a massive suit against Amazon for improperly saying you "buy" or "purchase" e-books when you are actually just taking them out on loan. Sounds like the most blatant case of false advertisement
This was really an eye opener. I honestly thought I owned the books I purchased through Kindle. As others in the comments have pointed out, it is really scummy that they name their purchase button "Buy now" if you don't actually buy the content but only a lease. I won't be buying anything from amazon again.
Hm, seems like lawmakers are starting to pay attention to the lack of online ownership. California passed a law that bans media platforms from using wording like "purchase" and "buy" for media that doesn't actually give you ownership. This will be in effect sometime next year.
Does Fire TV burn movies? What kind of dumbass are you AshPragasm? I can tell you never served in the military. You believe anything you see on the internet.
I would suggest you keep your Kindle and use alternative library management tools. Calibre allows you to convert ebooks and upload them onto your Kindle. While doing that, one may find and purchase books from better stores. I keep my Kindle on airplane mode so I never have to deal with Amazon's stuff.
And this is one of the reasons why I will continue to buy physical books. Also if you get them second-hand you can often get them cheaper too. Win win!!
Exactly. This is also why I have physical copies of any movies or music or tv series I care about. I never even bought music on iTunes back in the day, lol. Never trusted this system!! 😅
Ive been taking pictures of all the books in my local colelge library because they're starting to "weed' them but the truth is they're getting rid of "problematic" books and white author books to put in inclusive and diverse books. So I need to preserve them by finding them on ebay
The problem is that e-books and e-readers are a massive boon for disabled folk like myself. I can't read big tomes anymore because it strains my hands. E-readers have so many benefits that it's hard to keep going to physical copies, which is why I now save all my e-books in my personal cloud. The moment I found out Amazon was going to restrict access to your e-books by forcing you to have an *active* Kindle device (along with restricting ebooks to their AZW format), I switched to Kobo.
There are (or in some cases, used to be) places where we could read books that we didn't own individually. We would all share books and take turns reading them. All you had to do was show up and ask to be a member, and you'd get a cute little card that would let you borrow books, music, movies, even video games. We should support places like that :)
Ah! You mean libraries! The difference between a library and Amazon is that you know you don't own it when you check it out of the library, while on Amazon you "buy it."
local librarian here to remind you that you can very much get ebooks and audiobooks through your library (usually through the libby app). and you don't have to purchase anything, and you can send the ebooks to your ereader. i have a kindle and i do not purchase any ebooks at all (though i would be willing to make an exception for indie authors who don't have options in libraries or for physical purchase), i only use it for libby rentals.
Thank you for this great conversation! I really thought I was the only person who is becoming uncomfortable with kindle/amazon practices....I had considered myself a book snob for years till I got an e reader....Having an endless library at my fingertips was breathtaking !! I have favorite books in hard copy and when my library needed its own building I realized I needed help ,probly in more ways than one, so an e reader seemed like the plan! I guess my favorite parts are the ease of enlarging the font now that my vision is changing as I ease into my 74th year, as well as having access to immediate word dictionary as I find new vocabulary . But I share many of your concerns and I appreciate your suggestions. So thank you again for this informative video.
@@edrlima1 Never buy a Kindle device, never buy a speaker advertised as if it comes with a non physical remote. Tell legislators to order Kindle manufacturers to stop making new devices.
When I retired my wife and I decided we could no longer afford to pay for two prime accounts so I decided to close mine and use hers. I contacted Amazon to find out how to transfer the dozens of kindle ebooks I thought I "owned" only to find out that if I closed my account, I would loose all my hundreds of dollars worth of Amazon digital content. I closed the account anyway and am now using the calibre e-book reader and am buying books in pdf or e-book format from other vendors. I will happily pay double what kindle books cost to get books that I actually own. I will never again buy a book from Amazon.
@@schrodingerscat1863 I could be wrong, but I believe some kindle books are free if you have prime, so I can see Amz (not me) justifying the taking of those off his kindle.
The library!!! We just moved from Austin, but the digital library is amazing. It’s so fun to buy books, but it’s so great to support your local library in purchasing books. It helps others gain access to those books too.
There should be a class action lawsuit against Amazon and nook and steam and these companies, for false advertising, having a purchase or buy button when it's a lease
The shitty thing is that piracy screws over the writers who feel like they MUST put their stuff on Kindle or they can't get their books to the masses. Lose-lose situation :(
If only Amazon were the most affected by this. It is writers that pay the price, indie authors that are trying their best shot at making their dreams come true in a market stacked against them. It would be funny if it wasn't real.
I have been using an e-book reader since 2010. Since Amazon is not available in my country, I have always shopped locally. So here's my experience: 1. Check if the e-book is legally available for free, such as through The Gutenberg Project, or Internet Archives. Additionally, look for similar sites in your native language. 2. If the e-book is not available for free, check the publisher first. Often, it is available at a cheaper price. 3. Always download the e-book to your computer and save it locally. 4. I use calibre, a software that allows you to manage/edit the book's metadata, title, author, cover, and so on, as well as convert it to different formats. And I can transfer the e-books to my device using calibre. 5. Enable airplane mode, and never turn it off. Hope this helps :)
How can I transfer books that I've downloaded to the kindle if my airplane mode is off? I generally email the downloaded book to my kindle and use WiFi till I have the book. I've also never used Cailbre
This happened to me. I lost all my audible books and access to my account. Most frustrating thing was that they would not tell me what terms of service I had violated. So there was no way to even appeal. A scary snap shot of what the digital future has in store for us if we dont tow the party line!
I use Calibre to maintain my library on my laptop, and use deDRM to convert all digital books to ePub format, regardless of where I buy them. I then distribute the library to all my eReader devices. My other eReaders accept this process seamlessly, but my Kindle remains perpetually in airplane mode. This method also allows me to manage the same meta information such as book covers on all devices, and removes that infuriating "Before You Go" popup that randomly appears on Kindles.
This is effective but is considered piracy. I am not accusing you. It is just the irony of the situation. The moment you remove DRM from your purchase, you are piracing the book. If Amazon or Kobo decide to block your account, it is law.
@@monochromios its only piracy if he distributes it beyond his own personal use. In most first world countries, you have the right to archive/protect your stuff. This is equivalent to voiding your warrantee because you broke the seal to change a battery.
@@monochromios If kobo or amazon block users for removing DRM those users will just end up pirating everything. Like I'm already doing with zero shame. I buy nice physical special editions and hardcovers of the books I like. Piracy saves me a lot of wasted money. Like I was sure I would love snowcrash, but it's one of my most hated books ever. I almost bought a special edition of it for my first read because I absolutely adore cyberpunk. There are tons of sites that offer every book you can imagine drm free and ... free in general. Banning people like Joseph would only punish people buying books.
only problem with that is, that the author also doesn’t get any money. i don’t think anybody is complaining about the fact that amazon won’t get any money from piracy. ❤
@@marctestarossa The author barely gets any money from amazon to begin with, and authors and musicians can be booted from the platform for political reasons or have their books removed (a book about Kamala Harris was removed from amazon, not because of copyright issues but basically because how dare they criticize their queen). Buy directly from authors on other platforms, unless the book is so old or the author is deceased, in which case get it for free if you can, it should be open to the public for free at that point anyway.
This is silly. Buying licenses has been commonplace for centuries. You could buy a licence, for example, to fish from someone's land, in that person's river (they landowner owned the river within the boundaries of his land). This Amazon thing is nothing new. Of course, what Amazon is doing is selling a revocable licence, and that's what is unreasonable. The licence for buying the digital copy of a book at around about the same price should be an irrevocable licence (although whether it is transferable or not would be a different discussion.)
@@BenjWarrant I don’t think people have a problem leasing books, friend. Libraries still exist after all, where you can temporarily borrow books, and so do academic journals, where you can subscribe to gain access to journals but loose access later if you stop subscribing or break the terms and conditions. Nobody is boycotting either of those things. The problem people have with Kindle, is that they don’t tell you up front in bold letters that you are only purchasing temporary access to the book. They tell you “buy now,” which most people assume that means you have bought a digital copy that you get to keep forever, even if Amazon stops selling it and takes it off the shelves, it should remain in your digital library. People are upset because the deceptive marketing doesn’t match the fine print, and because Amazon also monopolizes the market while doing these practices.
To be clear, they didn't remove 1984. They removed a specific version of it being sold by someone who didn't have the publishing rights and was committing fraud. They also refunded anyone that had gotten the illegally published copy. 1984 from the actual publisher stayed in the store and on devices the whole time.
Changing the covers of books in order to match the posters/advertisements of recent film or tv adaptations has been annoying me for years. There should be a grandfather clause that allows the covers to stay exactly as they were when I purchased (oops, I mean licensed) them.
I bought my kindle second hand, so my money didn't go to Amazon directly. My kindle has remained in airplane mode since I bought it. I have never logged-in to my amazon account through it. I load my books onto it from my PC through a usb cable using Calibre. And that's fine with me. I see no reason why my book needs an internet connection.
Same. And I download all my ebooks on my hard drive and then store it on external drive, exactly for the reason mentioned in the video - these files might be gone from my account in an instant, and I paid for them so I want to keep them.
Good stuff. But if that’s how you’re using the Kindle, you may be better off with a different make of ebook reader that is more open (e.g. supports epub and other formats), e.g. Onyx Boox, Kobo, etc.
Aside from all this, we now have to sit through ads when we watch movies on Prime unless we want to pay more to remove them. Which is bullshit because it was ad free when I paid in advance for a year of Prime, they at least owe me that time ad free.
If you have a library card you can check if they have access to Libby , it’s not like buying book it’s works like a library and it’s completely free, as long as you have a library card/account . If you have a few library cards you can connect with all of them if those libraries have access to Libby
The downside of Libby is that your library is just purchasing licenses to amazon ebooks, and doesn't actually own them. If you want to support the library check out real books.
The critique is valid, but it's not an "Amazon" problem, all digital content is problematic for the same reason. Steam, Vudu, Nintendo, etc., etc. Anything 'digital' is at risk of the same impact
Not if it's DRM free and in a non-proprietary format. Then you can keep your own backups, or do whatever else you please with the data. See GOG vs. Steam. Jared vaguely mentions this towards the end of the video ('digital localism'); but the key point is the files have to be DRM-free so they can't be prevented from working.
@@Entertainment-is6ex truth, truth. Technically you are right, but most platforms do have some level of DRM on their content. I appreciate GOG for being DRM free, but unless I download and keep it locally, at some point in the he future, I virtually guarantee they will have things removed from their servers / to out of business / etc.
Echoing the "DRM is the problem" crew on here, I get to drop a _huge_ "FUCK YOU I WAS RIGHT" on everyone that were absolute dicks to me when I raged against DRM over 20 years ago. I told them _exactly_ the world we're stuck with right now for movies, music, video games, and now even books would work like this. This was entirely predictable, and the braying sheep jumped in to defend the helpless multibillion dollar multinational corporations when I called it out.
When I was in High School, 1984 and Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 454 were all required reading. Today, all three have not only been removed from required reading, but banned from many school libraries. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Omg same! I’m 29, so high school was more than a decade ago for me. I had no idea they were removed from required reading lists, much less banned 😰 that’s horrifying
@@VIsionsOfJenna oh no, how terrible that the ones who have literally nothing have a place that won't treat them like trash. Does it make you feel yucky? having to see poor people?
You don't have to violate their terms for Amazon to delete your books. I tend to go back once in a while to re-read books. Many years ago I noticed certain books deleted. I had to call Amazon and they restored it. The book was not on in my digital media on Amazon. It seems Amazon was saving space. I was very angry but nothing I could do
Deleting your temporary purchases to save space must be a form of consumer fraud imo even if they restore it your digital account -the account shouldn’t be altered for their space needs as the temporary purchases space has been paid for imo …
Actually, in this case, you probably deleted them accidentally - if you do as I do and borrow often from your library, I clean the expired borrows frequently (don't like them keeping a history of what I read), it's easy to check the intermingled purchased media.
@@Oops-IMeantToDoThat Nope. That's not what happened. "Saving space" is the excuse - whether accurate or not - that the Amazon rep gave me and he said that's what they do periodically. The books were no longer in my list of digital purchases. I purchased them so long ago that it seems Amazon thought I would never look for them again.
@@barefootincactus It's not just books. I asked Amazon - when I die, can I give "my" movies to my son. The answer is "no". Also if Amazon's license runs out, even though I paid for the movies, they can become unavailable.
