Would someone please explain why I need a Kindle or other book reader when my mini notebook (or the one I plan on buying soon)will eventually have this app?
@SarahHeartburn: Because the Kindle has a battery life of a few days whereas your netbook and the upcoming Apple Tablet might last for a few hours. Because reading text on the e-ink screen is less taxing on your eyes than reading it on LCD screen. Because the kindle won't heat up too much when used for a long time.
@SarahHeartburn: I was skeptical for this reason until my "friend" convinced me to try hers. Now I am obsessed with getting a Kindle, for the reasons Luddite lists, and more. The user experience is very book-like, which puts my brain in a reading zone, as opposed to a "watching" zone, if that makes any sense.
@SarahHeartburn: I also tried the Kindle app on my iPhone and nearly went crazy trying to use it. OK for short bursts, but not for reading an entire book.
@CaptainMaharet: Of course. But a Kindle is areal handy substitute for schlepping an 800-page hardcover. And with a Kindle, if I finish one book while I'm out and about, there are plenty more immediately available.
I'm loving every minute of watching the tekkies suddenly discover that copies of digital stuff has value when it is in *their inventory*. We've been told "information wants to be free" and all and that digitalization has made everything copyable and everything worth $0. But suddenly, it's not when it's yours!
BTW, Amazon grabs a whopping 70 percent of each book purchase and gives only 30 percent to the publishers, even though their glorified newsstand costs pennies per person to make and use to deliver copies. That sort of oligarchic grab is terribly unjust, and that's why you see publishers warring on Kindle -- and you will see more of this.
@Prokofy_Neva: I think it's slightly unfair to attribute the "information wants to be free" argument to the people who paid money for this e-book, since the act itself would kind of negate that.
@Prokofy_Neva: I remember seeing somewhere in Time how printing costs for publishers are "only a small part" of their expense. That to justify huge retail prices for e-books. I did not see any figures to support that assertion - printing costs are negligible - but then the term "Warner Books" sort of suggested why that might be.
Bookstores sell with a markup of forty percent, correct?
@Tremonius: Depends. If they do through a distributor like Partners, it's 40%. If they buy directly from a publisher, which Barnes & Noble and Borders are doing more of, it's 45%. But that's before any discounting on the retailer end.
That is, for the copies they sell. Book retailing is a consignment business: any books B&N do not sell go back and are unpaid. The distributor and publisher get paid only if the retailer sells the book. It's a horrendous, inefficient, bloated, unresponsive system that needs to die.
@DeadFred: Yes, but there is another wrinkle, I do believe. Sometimes the piles of returns are volleyed to the seller as remainders instead of pulped. I've heard it said that bookshops make lots on those cheapie tables of overstocks. The publisher will see something instead of nothing, always a sound business strategy.
search for the comment by amazon kindle customer service.
what happened here was this:
1. publisher put up a book that was in PD elsewhere, but not in the US and got called on it.
2. publisher pulled the book rather than be sued.
3. amazon does much the same and gives a pretty terse and unsatisfactory explanation as to why.
4. an utter shitstorm erupts all across the interwebs as every tech blog and their cousin decides to fricassee amazon for doing this. lets be honest -- amazon did handle this poorly and deserves to be called out about that.
but the amount of vitriol and bile spewed today over this felt kinda disproportionate, especially in lieu of the fact that most every blog just seems to have parroted the same stuff others said without ever bother researching what really happened -- the above post being an excellent example. this story is kinda old and much of the information of what happened has filtered out by now. but it's kinda easier to just say 'amazon is big brother! hur! hur! hur!' etc.
5. so now amazon puts up another post and says they won't do this anymore (read: 'we've made the publishers sign legal indemnification waivers so we can't be held liable by their mistakes anymore') and with that, we pretty much have the whole story in hand.
which i fully expect to be reported almost nowhere, because, hey, why bother doing a little bit of research when being sensationalist takes almost no time at all?
don't get me wrong -- amazon did walk the dog on this one and does deserved to called out for how non-transparently they handled this, but the way everyone pilloried