This is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the world to today. It's not just Amazon it's anything digital. I learned about this through the PlayStation Scandal about a year ago. They lost the license to show some content for Discovery shows and went in and deleted it out of peoples accounts. I had heard rumors that Amazon did to, but, I wasn't for sure until you made this video. I'm glad you did made this video, Thank you I also shard this with my friends to.
Another recent incident that happened this year was when Red Box closed and anyone that bought digital movies on their service lost access to all of them with no refunds.
Nobody treats customers with respect, especially Amazon. Their customer service treats you like you are bothering them. I have stopped buying from Amazon usually cheaper.
@@Kathyat70 I wish I didn't constantly need niche medical shit that's difficult to find (in stock) anywhere but Amazon. At least I've got a Kobo so I'm not giving Amazon that book $
Selling what amounts to sub-licenses for digital goods should be illegal. If we're "buying" something, we should have access to it until the end of days.
Thank you for reminding me that I am not really comfortable with Amazon's terms of service. A few years ago I bought a book that I decided to get in hardback because I wanted to know it could not "disappear" one day. You have reminded me of that feeling. Thank you. I will be mitigating the situation.
@@davileite780 I lost a whole box full that got wet when we moved a few years ago. But that was my fault and I should have been more careful. Hubby and I are both book lovers! I don't like having an "open door" to my library for someone else to take what they want or worse, don't want me to have. The thought of losing acess to my Amazon account is sobering. I got locked out of my Google account once because I had changed my phone number and couldn't retrieve the password reset link. Took months to get back in.
I agree with the movement of self control over what you purchase but he briefly mentions the most important point that ALL digital media sales have terms like this.
The most scary thing is that Amazon could retaliate because of videos like this. Jared could be instantly locked out of his account because Amazon took an extremely liberal view that this video promotes piracy. Then Amazon could stonewall Jared from getting any answers. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's definitely possible.
Have you read about the case where Amazon locked a customer out of their Amazon Smart Home because a delivery guy reported a hate speech incident even though there wasn't anybody home at that time? Smart lock, climate control, AI assistant, were all off and they kept billing him for it. Nothing is below Amazon
Oopsie. I commented here yesterday about a consumer affair Amazon had last year. where they locked a customer out of his smart home and the comment is hidden now. Maybe if I word it this way...
I like your observation that Amazon might be pricks to Jared due to his burn knowing Amazon can change their terms of service on him without his consent or his permission. So Amazon canceling Jared's kindle and audio book account is unlikely to happen due to Jared not having a big influence but if he did had a huge influence ( a huge channel) Amazon might cancel his subscription and strongarm him to not produce anti Amazon content..... So, I doubt they will retaliate against him for his leaving kindle video, but it is a good possibility
I live in a small rural town. I buy a lot on Amazon, both digital and physical because it is hard to get products here or they are much more expensive. I also buy (almost) solely digital books because my vision is imperfect and I need the ability to increase font size. But I have always felt guilty about giving Amazon so much business. Your video makes me really want an alternative but I can’t revert to non-digital books because of my vision issues. I hope you can detail a good alternative. Our local bookstore(which I love) used to offer a non-Amazon digital service that I used a little, though it was more difficult to use and then it went belly up and I lost my titles that way also.
I have been using Amazon since about 3 days after they went online. I have bought quite literally 1000’s of books from them/it. I sometimes buy series that I enjoy. They have removed many, many, many of these books. I read them, often re-read them, and know what I have had. They invite me to buy them again. I don’t give them away, they are my books. Period. Insultingly, they also edit books they haven’t snatched. I read early British mysteries, and the language, being almost 100 years old, is sometimes not currently politically correct. I KNOW THIS. I have enough modern sensibility not to be affected by the difference, nor would I ever, independently, use inappropriate language. They are edited for whatever cause, which I HATE. Enough already.
Books are like movies, dumbass, when the rights holder takes the product off the platform, it is the rights holder that removes it and not Amazon. When the rights holder's license is up with Amazon, and they take it with them, it's the rights holder that fucks you in the ass, not Amazon. You can get the same exact experience on RUclips, on Twitter, on Netflix, etc.
This is what the whole digital revolution is about. Think about the applications to other digital "assets". It gets terrifying awfully quick when you start thinking about it.
@@TravisHi_YT - I’ve been thinking about it since Faceb**k came online. All those people laying out their entire lives to any- and everyone. BB’s shadow loomed that day, guffawing.
My local library has digital books I can borrow. I have taken advantage of that service a few times. I don't "own" those books, of course, but it's like any other kind of book or item I can borrow from the library.
Absolutely - now you’re talkin ! The convenience is not worth the price - foxes should not watch chickens! (apologies to animals to make point about humans)🦊
ebay for cheap, physical books. In my village there is a disused telephone box that people can put books they no longer want in, and take out any book they want to read.
this issue is much larger than just books. the video game industry has the same issues. the movie side is also the same. these companies are more than happy to charge subscription fees, upfront costs, require specific hardware, etc. and WILL NOT HESITATE, to change, update, retract, remove, or whatever else. with content you have purchased. there is a gigantic, gaping hole, in legislation. with digital content. as it currently stands, especially in the us, all of the protections are for the corporations, ZERO of the protections are for the consumer. theres the whole extension of this issue into preservation that goes even further. in the end, theyre doing a damn good job making sure piracy will remain alive and well for decades to come.
I use Kobo. Their e-reader is seen as a thumb drive by your computer, so loading 3rd party ebooks is drag and drop, and their store has a wide selection.
Not to contradict you and not to defend Amazon at all, but my Kindle is seen as a thumb drive by my computer, so loading 3rd party ebooks is drag and drop, and their store has a wide selection. 😛 Anyway, how is Kobo different, apart from the file format? Do you own the books as they are forever, unlike with Amazon?
@@brunoscomost places where you can buy ebooks just give you an epub file, which kindles don't support. you can convert them, but that's an extra step that's not necessary on a Kobo for example
@@brunosco i haven’t had anything change, but the other guy said they’ve had something change. I wouldn’t be surprised if the legalities were similar. At the time I got it, side loading was easier than Kindle, and I think the file formats used by Kobo aren’t proprietary. But I don’t know everything, so don’t take my word for it.
You are making the right move. I left Amazon in 2020 after learning how they treat their fulfillment warehouse staff and drivers. I had been with Amazon since they set up in the UK. I requested all of my details to be deleted including their other brands. Including Audible and The Book Depository amongst others. CDs and DVDs are much cheaper elsewhere here, a recent DVD which was £16 on Amazon cost £5 at a high street retailer WH Smith. TV's, cheaper at John Lewis and the list goes on. I lost a lot of audio books and Kindle purchases, but my conscience is now richer.
I get all my DVDs from cash converters and CEX and charity shops now .. get them for like 20p - £1 and then on Vinted il look for the newer ones second hand going for below £5. Got a nice library of movies now as I’ve seen companies removing scenes and changing them in movies so I thought I’d get the collection built up. Same with books I mainly buy second hand in great condition. Not supporting these companies who hate you and will give you plenty but take it back.
Cancelled my account a year ago and truly don’t miss it. Never had a kindle or purchased any digital content before though, so that wasn’t an issue for me.
The WEF head did say once "you will own nothing and you will be happy" - you just have to look at all the subscription services that were are sucked into these days, many we don't even realize. Great video again Jared
I have scripts that can pull and decrypt the books from my kindle, so Amazon can never take my purchases away from me. I don't care what they say, if I've paid the money I get the book. Should be no difference between a physical book purchase and a digital book purchase in terms of ownership.
It's worse with movies, they will edit and delete sections as they choose. Having your own hard copy is better, but physical media can be lost or damaged.
I made the decision a LONG time ago that anything I thought might get deleted for ANY reason, and was also important to me, I would get in physical copy. Digital is for recreation where I might not even notice I lost it.
I love my Kobo ereader! So much flexibility because you can manually add epubs from anywhere. Also, you can use Calibre to convert all your kindle ebooks into epubs 👀 I did that, so my entire "amazon-licensed" collection on my kindle is now permanently available to me in epub form on my PC and my Kobo.
could you explain how you did that? please? because I tried to convert my kindle books in caliber to move them to my kobo but I couldn't. I'm not sure if it's because I'm using the macbook version of caliber or if the plugin I installed no longer works or what
@@grsdv I think they mention adding the pubs because is way easier to add them in kobo than with kindle and there's also many different ways to do it. For example, I add them to my google drive and then download them in kobo. I've also transferred them from my laptop to kobo using the USB cable. But you can also add them through a dropbox account or an adobe digital editions account. And I have also been able to transfer borrowed books from my local library using libby and then storing them in ADE to then transfer them to my kobo. That takes a little bit of more steps but it's still super easy, free and you get to support your local library
That is why I do the following: I buy stuff on Kindle, and if it is something I love and I am sure I will read again at some point, I buy a physical copy. This way I don't overacummulate but still own (for real) whatever fuels my soul.
Exactly what I do. I have kindle unlimited to test out some fantasy romance books that are about to come out physically. They when they are on offer for like 99p (1 dollar) il buy them if I know they are just a quick one off read or something I want to test out before I buy it physically. Always buy your items physically it’s the same with movies and subscriptions for movies. The companies have been caught changing movie scenes or cutting parts out from the original so I have built up a library of dvds also now. I don’t subscribe to anything now only Spotify to listen to podcasts.
Great if they exist but there are a LOT of books that only exist as ebooks... especially older books that only have been republished on Kindle because it costs the publisher very little to do so. Try buying books from the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s in physical form and you will go bankrupt if you want them (if you can find them) that are otherwise out of print.
If Amazon is selling a person a license to read to book or watch a movie or TV show, then they must never delete that book or show license- EVER. And if they ever rescind a license, they MUST be made to be obligated to REFUND IN FULL the cost of that license.
I tend to buy all my ebooks directly from the publisher's website, and not from amazon. Works pretty well for me, and I haven't seen any negative side effects so far!
thats a thought. i just checked on one from DK tho and it only has links to "buy from amazon" as well as google and B&N. maybe some other publishers sell ebooks directly ? i'll have to start checking that.
@@JoeJohanemanyou can't just buy ebooks directly from the publisher (in the vast majority of cases). They let you choose which digital retailer you want the ebook from (Kindle, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, etc). All of them come with DRM.
@@JoeJohanemanThe few publishers I looked at that sold their own ebooks did. DRM can be removed with Calibre which I recommend using anyways to manage your library.
This is a special kind of book burning. it's like Barnes and Noble sending thugs around to burn the books you bought from them because they don't think you paid enough. Whatever Amazon says, it's very hard to frame the contract between them and a book purchaser as anything but a purchase-and-sale agreement, not a license. If this were ever challenged in court, I doubt that the terms of Amazon's "agreement" would be upheld. But, of course, bringing it to court and getting a decision would be slow and expensive. This isn't just an annoyance, it's a civil rights issue and a big one. It isn't just Amazon. The whole consumer market is shifting into a space where you can't own anything, and if you want something, you have to keep paying for it forever.
@@johnnymcjohnson1373 most if not all physical books I buy have been secondhand that I picked up for dirt cheap. I rarely "buy" ebooks...but get them from eh...friends :)
That's why all my ebooks are backed up, and also didn't get rid of my favorite blu-rays even though I don't actually pop any of them in to my blu-ray player.
@@anglicanmarians6845if we don’t stop this pattern of non ownership will we find ourselves living in tiny boxes like the poor in China Own Nothing and Obey the Globalist Rule in a tiny box capsule they call a “home”-Enjoy!
Quick solution.... though it does require a little work and a small investment. Just download the book to read offline and then copy it over (time spent) to a sd card or other storage device (money spent) then just always keep that storage separate from your kindle and you'll always have a digital copy of that book no matter what Amazon does.
Project Gutenberg is a treasure trove! I love John Galsworthy, Anthony Trollope and Edith Wharton. Also, Librivox is a free website of audiobooks and the readings of Edith Wharton's novels are superb. A real pleasure.
This is why I hoard DVDs and yes collect physical books. Because more and more, corporations will someday own everything! And “when deemed unnecessary and ‘dangerous’ to the public, we’ll take it away.”
Some really thought-provoking points here. I use my e-reader (not a kindle, but I can still only buy licenses) however I simply rent books from my local library which provides online accounts and is free. I can get new books and return the old ones all from home. It supports the library and also circumvents supporting massive businesses.
You’re making the right call here, if we don’t fight back like this we won’t own anything soon. If you haven’t read the book technofeudalism it has some interesting takes on a lot of the issues you brought up.
Calibre+dedrm is the only way. Literally, all other non-kindle ereaders use DRM. This is because the publishers request DRM to be applied (except Tor).
A pedant may consider Calibre and DeDRM piracy, but for books I buy, Calibre allows me to own them. Then, with the Kobo Touch Extended plugin, I read kepubs on my Kobo Libra 2 - I don't use Kindles any longer
Baen books bought from the Baen website are DRM free. Tor et al may say non-DRM, but Amazons use of a proprietary ebook format makes them effectively DRM'ed.
@@lanceyoung9928 Piracy requires you to distribute copyrighted works. Cracking DRM is different, more minor charge only applicable in countries where it is illegal such as the USA. Most of Europe, the UK and Canada cracking DRM for the purposes of making a personal archival copy is legal as of the last time I checked (sometime in the 2010s)
@@lanceyoung9928 it's not piracy if the copyright holder broke the social contract by revoking your ownership of your copy of the work when your understanding was that you were purchasing it.
Great video and information. One thing people can do is borrow digital books from libraries. No, it’s not owning the book and there is a time limit, but no money is exchanged.
The space is the main reason I buy everything digitally whenever I can 😁 I've even started taking notes only digitally (not including a post-it or two on my desk for stuff I want to have on top of my mind). It just adds up too quickly and takes too much space, and it can't be searched or transported easily.
@@GigusxI dont judge, but I buy books mainly as books, however I do buy ganes digitally and or movies on prime, but I will alsos tart buying physicall dvds and blu rays
I read 1984 summer ‘22. I borrowed it from the library. It’s what I’ve been doing for a while now after trying to stay away from Amazon for EVERYTHING! Interesting enough, never liked audio books, I did buy a few but not as many as you. Thanks for this detailed video explaining. I will share with everyone I know!
They also deleted Moby Dick, as well as the Complete works of Sherlock Holmes... How do i know this ? Because they deleted the books from my account and claimed loss of copyrights, and i would have to repurchase them
He's right. No subscriptions. No licenses. No copies. Nothing. Just eat food, study nature and walk in the sun. Own nothing. Destroy the capitalist market economy by forsaking buying anything but the ultra-essential and local. Bankrupt all the amazons of the world, starting with the WEF members' companies.
@@skitoxe4482 ''Auken had previously written in 2014 about a hackathon at the WEF that proposed "FridgeFlix", a startup that would allow users to lease all of their household appliances from a provider that would also service and upgrade these appliances. The proposed company would reduce the risk of residents incurring costly repairs and would work with energy suppliers to reduce power consumption of appliances.[1] In 2016, Auken published an essay originally titled "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better",[2] later retitled "Here's how life could change in my city by the year 2030", on the WEF's official web site. It described life in an unnamed city in which the narrator does not own a car, a house, any appliances, or any clothes, and instead relies on shared services for all of his daily needs. Auken later added an author's note to the story responding to critics, stating that it is not her "utopia or dream of the future", and that she intended for the essay to start discussions about technological development.[3]'' ''later retitled "Here's how life could change in my city by the year 2030", on the WEF's official web site.'' Essentially you could say this is the goal of Klaus Schwab and his friends. Professor Klaus Schwab was born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938. He is Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum
Never mind the copyright stuff, digital media is not long term and all your stuff will be lost eventually. It amazes me how much faith people have in digital garbage. I guess I have just been around longer. I have 3 dead iMacs and two laptops in my garage. They all just up and died and I lost everything that was exclusively only in them. I took all kinds of pictures on digital cameras that are now all obsolete. Saved all the pictures to discs and thumb drive and after a decade they’re all corrupted and gone. I still have all the actual photos I took from a real camera from 40 years ago though even if they’re faded, I still have them. Lost a lot of stuff due to this digital hell. Now I just keep building my own bookshelves and go to used bookstores and buy real, physical books. Screw digital.
Digital media does need to be copied forward on a strict schedule, unless maybe it's super premium media like archival quality or even the new M-discs. And redundancy and backups help. Large media tends to get cheaper and cheaper over time, so this doesn't have to be a problem, as long as you never throw away your capability to deal with your current media when purchasing your capability to deal with new media. Don't "screw" digital -- just be wise with it. For if you can preserve those bits, they will be as precise in a hundred years as they were the day they were written.
I have photos saved on CDs and DVDs from over 20 years ago that are fine. But ,I also have them backed up in other locations, as well. I would ask, if they are not recoverable, why are you keeping dead iMacs and laptops around? Have you tried taking them to a facility that recovers hard drives? They should be able to help, unless now that you’ve stored them in your garage the temperature changes have totally destroyed them. Which goes back to my question, why keep them around? There are a lot of reasons to make digital copies, even if you have original physical copies of photos. The main one being, you can share them with other family members all over the world in seconds.
Everyone jumping in to tell you how you did this wrong, but honestly, I completely agree. Paying for discs of games we can no longer play, saving files to CD-Rs that degrade, and now all this money spent on intangible "things" we'll never own and are being written out of by modern ToS. It's despicable. I wish more people would be up in arms over it instead of just accepting it. We aren't using our rights as customers to laugh in their faces and tell them what they're asking is B.S.
@@littlestbroccoli I guess "everyone" is two people? If you want to be truly vigilant about storing things like photos, which are important to everyone, then you need to have both a physical and digital version of them. As you said, CD-Rs degrade (although I have yet to have that happen to any of mine), but so do old photographs. Isn't it better to scan those in and have a backup copy of them in case something happens to valuable old photos? But, I do agree about owning things. If you purchase something, then you should own it.
@@timz9862 You can't just throw computers in the trash in my county. You have to bring them to the landfill and pay and I can't be bothered. I am not on any social media whatsoever. I never even made a Facebook page. I don't send pictures around to family. They were mainly just pictures of my kids throughout their youth and some pictures from various vacations. I live in the present and in the physical world, not the digital one. I can't even read a book on a screen like a Kindle. It doesn't work for me, nor can I listen to an audio book.
It’s not literally 1984 because they aren’t rewriting history and forcing you to believe it’s always been that way. But it definitely is a shadow of 1984 by changing content and not disclosing it (the book art) but that’s more just pointing to the lack of ownership when you buy ebooks than anything else.
Recently started collecting and making my own media. CD's, records, books... burning discs of things I intend to keep whether or not I pay for a streaming service, etc. It seems like an odd hobby- but I'm from the time when that was the option. The only option. There's an argument to be had that says physical is cheaper than digital streaming, and it is yours regardless of a company just rewriting their TOS to steal your money.
Never bought anything that I can't really have. Maybe we will relive the 80s-90s, going to libraries, going to Blockbusters kinda places renting movies/games, using old phones with buttons and hanging out in the park or going out to dance every weekend.
I see. I, on the other hand, transitioned to e-books because termites ate my books. I live in a hot and humid tropical country. Nature can be so unforgiving here 😭
I switched to ebooks because of space consideration. Storing books in barrels in my yard shed wasn't working out too well. I can carry an entire library on an e-reader. I used a NOOK for many years but after awhile it began acting funky, so I am using my wife's Kindle at present although I don't like Amazon's proprietary formatting - but for books I want to keep rather than read once I try to get my own copy, store it with Caliber, and side-load it onto the device. Can't afford a new e-reader these days, though.
@@Plus1Like Yup, that's also what I immediately thought of after the termite incident. I put the books that survived the ordeal in plastic bins and placed them on metal shelves. No more wooden cabinets 😭😅
@@tedrice1026 True. Space is also an issue to me too. An e-book does feel like having our own library we can carry everywhere. I don't even have a proper dedicated e-reader 😅. I just use Google Playbooks and Kindle apps on my phone. When converted to my country's currency, e-readers are still pricey 😞. But a regular smartphone with a FHD display is good enough for me 😁
@@akadacat Oh yes! It happened in 2022 and I still haven't bought a single physical book since then because I'm still traumatized. My broken heart when I had to burn the damaged books in the backyard 😭. Simply throwing them away isn't good enough because termites thrive in our tropical climate and they can multiply quickly to come and attack the house again. I'm still really sad about it because not just the books, but a part of our family photo albums and my collection of original Tour Books/clippings of 80s metal bands I love which I scoured from eBay over the years are damaged too 😣. Those are irreplaceable. I wouldn't wish this to happen to even my worst enemies 😢
You can still use Kindle to read e-books from other stores and sources. Most stores just let you choose a file format. Just download a file on the computer and then drag and drop it on your Kindle. It works just fine. In my country Amazon doesn't sell digital books and people still use Kindles among other, usually much better e-readers. It's just one of the brands. And "1984" is a free e-book, you shouldn't have any troubles to find it legally on many pages with free classics or school books.
@@Waldemar_la_Tendresse I do agree in the context of a new e-reader, since those devices have become now quite saturated due to the hype and one has a lot more options than Amazon now. In the context of already owning a device? If one can locally load books onto the device, that's a perfectly usable device, I still use a 15 dollar Nook Simple Touch with Overdrive books loaded on an SD card.
@@CREATERpl The simple problem with this assumption is that many people don't know this stuff, will therefore not do it and this creates the possibility for these monopolies to emerge in the first place. Some people don't even care about this stuff in the name of their own comfort.
I mean piracy _isn't_ theft. It's copyright violation, which is why we have separate laws for them. But if they're not going to allow you to _own_ a copy you legally purchased then they're in violation of the social contract surrounding copyright, so you're no longer ethically bound by it either.
You can keep it 100% ethical buy paying for the media you want and then pirating it in whatever way you see fit. Still legally a grey area but Saint Peter will handwave that one through.
@@mawnkey It's not ethical to complain about Amazon and 1984 but then use Amazon and 1984 as justification for your own unethical behavior. Pick a principle and apply it consistently. Piracy is theft. Pirates are thieves. That's their entire identity. If you want to be one, fine, but at least have the courage to own it. Or, join the more civilized world, where we recognize and value the contributions of others that benefit us, and exchange compensation without the need for violence and killing to put our principles into practice.
We have moved into a time when you don’t get to own things you pay for. Think printers. The company can shut your printer down if you don’t use their ink and they don’t warn on the box that they actually own your printer-they can change the firmware any time they like and make you device inoperable.
The fact that it was 1984 of all books is ironic
From a certain perspective, nothing is ironic
If they also deleted Fahrenheit 451, it would be doubly so.
@@fizzydrink9647 It is ironic because it was precisely the book 1984.
@@fizzydrink9647 It's ironic because it's _1984_ and arguably the most significant part of the book has to do with changing what was written in the past order to change people's perception of what is true.
@@naivetayproductions If that is the case, it also follows that from a certain perspective, _everything_ is ironic. 🤷♂
If I'm just "leasing" my books from Amazon, I might as well "lease" them from a local library.
You should never confuse ´unmanifest tech´, with the real thing. Kindle sellers keep telling you that you can download things on them and keep them. That is simply not true. Unmanifest tech is tech that is sold as if it is the real thing, when the reality is, it is not. The devices are real, what people are told they can do is bullcrap.
Libby App! ✨
I’ve tried to “lease” books from my local library but each time I’ve been told I would have to wait several months before it would be available for me.
@@RichardShortland-Nealthat's usually only new books. I used to work at a library
@@brendalg4 at my local library here in the UK it seems to be any ebook that you want to borrow unfortunately 😟
"Don't bother buying the physical copies of books. We'll make sure the right versions are always available digitally" - Ministry of Truth
They didn’t call it Kindle for nothing. Fahrenheit 451.
I'm starting to buy old books I believe will be rewritten in the near future (If I happen to see one in a thrift store). I want the original not 'the party's' version.
@@J31 Translation: with emphasis on the “right versions” - we have to be able to change them so you will know what/how to think.
Taking/altering every copy of a book in existence is something the Nazis could only have dreamed of.
@@-Thunderwow how ironic 😮
Christopher Nolan spoke about this in relation to owning films. The studios can’t take away your physical DVDs or BluRays, but digital downloads can disappear overnight
That's exactly what I keep telling to people, movies, music, video games, books, streaming and other platforms are owning what we think is ours, leaving us with less and less power over contents, changes in privacy policies but also our use of it, nowadays you can't even lend a video game you buy with your own money!!
Remember to unlock your bluray player so it can't lock you out of certain discs too. I got burned because I bought an anime bluray which was arbitrarily locked by some lettering system that I could undo with an hour of work on the computer :)
not if you pirate them
One type of digital download, though...🏴☠
Game recognizes Game.
These companies should not be allowed to describe the purchase button as "Buy now" etc. They should be required by law to state something like "Lease" unless the digital content has the ability to be independently owned like a normal file. This would be a huge win for real books. Also it would make a major change in the contracts authors and publishers. Not sure what term you would use though.
I think California just passed a law to force companies to do just that. They're not allowed to say "buy" if you're just leasing a license
All digital software and content these days is subscription based. Nobody purchases digital anything anymore seems like
this should be the top comment.
@@edubs9828 or say “subscribe now”
Agreed. The corrosion of consumer rights is an ever-growing issue across all media and even physical products. On the gaming front at least, there is a movement called Stop Killing Games aimed at curbing these practices. Such movements need to become more widespread across different media.
Customer: "I want my copy of 1984 back on my Kindle."
Amazon: "1984 was never on Kindle."
Let the mind games begin !
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and never with Eurasia
I see that the chocolate ration has increased again this month. Doubleplusgood, brother.
The Kindle works more like a library than a bookshop. You are buying the right to go and borrow particular books, but own them outright. Any library can pull those books, or even update them.
My kindle app still has 1984 from years ago when I downloaded it.
“If buying is not owning, than pirating is not stealing”
I used to pirate a lot more than I do nowadays, but I still feel completely okay pirating stuff that I've "bought" through Amazon, Steam, etc. If I ever lost access to any of my stuff there, I'd pirate it in the same moment. But to be fair, 99.9% of people aren't gonna have issues using these services and I don't think it's worth inconveniencing yourself too much just out of principle (e.g. buying only physical books when you like ebooks and audiobooks). Both Amazon and Steam still offer by far the best service in my experience for digital products they sell, and Steam especially is absolutely top-notch.
Even if it was, it doesn't change the fact that piracy offers a better experience than actually paying for stuff, albeit at the cost of writers and other creators.
pirating is not stealing - it never was
Pirating books is stealing and it's taking away from authors who are the creators and that is deeply wrong. Shame on you. Support authors. It takes thousands of hours to put a book out. I know it takes me that long.
@@sentarose yeah thats nice and all but im still gon' download some novels/manga lmao. Esp' if they're rich already. Those them breaks
Never buy digital content. Not unless it's a file you download and store independently yourself. There's literally no point in buying digital books unless they are stored on your own hard drive and not as part of an app or service.
Fun fact: If you go onto your Audible account on the webpage, you can download a copy of the file. It's encrypted but their is plenty of software out their to decrypt it. I download the files regularly to make sure they can't delete my stuff!
You can do that with Kindle books and remove the DRM using Calibre for free. Been doing it for over 10 years. I read them on my Kobo now. I'm actually surprised this is not common knowledge, since I'm generally pretty IT-inept. But it's good that people find out eventually.
@@TheChildDeirdrewhats DRM?
@@monetdehaan-cc2vh digital rights management it started with video games and then went into everything you buy digitally
@@TheChildDeirdrecan amazon find out? if they do won’t try cancel the account
Then they need to REFUND everything people spent on everything bought.
Time for a class action law suit. Seriously.
if you agree to their terms, there's nothing to be done legally ^^ only lesson here is don't agree to it and buy physical copies.
Audible was sued for taking away credits without being clear about it. I don't see why kindle couldn't.
@@mysticmind7392 terms of service is not law. Companies do get sued and sometimes lose, even when terms of service have been agreed to. Look at the adobe lawsuit going on.
@@mysticmind7392 But I have my own terms of service that they have to agree to when I buy something.
Amazon did refund all customers who bought the illegal 1984 ebook. They also settled the 2009 class action lawsuit by agreeing not to delete ebooks without customer consent, unless it contains malicious code.
My mom was a prolific reader. She would always have serval books on the go and likely finished five or six books a week. Anyway, she had a Kindle and had bought a large library for it. She really enjoyed it too. At some point Amazon accused her of piracy, which was absolutely absurd, and deleted all her books. She was devastated. She stopped using her Kindle obviously. I have never had one nor would I ever own one. What they did to my mom is, for me, unforgivable.
that's wild. Especially when piracy is huge on kindle, and ive never heard of anyone having that happened. Sucks to hear though. :(
Buy other e-readers (I have a Kobo and the production quality is great and the software is amazing, but there are others), which use open formats (namely Epub: the Amazon format is just an Epub with some code on top to make it proprietary) and normalize keeping your collection in a folder on a hard-disk or, even better, on a folder in some form of cloud drive, and sideload what you need when tou need it. Calibre is a great piece of free open source software that organizes your books into a beautiful and functional digital library. No more Amazon
That doesn’t make any sense. I wonder how they thought she was pirating. I know people with thousands of actually pirated books on their Kindle and this has never happened to them.
That's horrible! It's usually bots that flag and take down accounts for "piracy," so sometimes, talking to a live CS rep can help sort out the mistake. Did she challenge the decision? I'd be devastated to lose my digital library. Your poor mom.
@@tarabooartarmy3654 Yeah, sure, IDK what happened either. All I know is that there is no way she pirated anything. She wouldn't have even known how to pirate.
People have become way too complacent with not actually owning anything. Almost everything we buy today is a subscription, tied to a revokable license, or has planned obsolescence (and/or is unrepairable). This needs to stop. It is bad for the consumer, the environment, and historical preservation. We need to fight back by actually _owning_ the things that we choose to purchase with our money instead of just leasing them until some CEO decides we need to pay them more money. If not, this problem will only continue to get worse until the masses finally wake up.
People are not complacent, people just cant do shit about it. We will NEVER own land, a car, a home, nothing ever we will ALWAYS be renting int he form of taxes. What can we do??
You don't have to accept it.
@@TimlagorYes you do, I think you mean you don't need to participate.
And people meme on my because I collect physical media (CD´s and Blu Rays)
'needs to stop' unfortunately doesn't translate into anything real
Buy an ereader that works off EPUB format books, e.g. a Kobo. The EPUBs sold in stores are still DRM'd but it is easy to remove and then you can maintain a back up of that book in Calibre that you can load on any device at any time without worrying about what store you bought it from, or your activation license count, or the app/device you use to read it or anything else.
Is Kobo easy on your eyes? How does it compare to Kindle which I have never had either? I need to find something to read pdf files and also ebooks that is more like paper visually, as I hate reading on my Mac or Ipad.
@@lopezb Kobos use e-ink displays just like Kindle and they have backlit and colour ones. So basically they are as readable as a Kindle with equivalent specifications.
1. Use Calibre to remove all of the DRM from your Amazon books
2. Grab a Kobo Clara (or Libra if you like buttons)
3. Drag and drop your collection onto the Kobo
4. Profit
i don’t know what any of this means but i do enjoy buttons
I don't know what buttons are, but I do enjoy numbered bullet points.
My husband does this too.
@@deathmetalpotatoCalibre is a great software program. Lots of great videos about it here on YT. Kobo is another brand of e-reader.
Yes I love my libra colour!
The button you click to buy the eBook on Amazon literally says "buy." It doesn't say license. It doesn't say rent. It doesn't say borrow. It doesn't say any of the many other words Amazon could have chosen to differentiate what they're actually offering from an offer to let you BUY the book. But they didn't, and that's intentional.
If they're going to try to deliberately trick you into thinking you BOUGHT something by taking your money, then as far as I'm concerned, you bought it. Forever.
California just passed a law about this, making it so they cannot say you bought it if you are just licensing it.
Sounds like we only buy the license to access. Awful.
The terms do though. You're buying access not the content.
@@Hellmark not much comfort for people outside of California, sadly.
@@Hellmark It's silly they need a new law to cover what it plainly theft. They were selling something they didn't own, just like me selling my neighbor's truck. I really don't understand why people think it's different when a computer is involved. Why aren't current laws good enough here? Why do we need to wait for 49 other states to pass this before they stop?
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Orange man bad.
Welcome to capitalism ...
I've noticed that happening more and more often as I get older and new editions of things come out. Some of it might be just my imagination, but some of it clearly isn't. I have a copy of the original theatrical cut of Star Wars and I'm very much aware of who was shooting whom in that cantina. My copy of For Your Eyes Only, does differ from the broadcast version from the '80s and '90s in that they took time away from that creepy bedroom scene and gave it to the hockey scene. In that case, it's arguably the way it always should have been as too much time was spent establishing Bibi as a predator that even Bond was uncomfortable with and not enough time was spend setting up the fight in the hockey rink.
But, this stuff does have a tendency to warp perceptions as which character shoots first in the Star Wars cantina does fundamentally change how Han is viewed by the audiences. Whereas replacing the cardboard cutouts in the medal ceremony at the end doesn't fundamentally change anything other than make the shot look a bit more realistic.
And, the problem is probably going to just get worse as it's easier and easier to have a computer remove and add things to scenes in ways that are very hard to detect if you don't know to look. It's one of the big reasons why I've been going back to DVDs as that gives me a guaranteed copy that will be the same forever.
It really IS the end of history!
A chilling reminder of what 1884 was really about. Ironic that was the title under contention at the time. It never occurred to Amazon to REFUND THE PURCHASE PRICE OF WRONGFULLY SOLD GOODS, DID IT????
Thank you for schooling me on this issue. I started using Kindle years ago, mainly because my obsession with physical books had gotten so out of control I was running out of space to store them. Then along came Audible and now I’m able to listen while I move around the house, cooking, doing chores, etc. The convenience would be very difficult to give up but I also HATE being taken advantage of by large corps who never seem to be satisfied with the exorbitant amount of money or control they have. I would be very interested to hear your continuing thoughts on this subject. Namaste’ 🙏🏽
In 2007 I was reading an old copy of 1984 I got an a used book store from 1960s. I worked across the street from a book store so I thought I would grab a copy off the shelf and pick up where I left off while I ate my lunch. I grabbed that copy with the big blue eye and quickly realized something was off. The next day I brought my copy to compare to the new copy to confirm my suspicions. The narration, verbiage and chapters were reworded, rewritten and NOT the original 1984. Apparently after George Orwell died the rights were sold and passed off several times. Not only was it passed on but at some point they changed it. It was then I realized. Nothing is sacred. I will only buy the oldest copy of classics now.
Tbf this is a double edged sword. Some changes can literally be the authors intention. Not in this case obviously but later editions arent always because of malicious reasons
Language change can also be a way to try to adapt to new readers if the book is significantly old enough or like those "easy to read" editions
But they should be advertised as such and be transparent about it ofc
@@ThirrinDiamond yeah but we dont like, sell the Mona Lisa and update the fashion to fit the times. Sometimes books and art are a pillar of the era. Important the way the author wrote it. Important not to lose our past.
As you said, obviously the author had no say in this case. There is something so invading to change someone else's work of art after they died and release it under their name. I back what you say about needing to name updates. They didn't even revise the bible without naming it the "new testament".
I don't disagree if the artist wants to change or revise their own art its not malicious. But I dont think that is the same subject Im talking about here. Thanks for your input!
Maybe something like “unlimited access” (as long as Amazon has the license).
@@ThirrinDiamond I read ender's game. truly a great book. my kids read it but as we were talking about it, i realized it wasn't the same. i later found out there were at least 4 editions. I am a bit sad since some of my memorable moments from the book were not in the copy my kids read.
@@happyzahn8031 wow!! I wonder how many classics this has happened to without us knowing!
Ironically, 1984 is what made me want to buy physical copies in order to preserve the knowledge and information in them.
Amazon isn’t reading your comment. No need to lie.
@@Justin-uc8sc ?
Legit what happened to me a while back and when a scandal hit in the U.K. about a company wanting to change words in a very popular authors books as they had the rights to it. I started picking up classics in second hand stores etc to keep and preserve just incase you know something like 1984 did happen in the future 😅
@@Justin-uc8scNo one cares about you. No need to comment.
@@GeekyC. exactly. Some people might call it paranoia but 1984 is not in a realm of fantasy, and something similar could happen. Occasionally, I’ve screenshotted some news stories that I think worthy of saving, just in case someone tries to tell me it didn’t happen😅
As a bookseller:
1: Thank you!
2: If we don’t stock a book most bookshops will more than happily order it for you if it’s still in print (and we love seeing what people order- we’ll often get two in if it looks interesting so you’re supporting the author twice!) and
3: libro is amazing! Not only does Jeff not get a cut, but if you nominate your local bookshop we do- so you’re supporting local businesses anyway!
so the public should loose rights bc you personally sells books? what a way to punch down like the owner class you are apart of. why not be apart of greater change. shame
@@thegrazingapprenticevery confused as to your reply? I’m in support of people divesting from Amazon and supporting small businesses… the authors make more money (which is already so so hard in this industry) and a hundred other small businesses make a living along the way, instead of Jeff continuing to hoard wealth and power?
❄
I Like physical BOOKS in my hands to read! Most of the time, I will donate the books that I buy to a local library. Maybe it will spread the word about an author and other people will get interested and buy books by the author? I can only hope?
There is nothing in this world more cozy and comforting than a small business book shop 💘 My eyes cannot stand reading electronic books. But this video brings up some of the other hesitations I feel towards the new trend of not actually owning anything. I won't have much to pass on but I'll have volumes of books! Something most before the printing press invention couldn't hope for.
Everyone that was paying attention knew that if you buy a book on Amazon, you're not buying a book. You're buying a license to a book. That's a huge difference. And the problem isn't the kindle, it's Amazon. I 'buy' ebooks from elsewhere, save them on my computer, and email them to my kindle. This circumvents Amazon and you own the book, they have no control over it. I also do this with my own work. I put it into whatever format I want, PDF, ebook, etc. and email it to my kindle. Physical books are great, but they take up too much room. I was drowning in books at one point. I prefer living with less 'stuff' and ebooks help immensely. I also travel often, and ebooks are priceless in this respect.
"This circumvents Amazon and you own the book, they have no control over it." - It doesn't though. I did this for a while then accidentally turned off airplane mode and they wiped all the books. Happened to a lot of ppl.
My entire library is on Calibre for Windows, stored on personal storage. I send whatever I want to read to the Kindle. No Amazon or audible purchases after my first generation Kindle was made obsolete when they blocked it from logging in to Amazon due to security. So now I learned to use Calibre and DRM-free books on my personal storage ... even after buying a new Kindle.
Yeah. Also, Epubor can de-drm books.
@@timothystark4475So can Calibre
There’s a plugin for Calibre called DeDRM that can remove DRM for books purchased on that specific Kindle.
Yup. I own all my e-books. There's no DRM, no cloud service, no big brother that can remotely edit/censor/remove them.
I read em as they are, whenever I want, wherever I want.
If there was a way for us mere mortals to pin this comment to the top, I would absolutely pin it to the top.
"you will own nothing, and be happy".
This here was precisely the reason I never wanted to own a Kindle. When I warned people about this, I was always met with the same old line.
"Oh, they'll never do that!"
It's almost as if people don't understand the purpose of a corporation, and the fact that they all end up changing things over time to make more money for themselves, even though every company has done it, and will continue to do it.
Steam are doing this with games and Netflix etc are doing it with film and tv...
I have a Kindle but only ever put free books on it. I will buy books I want to read repeatedly in hard copy.
Ultraviolet went under. All the movies people had through them... gone!
@@voradorhylden3410 I had forgot about Ultraviolet.
Even when I did own a computer or laptop that could do that, I never did. Just too redundant of a product, especially with news of streaming being a future thing, if it didn't already exist when Ultraviolet was a thing.
We got kindles so we could easily access all the free classic books and like a few or so collections that were three dollars for nine books each...also free Wikipedia.
If a company deletes content that you have bought, as opposed to rented, they should refund your purchase in full when they do so. That is what Microsoft did when they ended up deleting content a number of years ago.
Amazon did refund the illegal 1984 copies.
But what about altering content and isn't that potentially worse?
That's already happening with printed editions lately. I'd imagine that digital versions can be "modified" without notice. And to me that's beyond diabolical.
@@innercynic2784
Yes but not copies you have already bought! Yes they can change books they are publishing now and do it all the time but they can't change the ones on my bookshelf.
@@markpostgate2551 Altering content to fix typos or pagination isn’t a problem but I do agree that they should not make substantive changes without obtaining consent.
Not sure if you'll see this, but as a shop/site owner the biggest issue is search engines as they funnel people to major sites like Amazon. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but on the topic of books, for a while we were getting people coming into our shop and asking us if we mispriced a book on our shelves, when we told them no they seemed confused how we had so many copies of this book. Asked why they were so confused they showed us the digital search for this item and while we sold it both in store and online for under ten dollars, the cheapest listing was ebay at thirty and Amazon at forty, we did not even show up in search but many other big sites had the book listed for more. This was not a rare book, this was an in print mass produced paperback we reordered each time inventory got low and continue to reorder to this day but now that the manufacturer listed the book on their site others seem to have corrected the issue.
Good Lord. Thank you for having an actual bookstore, and for exposing this. It's gotten worse and worse...
@@lopezb It's a very rough market out there for digital sales as you really have to fight to get your name out there if you're not paying for top search results. Though to be fair the pricing issue isn't even the worst of what happened due to paid search.
A good lawyer could probably win a massive suit against Amazon for improperly saying you "buy" or "purchase" e-books when you are actually just taking them out on loan. Sounds like the most blatant case of false advertisement
California agrees and has added a bill that explicitly makes it false advertising unless they jump through some legal hoops. AB 2426
They usually say in their TOS that the word buy is used to cover a plethora of other meanings. Whether or not that covers them legally I'm not sure.
I was just saying this to my husband, it say “purchase” or “buy” it doesn’t say “lease” or “purchase license” seems very misleading at the very least.
nope, buying and owning = leasing these days legally
@@Manavine That's not true. If you buy a physical book, they can't just take it back from you.
This was really an eye opener. I honestly thought I owned the books I purchased through Kindle. As others in the comments have pointed out, it is really scummy that they name their purchase button "Buy now" if you don't actually buy the content but only a lease. I won't be buying anything from amazon again.
at least one class action would be to remove this button and put a "lease" button instead
Technically the same applies to physical media.
@loganmedia4401 how so? When can someone justly come into your home and take all your books?
@@loganmedia4401No it doesn't. 🤦🏻♂️
Hm, seems like lawmakers are starting to pay attention to the lack of online ownership. California passed a law that bans media platforms from using wording like "purchase" and "buy" for media that doesn't actually give you ownership. This will be in effect sometime next year.
It's called Kindle because it burns books
And or the user
Yep
Does Fire TV burn movies? What kind of dumbass are you AshPragasm? I can tell you never served in the military. You believe anything you see on the internet.
the clue was always in the name !
They are coming for your digital books.
I would suggest you keep your Kindle and use alternative library management tools. Calibre allows you to convert ebooks and upload them onto your Kindle. While doing that, one may find and purchase books from better stores. I keep my Kindle on airplane mode so I never have to deal with Amazon's stuff.
How do you keep it on airplane mode?
@melissaanderson2573 there's an airplane mode in the quick access toolbar. Just toggle it on and you're good
And this is one of the reasons why I will continue to buy physical books. Also if you get them second-hand you can often get them cheaper too. Win win!!
Exactly. This is also why I have physical copies of any movies or music or tv series I care about. I never even bought music on iTunes back in the day, lol. Never trusted this system!! 😅
Ebay is a gold mine for second hand books
Ive been taking pictures of all the books in my local colelge library because they're starting to "weed' them but the truth is they're getting rid of "problematic" books and white author books to put in inclusive and diverse books. So I need to preserve them by finding them on ebay
@@neglectfulsausage7689ironically, they are the true problems!
The problem is that e-books and e-readers are a massive boon for disabled folk like myself. I can't read big tomes anymore because it strains my hands. E-readers have so many benefits that it's hard to keep going to physical copies, which is why I now save all my e-books in my personal cloud.
The moment I found out Amazon was going to restrict access to your e-books by forcing you to have an *active* Kindle device (along with restricting ebooks to their AZW format), I switched to Kobo.
There are (or in some cases, used to be) places where we could read books that we didn't own individually. We would all share books and take turns reading them. All you had to do was show up and ask to be a member, and you'd get a cute little card that would let you borrow books, music, movies, even video games. We should support places like that :)
Ah! You mean libraries! The difference between a library and Amazon is that you know you don't own it when you check it out of the library, while on Amazon you "buy it."
Board games kitchen items crafting supplies. They also have events for various ages and passes for zoo and museums
You can absolutely borrow ebooks from the library. Public ibraries are one of the pure good things on this earth.
Fahrenheit 451 people were assigned to memorize books before they were burned.
Until the library is staffed by people who want the "correct" versions.
local librarian here to remind you that you can very much get ebooks and audiobooks through your library (usually through the libby app). and you don't have to purchase anything, and you can send the ebooks to your ereader. i have a kindle and i do not purchase any ebooks at all (though i would be willing to make an exception for indie authors who don't have options in libraries or for physical purchase), i only use it for libby rentals.
I wish this was allowed on Australian kindles 😢 our libraries can’t offer it.
Thank you for this great conversation! I really thought I was the only person who is becoming uncomfortable with kindle/amazon practices....I had considered myself a book snob for years till I got an e reader....Having an endless library at my fingertips was breathtaking !! I have favorite books in hard copy and when my library needed its own building I realized I needed help ,probly in more ways than one, so an e reader seemed like the plan! I guess my favorite parts are the ease of enlarging the font now that my vision is changing as I ease into my 74th year, as well as having access to immediate word dictionary as I find new vocabulary . But I share many of your concerns and I appreciate your suggestions. So thank you again for this informative video.
The centralization of power is NOT GOOD. End of story. Whether it be political or commercial.
I agree, not at scale. However, I am a benign communist dictator in my own house.
@@goodlookinouthomie1757I’m a monarch in mine and keep what I deem necessary and important to me
Ever since the Tower of Babel.
I’m a willing slave to the centralized power of the God Emperor Christ Jesus.❤
💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
It’s easier to delete books than burn books
That is why is called Kindle
@@edrlima1😯😳
@@edrlima1 Clever
You know what kind of books they were burning....right?
@@edrlima1 Never buy a Kindle device, never buy a speaker advertised as if it comes with a non physical remote. Tell legislators to order Kindle manufacturers to stop making new devices.
When I retired my wife and I decided we could no longer afford to pay for two prime accounts so I decided to close mine and use hers. I contacted Amazon to find out how to transfer the dozens of kindle ebooks I thought I "owned" only to find out that if I closed my account, I would loose all my hundreds of dollars worth of Amazon digital content. I closed the account anyway and am now using the calibre e-book reader and am buying books in pdf or e-book format from other vendors. I will happily pay double what kindle books cost to get books that I actually own. I will never again buy a book from Amazon.
You could just stop prime subscription without closing your account.
You do realise you can cancel prime without closing your account right. You essentially thew away all that money you spent with Amazon for no reason.
If buying isn’t owning then pirating isn’t stealing.
@@schrodingerscat1863 I could be wrong, but I believe some kindle books are free if you have prime, so I can see Amz (not me) justifying the taking of those off his kindle.
Thx, checking out calibre now. ;)
The library!!! We just moved from Austin, but the digital library is amazing. It’s so fun to buy books, but it’s so great to support your local library in purchasing books. It helps others gain access to those books too.
There should be a class action lawsuit against Amazon and nook and steam and these companies, for false advertising, having a purchase or buy button when it's a lease
no use. The politicians and judges are all in their pockets
It’s not false advertising. You clicked the “I Agree” button to the Terms and Conditions.
“Hey, Amazon, remember that your customers are idiot - explain rules to them like to a child...“
I believe steam is fighting a lawsuit right now over this very thing.
AND AUDIBLE
As Louis Rossmann says, these companies give us the best reasons for piracy.
The shitty thing is that piracy screws over the writers who feel like they MUST put their stuff on Kindle or they can't get their books to the masses. Lose-lose situation :(
If only Amazon were the most affected by this. It is writers that pay the price, indie authors that are trying their best shot at making their dreams come true in a market stacked against them. It would be funny if it wasn't real.
If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.
Rossman is a sick, arrogant jerk, who pushes affiliate links, and censorship, at odds with the dogma he spouts.
I have been using an e-book reader since 2010. Since Amazon is not available in my country, I have always shopped locally. So here's my experience:
1. Check if the e-book is legally available for free, such as through The Gutenberg Project, or Internet Archives. Additionally, look for similar sites in your native language.
2. If the e-book is not available for free, check the publisher first. Often, it is available at a cheaper price.
3. Always download the e-book to your computer and save it locally.
4. I use calibre, a software that allows you to manage/edit the book's metadata, title, author, cover, and so on, as well as convert it to different formats. And I can transfer the e-books to my device using calibre.
5. Enable airplane mode, and never turn it off.
Hope this helps :)
How can I transfer books that I've downloaded to the kindle if my airplane mode is off? I generally email the downloaded book to my kindle and use WiFi till I have the book. I've also never used Cailbre
@@kenzok9328 Use an USB cable. My Kindle works with microUSB, and connect it to you computer.
1.1 Check if the e-book is available for free
@@kenzok9328 I have no experience with kindles, but I can connect my android tablet with a usb cable, and transfer the files using calibre.
Happen to have an alternative e-reader recommendation per chance?
This happened to me. I lost all my audible books and access to my account. Most frustrating thing was that they would not tell me what terms of service I had violated. So there was no way to even appeal. A scary snap shot of what the digital future has in store for us if we dont tow the party line!
I use Calibre to maintain my library on my laptop, and use deDRM to convert all digital books to ePub format, regardless of where I buy them. I then distribute the library to all my eReader devices. My other eReaders accept this process seamlessly, but my Kindle remains perpetually in airplane mode. This method also allows me to manage the same meta information such as book covers on all devices, and removes that infuriating "Before You Go" popup that randomly appears on Kindles.
This is effective but is considered piracy. I am not accusing you. It is just the irony of the situation. The moment you remove DRM from your purchase, you are piracing the book. If Amazon or Kobo decide to block your account, it is law.
This is the way. The video seems awfully simplistic.
@@monochromios its only piracy if he distributes it beyond his own personal use. In most first world countries, you have the right to archive/protect your stuff. This is equivalent to voiding your warrantee because you broke the seal to change a battery.
Same, only I turn them into Kepubs because those work better with Kobo.
@@monochromios If kobo or amazon block users for removing DRM those users will just end up pirating everything. Like I'm already doing with zero shame. I buy nice physical special editions and hardcovers of the books I like. Piracy saves me a lot of wasted money. Like I was sure I would love snowcrash, but it's one of my most hated books ever. I almost bought a special edition of it for my first read because I absolutely adore cyberpunk. There are tons of sites that offer every book you can imagine drm free and ... free in general. Banning people like Joseph would only punish people buying books.
If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing.
Companies that pull this need to get used to never getting any money from me.
only problem with that is, that the author also doesn’t get any money. i don’t think anybody is complaining about the fact that amazon won’t get any money from piracy. ❤
@@marctestarossa The author barely gets any money from amazon to begin with, and authors and musicians can be booted from the platform for political reasons or have their books removed (a book about Kamala Harris was removed from amazon, not because of copyright issues but basically because how dare they criticize their queen).
Buy directly from authors on other platforms, unless the book is so old or the author is deceased, in which case get it for free if you can, it should be open to the public for free at that point anyway.
This is silly. Buying licenses has been commonplace for centuries. You could buy a licence, for example, to fish from someone's land, in that person's river (they landowner owned the river within the boundaries of his land). This Amazon thing is nothing new.
Of course, what Amazon is doing is selling a revocable licence, and that's what is unreasonable. The licence for buying the digital copy of a book at around about the same price should be an irrevocable licence (although whether it is transferable or not would be a different discussion.)
@@BenjWarrant I don’t think people have a problem leasing books, friend. Libraries still exist after all, where you can temporarily borrow books, and so do academic journals, where you can subscribe to gain access to journals but loose access later if you stop subscribing or break the terms and conditions. Nobody is boycotting either of those things.
The problem people have with Kindle, is that they don’t tell you up front in bold letters that you are only purchasing temporary access to the book. They tell you “buy now,” which most people assume that means you have bought a digital copy that you get to keep forever, even if Amazon stops selling it and takes it off the shelves, it should remain in your digital library.
People are upset because the deceptive marketing doesn’t match the fine print, and because Amazon also monopolizes the market while doing these practices.
@@BenjWarrant That was for stuff that cannot be infinitely replicated essentially for free.
Removing 1984.
Good god the lack of self awareness is hilarious and depressing
Perhaps there is a giant amount of self awareness and this is a giant FU
circumstantial irony in this case, for Kindle hadn't procured the correct license.
It could have been ANY book to them. To Amazon it was just a business decision & enforcing a contract.
To be clear, they didn't remove 1984. They removed a specific version of it being sold by someone who didn't have the publishing rights and was committing fraud.
They also refunded anyone that had gotten the illegally published copy.
1984 from the actual publisher stayed in the store and on devices the whole time.
Not to mention the lack of due diligence.
Changing the covers of books in order to match the posters/advertisements of recent film or tv adaptations has been annoying me for years. There should be a grandfather clause that allows the covers to stay exactly as they were when I purchased (oops, I mean licensed) them.
I bought my kindle second hand, so my money didn't go to Amazon directly. My kindle has remained in airplane mode since I bought it. I have never logged-in to my amazon account through it. I load my books onto it from my PC through a usb cable using Calibre.
And that's fine with me. I see no reason why my book needs an internet connection.
I do the same, I bought kindle on amazon but I keep it in airplane mode and load the books through cable from my pc.
Same. And I download all my ebooks on my hard drive and then store it on external drive, exactly for the reason mentioned in the video - these files might be gone from my account in an instant, and I paid for them so I want to keep them.
I will consider this option because all my reading material (documents) is from third parties. I don't see the benefit of having my Kindle online.
Good stuff. But if that’s how you’re using the Kindle, you may be better off with a different make of ebook reader that is more open (e.g. supports epub and other formats), e.g. Onyx Boox, Kobo, etc.
Aside from all this, we now have to sit through ads when we watch movies on Prime unless we want to pay more to remove them. Which is bullshit because it was ad free when I paid in advance for a year of Prime, they at least owe me that time ad free.
If you have a library card you can check if they have access to Libby , it’s not like buying book it’s works like a library and it’s completely free, as long as you have a library card/account . If you have a few library cards you can connect with all of them if those libraries have access to Libby
I've saved so much money after discovering Libby/Hoopla.
Libby is awesome.
Also Hoopla books, audiobooks, and movies and Kanopy for movies. Lots of free content there without commercials.
The downside of Libby is that your library is just purchasing licenses to amazon ebooks, and doesn't actually own them. If you want to support the library check out real books.
I use Libby.
The critique is valid, but it's not an "Amazon" problem, all digital content is problematic for the same reason. Steam, Vudu, Nintendo, etc., etc. Anything 'digital' is at risk of the same impact
Not if it's DRM free and in a non-proprietary format. Then you can keep your own backups, or do whatever else you please with the data. See GOG vs. Steam. Jared vaguely mentions this towards the end of the video ('digital localism'); but the key point is the files have to be DRM-free so they can't be prevented from working.
DRM is the problem, not just digital. Much of the content in Humble Bundle is DRM-free and downloadable locally, but not all.
@@Entertainment-is6ex truth, truth. Technically you are right, but most platforms do have some level of DRM on their content. I appreciate GOG for being DRM free, but unless I download and keep it locally, at some point in the he future, I virtually guarantee they will have things removed from their servers / to out of business / etc.
Well it IS Amazon, though. They're setting the rules on their platform.
Echoing the "DRM is the problem" crew on here, I get to drop a _huge_ "FUCK YOU I WAS RIGHT" on everyone that were absolute dicks to me when I raged against DRM over 20 years ago. I told them _exactly_ the world we're stuck with right now for movies, music, video games, and now even books would work like this.
This was entirely predictable, and the braying sheep jumped in to defend the helpless multibillion dollar multinational corporations when I called it out.
I use the Kindle app on my phone and tablet. I guess the same logic applies. I have also downloaded my ebooks and audible files to a local drive.
When I was in High School, 1984 and Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 454 were all required reading. Today, all three have not only been removed from required reading, but banned from many school libraries. Be afraid, be very afraid.
"Fahrenheit 454"
It was 451 if I remember right; but yes. As these procedures become reality, the warnings disappear.
Omg same! I’m 29, so high school was more than a decade ago for me. I had no idea they were removed from required reading lists, much less banned 😰 that’s horrifying
@@thomasmaughan4798 Big smile. 454, was thinking of an engine, clearly remember now it was 451. Your basic senior moment.....grin.
Right, and consider too what has been put in their place. The K-12 reading curriculum is disgusting.
I’m going to buy them and let my kids read them, I’m a rebel at heart! One finger salute to the corrupt!
Just a reminder to use your local library.
Not everyone has a "local" library. The closest one from me is one hour and a half drive away. Not all countries are created equal.
@@gauthiernatalashadow8327 there are ways to pirate books
Mine is utterly useless
Mine is full of homeless people. They don't even leave the bathrooms unlocked.
@@VIsionsOfJenna oh no, how terrible that the ones who have literally nothing have a place that won't treat them like trash. Does it make you feel yucky? having to see poor people?
You don't have to violate their terms for Amazon to delete your books. I tend to go back once in a while to re-read books. Many years ago I noticed certain books deleted. I had to call Amazon and they restored it. The book was not on in my digital media on Amazon. It seems Amazon was saving space. I was very angry but nothing I could do
Deleting your temporary purchases to save space must be a form of consumer fraud imo even if they restore it your digital account -the account shouldn’t be altered for their space needs as the temporary purchases space has been paid for imo …
Actually, in this case, you probably deleted them accidentally - if you do as I do and borrow often from your library, I clean the expired borrows frequently (don't like them keeping a history of what I read), it's easy to check the intermingled purchased media.
@@Oops-IMeantToDoThat Nope. That's not what happened. "Saving space" is the excuse - whether accurate or not - that the Amazon rep gave me and he said that's what they do periodically. The books were no longer in my list of digital purchases. I purchased them so long ago that it seems Amazon thought I would never look for them again.
@@RamonaThePessstThis is disturbing. I might have to start buying regular books again
@@barefootincactus It's not just books. I asked Amazon - when I die, can I give "my" movies to my son. The answer is "no". Also if Amazon's license runs out, even though I paid for the movies, they can become unavailable.
They deleted a music album I purchased digitally, at full price. I've thought for years that I was just going crazy, but suddenly it makes sense!
This is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the world to today. It's not just Amazon it's anything digital. I learned about this through the PlayStation Scandal about a year ago. They lost the license to show some content for Discovery shows and went in and deleted it out of peoples accounts. I had heard rumors that Amazon did to, but, I wasn't for sure until you made this video. I'm glad you did made this video, Thank you I also shard this with my friends to.
Another recent incident that happened this year was when Red Box closed and anyone that bought digital movies on their service lost access to all of them with no refunds.
Nobody treats customers with respect, especially Amazon. Their customer service treats you like you are bothering them. I have stopped buying from Amazon usually cheaper.
@@Kathyat70 I wish I didn't constantly need niche medical shit that's difficult to find (in stock) anywhere but Amazon. At least I've got a Kobo so I'm not giving Amazon that book $
They owe us our money back.
Selling what amounts to sub-licenses for digital goods should be illegal. If we're "buying" something, we should have access to it until the end of days.
Thank you for reminding me that I am not really comfortable with Amazon's terms of service. A few years ago I bought a book that I decided to get in hardback because I wanted to know it could not "disappear" one day. You have reminded me of that feeling. Thank you. I will be mitigating the situation.
Well... As someone with a recent mold problem... They can still disappear if you don't store them correctly. Be careful! So many books I lost...
@@davileite780 I lost a whole box full that got wet when we moved a few years ago. But that was my fault and I should have been more careful. Hubby and I are both book lovers!
I don't like having an "open door" to my library for someone else to take what they want or worse, don't want me to have. The thought of losing acess to my Amazon account is sobering. I got locked out of my Google account once because I had changed my phone number and couldn't retrieve the password reset link. Took months to get back in.
I don't agree with censorship in any form, but don't blame Amazon - they're not doing anything everyone else is, including the government, is or was .
I agree with the movement of self control over what you purchase but he briefly mentions the most important point that ALL digital media sales have terms like this.
The most scary thing is that Amazon could retaliate because of videos like this. Jared could be instantly locked out of his account because Amazon took an extremely liberal view that this video promotes piracy. Then Amazon could stonewall Jared from getting any answers. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's definitely possible.
"Extremely liberal"? What tea are you drinking, dude? This is more in tune with Project 2025, TFG's shiny secret for destroying democracy.
Have you read about the case where Amazon locked a customer out of their Amazon Smart Home because a delivery guy reported a hate speech incident even though there wasn't anybody home at that time? Smart lock, climate control, AI assistant, were all off and they kept billing him for it. Nothing is below Amazon
At their whim that can cancel it without any reason.
Oopsie. I commented here yesterday about a consumer affair Amazon had last year. where they locked a customer out of his smart home and the comment is hidden now. Maybe if I word it this way...
I like your observation that Amazon might be pricks to Jared due to his burn knowing Amazon can change their terms of service on him without his consent or his permission.
So Amazon canceling Jared's kindle and audio book account is unlikely to happen due to Jared not having a big influence but if he did had a huge influence ( a huge channel)
Amazon might cancel his subscription and strongarm him to not produce anti Amazon content.....
So, I doubt they will retaliate against him for his leaving kindle video, but it is a good possibility
I live in a small rural town. I buy a lot on Amazon, both digital and physical because it is hard to get products here or they are much more expensive. I also buy (almost) solely digital books because my vision is imperfect and I need the ability to increase font size. But I have always felt guilty about giving Amazon so much business. Your video makes me really want an alternative but I can’t revert to non-digital books because of my vision issues. I hope you can detail a good alternative. Our local bookstore(which I love) used to offer a non-Amazon digital service that I used a little, though it was more difficult to use and then it went belly up and I lost my titles that way also.
I have been using Amazon since about 3 days after they went online. I have bought quite literally 1000’s of books from them/it. I sometimes buy series that I enjoy. They have removed many, many, many of these books. I read them, often re-read them, and know what I have had. They invite me to buy them again. I don’t give them away, they are my books. Period.
Insultingly, they also edit books they haven’t snatched. I read early British mysteries, and the language, being almost 100 years old, is sometimes not currently politically correct. I KNOW THIS. I have enough modern sensibility not to be affected by the difference, nor would I ever, independently, use inappropriate language. They are edited for whatever cause, which I HATE. Enough already.
Books are like movies, dumbass, when the rights holder takes the product off the platform, it is the rights holder that removes it and not Amazon. When the rights holder's license is up with Amazon, and they take it with them, it's the rights holder that fucks you in the ass, not Amazon. You can get the same exact experience on RUclips, on Twitter, on Netflix, etc.
This is what the whole digital revolution is about. Think about the applications to other digital "assets". It gets terrifying awfully quick when you start thinking about it.
@@TravisHi_YT - I’ve been thinking about it since Faceb**k came online. All those people laying out their entire lives to any- and everyone. BB’s shadow loomed that day, guffawing.
Real 1984!
My local library has digital books I can borrow. I have taken advantage of that service a few times. I don't "own" those books, of course, but it's like any other kind of book or item I can borrow from the library.
and most likely, they are the original version, not the altered one.
You can remove the drm from those epubs and keep the file indefinitely too :3
This is a perfect example of why we shouldn't go ''cashless''. ''Possession is 9/10 of the law'' and ''Digital'' is never possess by the consumers.
Absolutely - now you’re talkin ! The convenience is not worth the price - foxes should not watch chickens! (apologies to animals to make point about humans)🦊
@@nunyabiz- exactly - 💯
Digital can be possessed by the consumer, but only if it's stored locally on a computer that the internet has no access to.
100%
@@Beery1962 true. But how many people back up the digital content they own?
ebay for cheap, physical books. In my village there is a disused telephone box that people can put books they no longer want in, and take out any book they want to read.
this issue is much larger than just books. the video game industry has the same issues. the movie side is also the same. these companies are more than happy to charge subscription fees, upfront costs, require specific hardware, etc. and WILL NOT HESITATE, to change, update, retract, remove, or whatever else. with content you have purchased. there is a gigantic, gaping hole, in legislation. with digital content. as it currently stands, especially in the us, all of the protections are for the corporations, ZERO of the protections are for the consumer. theres the whole extension of this issue into preservation that goes even further. in the end, theyre doing a damn good job making sure piracy will remain alive and well for decades to come.
Absolutely, this is why I rarely buy digital video games. Plus the fact that there is a healthy resale and second hand market for games.
not just the video game industry. software in general is like that.
@@emb21982 there is virtually no European resale market and there hasn't been one for at least 2 decades so, no, it's not healthy globally speaking.
@@emb21982 Buy from Gog. I do, it's good. I own my games that I buy and download locally.
"You will own nothing and be happy"...
I use Kobo. Their e-reader is seen as a thumb drive by your computer, so loading 3rd party ebooks is drag and drop, and their store has a wide selection.
Not to contradict you and not to defend Amazon at all, but my Kindle is seen as a thumb drive by my computer, so loading 3rd party ebooks is drag and drop, and their store has a wide selection. 😛
Anyway, how is Kobo different, apart from the file format? Do you own the books as they are forever, unlike with Amazon?
@@brunosco No, you don't. I've had books disappear from Kobo.
@@brunoscomost places where you can buy ebooks just give you an epub file, which kindles don't support. you can convert them, but that's an extra step that's not necessary on a Kobo for example
@@brunosco i haven’t had anything change, but the other guy said they’ve had something change. I wouldn’t be surprised if the legalities were similar. At the time I got it, side loading was easier than Kindle, and I think the file formats used by Kobo aren’t proprietary. But I don’t know everything, so don’t take my word for it.
@@Dread-Gazebo Thanks for your input.
You are making the right move. I left Amazon in 2020 after learning how they treat their fulfillment warehouse staff and drivers. I had been with Amazon since they set up in the UK. I requested all of my details to be deleted including their other brands. Including Audible and The Book Depository amongst others. CDs and DVDs are much cheaper elsewhere here, a recent DVD which was £16 on Amazon cost £5 at a high street retailer WH Smith. TV's, cheaper at John Lewis and the list goes on. I lost a lot of audio books and Kindle purchases, but my conscience is now richer.
I get all my DVDs from cash converters and CEX and charity shops now .. get them for like 20p - £1 and then on Vinted il look for the newer ones second hand going for below £5. Got a nice library of movies now as I’ve seen companies removing scenes and changing them in movies so I thought I’d get the collection built up. Same with books I mainly buy second hand in great condition. Not supporting these companies who hate you and will give you plenty but take it back.
Cancelled my account a year ago and truly don’t miss it. Never had a kindle or purchased any digital content before though, so that wasn’t an issue for me.
The WEF head did say once "you will own nothing and you will be happy" - you just have to look at all the subscription services that were are sucked into these days, many we don't even realize. Great video again Jared
I have scripts that can pull and decrypt the books from my kindle, so Amazon can never take my purchases away from me. I don't care what they say, if I've paid the money I get the book. Should be no difference between a physical book purchase and a digital book purchase in terms of ownership.
sounds interesting, care to share those scripts?
github?
Hi, can you share with us a link to your scripts? Thanks.
Care to share or a way to access scripts like that?
Thank you for the research and clear/straight-forward education about this. I for one very much appreciated it. Cheers!
It's worse with movies, they will edit and delete sections as they choose.
Having your own hard copy is better, but physical media can be lost or damaged.
you can as someone said "format-shift" your media to digital yourself, it's not cheap depending on the size of your library but it's yours
I suggest using your local library for audio books and ebooks.
I made the decision a LONG time ago that anything I thought might get deleted for ANY reason, and was also important to me, I would get in physical copy. Digital is for recreation where I might not even notice I lost it.
Same
I love my Kobo ereader! So much flexibility because you can manually add epubs from anywhere. Also, you can use Calibre to convert all your kindle ebooks into epubs 👀 I did that, so my entire "amazon-licensed" collection on my kindle is now permanently available to me in epub form on my PC and my Kobo.
I mean, you can manually add EPUB files to your Kindle account as well 🤷♂️
Why would you do that?
could you explain how you did that? please? because I tried to convert my kindle books in caliber to move them to my kobo but I couldn't. I'm not sure if it's because I'm using the macbook version of caliber or if the plugin I installed no longer works or what
@@grsdv I think they mention adding the pubs because is way easier to add them in kobo than with kindle and there's also many different ways to do it. For example, I add them to my google drive and then download them in kobo. I've also transferred them from my laptop to kobo using the USB cable. But you can also add them through a dropbox account or an adobe digital editions account. And I have also been able to transfer borrowed books from my local library using libby and then storing them in ADE to then transfer them to my kobo. That takes a little bit of more steps but it's still super easy, free and you get to support your local library
@@ThePhoenixcompanies Why wouldn't you?
That is why I do the following: I buy stuff on Kindle, and if it is something I love and I am sure I will read again at some point, I buy a physical copy. This way I don't overacummulate but still own (for real) whatever fuels my soul.
same
Yep, I only buy kindle books at a discount for one I will probably only read once. Books I will treasure I buy physical copies.
Same 😊
Exactly what I do. I have kindle unlimited to test out some fantasy romance books that are about to come out physically. They when they are on offer for like 99p (1 dollar) il buy them if I know they are just a quick one off read or something I want to test out before I buy it physically. Always buy your items physically it’s the same with movies and subscriptions for movies. The companies have been caught changing movie scenes or cutting parts out from the original so I have built up a library of dvds also now. I don’t subscribe to anything now only Spotify to listen to podcasts.
Great if they exist but there are a LOT of books that only exist as ebooks... especially older books that only have been republished on Kindle because it costs the publisher very little to do so. Try buying books from the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s in physical form and you will go bankrupt if you want them (if you can find them) that are otherwise out of print.
If Amazon is selling a person a license to read to book or watch a movie or TV show, then they must never delete that book or show license- EVER. And if they ever rescind a license, they MUST be made to be obligated to REFUND IN FULL the cost of that license.
I tend to buy all my ebooks directly from the publisher's website, and not from amazon. Works pretty well for me, and I haven't seen any negative side effects so far!
Do they come DRM free this way? It never occurred to me to try this.
thats a thought. i just checked on one from DK tho and it only has links to "buy from amazon" as well as google and B&N. maybe some other publishers sell ebooks directly ? i'll have to start checking that.
That seems like that might be the answer. What eReader do you use?
@@JoeJohanemanyou can't just buy ebooks directly from the publisher (in the vast majority of cases). They let you choose which digital retailer you want the ebook from (Kindle, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, etc). All of them come with DRM.
@@JoeJohanemanThe few publishers I looked at that sold their own ebooks did. DRM can be removed with Calibre which I recommend using anyways to manage your library.
This is a special kind of book burning. it's like Barnes and Noble sending thugs around to burn the books you bought from them because they don't think you paid enough. Whatever Amazon says, it's very hard to frame the contract between them and a book purchaser as anything but a purchase-and-sale agreement, not a license. If this were ever challenged in court, I doubt that the terms of Amazon's "agreement" would be upheld. But, of course, bringing it to court and getting a decision would be slow and expensive. This isn't just an annoyance, it's a civil rights issue and a big one. It isn't just Amazon. The whole consumer market is shifting into a space where you can't own anything, and if you want something, you have to keep paying for it forever.
Yo ho, yo ho....a pirate's life for me....
"The Code is more what we call guidelines than actual rules..."
Especially since I usually will buy the physical edition anyway at some point the ebook is just a convenient alternative for me when I’m on the go
@@johnnymcjohnson1373 most if not all physical books I buy have been secondhand that I picked up for dirt cheap. I rarely "buy" ebooks...but get them from eh...friends :)
The wifi of my kindle hasnt been turned on for the past 7 years... Guess why ;)
Absolutely, that and a public library card is all you need 👍
That's why all my ebooks are backed up, and also didn't get rid of my favorite blu-rays even though I don't actually pop any of them in to my blu-ray player.
That's the great thing about real books - nobody can delete them from your library. REAL THINGS, people. Nothing beats real things.
That’s fine and dandy until you move to a smaller place and literally start to run out of physical space for more books.
@@anglicanmarians6845if we don’t stop this pattern of non ownership will we find ourselves living in tiny boxes like the poor in China
Own Nothing and Obey the Globalist Rule in a tiny box capsule they call a “home”-Enjoy!
@@anglicanmarians6845 That's a lack of creativity. Besides, we have LIBRARIES. Try visiting one sometime.
@@Serai3Well bless your heart, why the heck did I never think of that? Nice try though.
same with cash
Quick solution.... though it does require a little work and a small investment.
Just download the book to read offline and then copy it over (time spent) to a sd card or other storage device (money spent) then just always keep that storage separate from your kindle and you'll always have a digital copy of that book no matter what Amazon does.
I use a Kobo and am a fan. I might also recommend Project Gutenberg to everyone if you are looking to read older classics.
Standardebooks host polished versions of a bunch of gutenberg classics.
Project Gutenberg is a treasure trove! I love John Galsworthy, Anthony Trollope and Edith Wharton. Also, Librivox is a free website of audiobooks and the readings of Edith Wharton's novels are superb. A real pleasure.
You still don't own books on Kobo. You only license them
This is why I hoard DVDs and yes collect physical books. Because more and more, corporations will someday own everything! And “when deemed unnecessary and ‘dangerous’ to the public, we’ll take it away.”
Some really thought-provoking points here. I use my e-reader (not a kindle, but I can still only buy licenses) however I simply rent books from my local library which provides online accounts and is free. I can get new books and return the old ones all from home. It supports the library and also circumvents supporting massive businesses.
You’re making the right call here, if we don’t fight back like this we won’t own anything soon. If you haven’t read the book technofeudalism it has some interesting takes on a lot of the issues you brought up.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Calibre+dedrm is the only way. Literally, all other non-kindle ereaders use DRM. This is because the publishers request DRM to be applied (except Tor).
A pedant may consider Calibre and DeDRM piracy, but for books I buy, Calibre allows me to own them. Then, with the Kobo Touch Extended plugin, I read kepubs on my Kobo Libra 2 - I don't use Kindles any longer
Baen books bought from the Baen website are DRM free. Tor et al may say non-DRM, but Amazons use of a proprietary ebook format makes them effectively DRM'ed.
@@lanceyoung9928 Piracy requires you to distribute copyrighted works. Cracking DRM is different, more minor charge only applicable in countries where it is illegal such as the USA. Most of Europe, the UK and Canada cracking DRM for the purposes of making a personal archival copy is legal as of the last time I checked (sometime in the 2010s)
@@lanceyoung9928 it's not piracy if the copyright holder broke the social contract by revoking your ownership of your copy of the work when your understanding was that you were purchasing it.
@@DavidBrown-im4ph Baen books purchased through amazon and delivered as AZW3 files can be converted to EPUB by Calibre. not all AZW3 files are DRM'd.
They also change content---Check out your dictionary from the 1990s and the dictonary know. So many words have been 'redefined'.
Great video and information. One thing people can do is borrow digital books from libraries. No, it’s not owning the book and there is a time limit, but no money is exchanged.
This is why all my books are paper! PS unrelated but does anyone have space for 2000 unread books
The space is the main reason I buy everything digitally whenever I can 😁 I've even started taking notes only digitally (not including a post-it or two on my desk for stuff I want to have on top of my mind). It just adds up too quickly and takes too much space, and it can't be searched or transported easily.
they have threatened to remove all paper books but funnily enough all modern books are garbage any way so why would anyone care.
2000 is 3 big book shelvings (80 cm ×2m). One wall in a room or you can separate them in several rooms
@@GigusxI dont judge, but I buy books mainly as books, however I do buy ganes digitally and or movies on prime, but I will alsos tart buying physicall dvds and blu rays
@@balsarmy yep
I read 1984 summer ‘22. I borrowed it from the library. It’s what I’ve been doing for a while now after trying to stay away from Amazon for EVERYTHING!
Interesting enough, never liked audio books, I did buy a few but not as many as you. Thanks for this detailed video explaining. I will share with everyone I know!
They also deleted Moby Dick, as well as the Complete works of Sherlock Holmes...
How do i know this ? Because they deleted the books from my account and claimed loss of copyrights, and i would have to repurchase them
"You'll own nothing and be happy." Klaus Schwab
He's right. No subscriptions. No licenses. No copies. Nothing. Just eat food, study nature and walk in the sun.
Own nothing. Destroy the capitalist market economy by forsaking buying anything but the ultra-essential and local. Bankrupt all the amazons of the world, starting with the WEF members' companies.
"You'll own nothing and [we will] be happy."
"You vill eat ze bugs and sleep in ze pods"
That statement is from Ida Auken, not klaus schwab. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy
@@skitoxe4482 ''Auken had previously written in 2014 about a hackathon at the WEF that proposed "FridgeFlix", a startup that would allow users to lease all of their household appliances from a provider that would also service and upgrade these appliances. The proposed company would reduce the risk of residents incurring costly repairs and would work with energy suppliers to reduce power consumption of appliances.[1]
In 2016, Auken published an essay originally titled "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better",[2] later retitled "Here's how life could change in my city by the year 2030", on the WEF's official web site. It described life in an unnamed city in which the narrator does not own a car, a house, any appliances, or any clothes, and instead relies on shared services for all of his daily needs. Auken later added an author's note to the story responding to critics, stating that it is not her "utopia or dream of the future", and that she intended for the essay to start discussions about technological development.[3]''
''later retitled "Here's how life could change in my city by the year 2030", on the WEF's official web site.'' Essentially you could say this is the goal of Klaus Schwab and his friends.
Professor Klaus Schwab was born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938. He is Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum
Never mind the copyright stuff, digital media is not long term and all your stuff will be lost eventually. It amazes me how much faith people have in digital garbage. I guess I have just been around longer. I have 3 dead iMacs and two laptops in my garage. They all just up and died and I lost everything that was exclusively only in them. I took all kinds of pictures on digital cameras that are now all obsolete. Saved all the pictures to discs and thumb drive and after a decade they’re all corrupted and gone. I still have all the actual photos I took from a real camera from 40 years ago though even if they’re faded, I still have them. Lost a lot of stuff due to this digital hell. Now I just keep building my own bookshelves and go to used bookstores and buy real, physical books. Screw digital.
Digital media does need to be copied forward on a strict schedule, unless maybe it's super premium media like archival quality or even the new M-discs. And redundancy and backups help. Large media tends to get cheaper and cheaper over time, so this doesn't have to be a problem, as long as you never throw away your capability to deal with your current media when purchasing your capability to deal with new media.
Don't "screw" digital -- just be wise with it. For if you can preserve those bits, they will be as precise in a hundred years as they were the day they were written.
I have photos saved on CDs and DVDs from over 20 years ago that are fine. But ,I also have them backed up in other locations, as well. I would ask, if they are not recoverable, why are you keeping dead iMacs and laptops around? Have you tried taking them to a facility that recovers hard drives? They should be able to help, unless now that you’ve stored them in your garage the temperature changes have totally destroyed them. Which goes back to my question, why keep them around? There are a lot of reasons to make digital copies, even if you have original physical copies of photos. The main one being, you can share them with other family members all over the world in seconds.
Everyone jumping in to tell you how you did this wrong, but honestly, I completely agree. Paying for discs of games we can no longer play, saving files to CD-Rs that degrade, and now all this money spent on intangible "things" we'll never own and are being written out of by modern ToS. It's despicable. I wish more people would be up in arms over it instead of just accepting it. We aren't using our rights as customers to laugh in their faces and tell them what they're asking is B.S.
@@littlestbroccoli I guess "everyone" is two people? If you want to be truly vigilant about storing things like photos, which are important to everyone, then you need to have both a physical and digital version of them. As you said, CD-Rs degrade (although I have yet to have that happen to any of mine), but so do old photographs. Isn't it better to scan those in and have a backup copy of them in case something happens to valuable old photos? But, I do agree about owning things. If you purchase something, then you should own it.
@@timz9862 You can't just throw computers in the trash in my county. You have to bring them to the landfill and pay and I can't be bothered. I am not on any social media whatsoever. I never even made a Facebook page. I don't send pictures around to family. They were mainly just pictures of my kids throughout their youth and some pictures from various vacations. I live in the present and in the physical world, not the digital one. I can't even read a book on a screen like a Kindle. It doesn't work for me, nor can I listen to an audio book.
I guess this is literally...literally 1984.
Have you ever read 1984?
It's one of my favorite books.
Then I don't know why you would so keenly equate one to another.
...What?
It’s not literally 1984 because they aren’t rewriting history and forcing you to believe it’s always been that way. But it definitely is a shadow of 1984 by changing content and not disclosing it (the book art) but that’s more just pointing to the lack of ownership when you buy ebooks than anything else.
I just got this re-enactment of 1984 for Audible. I had my doubts but it's really well done.
Recently started collecting and making my own media. CD's, records, books... burning discs of things I intend to keep whether or not I pay for a streaming service, etc. It seems like an odd hobby- but I'm from the time when that was the option. The only option. There's an argument to be had that says physical is cheaper than digital streaming, and it is yours regardless of a company just rewriting their TOS to steal your money.
How do you burn things off streaming? I can't keep supporting these companies.
Never bought anything that I can't really have.
Maybe we will relive the 80s-90s, going to libraries, going to Blockbusters kinda places renting movies/games, using old phones with buttons and hanging out in the park or going out to dance every weekend.
Yeah, you're smart. I had to learn the hard way.
The only way out of this is an entire purge of technology, which isn't going to happen
I see. I, on the other hand, transitioned to e-books because termites ate my books. I live in a hot and humid tropical country. Nature can be so unforgiving here 😭
Oh my god. You must be traumatised, the horror...😦
I switched to ebooks because of space consideration. Storing books in barrels in my yard shed wasn't working out too well. I can carry an entire library on an e-reader. I used a NOOK for many years but after awhile it began acting funky, so I am using my wife's Kindle at present although I don't like Amazon's proprietary formatting - but for books I want to keep rather than read once I try to get my own copy, store it with Caliber, and side-load it onto the device. Can't afford a new e-reader these days, though.
@@Plus1Like Yup, that's also what I immediately thought of after the termite incident. I put the books that survived the ordeal in plastic bins and placed them on metal shelves. No more wooden cabinets 😭😅
@@tedrice1026 True. Space is also an issue to me too. An e-book does feel like having our own library we can carry everywhere. I don't even have a proper dedicated e-reader 😅. I just use Google Playbooks and Kindle apps on my phone. When converted to my country's currency, e-readers are still pricey 😞. But a regular smartphone with a FHD display is good enough for me 😁
@@akadacat Oh yes! It happened in 2022 and I still haven't bought a single physical book since then because I'm still traumatized. My broken heart when I had to burn the damaged books in the backyard 😭. Simply throwing them away isn't good enough because termites thrive in our tropical climate and they can multiply quickly to come and attack the house again. I'm still really sad about it because not just the books, but a part of our family photo albums and my collection of original Tour Books/clippings of 80s metal bands I love which I scoured from eBay over the years are damaged too 😣. Those are irreplaceable. I wouldn't wish this to happen to even my worst enemies 😢
I ordered and received a physical copy of 1984 just weeks ago. You can't delete it if it's printed. 🤷🏻♀️
You can still use Kindle to read e-books from other stores and sources. Most stores just let you choose a file format. Just download a file on the computer and then drag and drop it on your Kindle. It works just fine. In my country Amazon doesn't sell digital books and people still use Kindles among other, usually much better e-readers. It's just one of the brands. And "1984" is a free e-book, you shouldn't have any troubles to find it legally on many pages with free classics or school books.
Thank you so much!
Yeah, but you are still giving money to a giant who is way to powerful already anyways. Don't!
@@Waldemar_la_Tendresse I do agree in the context of a new e-reader, since those devices have become now quite saturated due to the hype and one has a lot more options than Amazon now. In the context of already owning a device? If one can locally load books onto the device, that's a perfectly usable device, I still use a 15 dollar Nook Simple Touch with Overdrive books loaded on an SD card.
@@brentboymebob8754
Pocketbook has the big advantage of a bigger display, which was important to me as well.
@@CREATERpl
The simple problem with this assumption is that many people don't know this stuff, will therefore not do it and this creates the possibility for these monopolies to emerge in the first place. Some people don't even care about this stuff in the name of their own comfort.
1984 isn't just a book, it's a prophecy.
So is Atlas Shrugged. In my opinion it’s more on par with where we currently are. 1984 is like the end game for this madness.
The fact that Amazon chose to remove “1984” makes this point even more poignant!
It seemed to have have used 1984 as a manual by TPTB.
Ok buddy
💯
If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft
I mean piracy _isn't_ theft. It's copyright violation, which is why we have separate laws for them.
But if they're not going to allow you to _own_ a copy you legally purchased then they're in violation of the social contract surrounding copyright, so you're no longer ethically bound by it either.
You can keep it 100% ethical buy paying for the media you want and then pirating it in whatever way you see fit. Still legally a grey area but Saint Peter will handwave that one through.
@@mawnkey It's not ethical to complain about Amazon and 1984 but then use Amazon and 1984 as justification for your own unethical behavior.
Pick a principle and apply it consistently. Piracy is theft. Pirates are thieves. That's their entire identity. If you want to be one, fine, but at least have the courage to own it. Or, join the more civilized world, where we recognize and value the contributions of others that benefit us, and exchange compensation without the need for violence and killing to put our principles into practice.
We have moved into a time when you don’t get to own things you pay for. Think printers. The company can shut your printer down if you don’t use their ink and they don’t warn on the box that they actually own your printer-they can change the firmware any time they like and make you device inoperable.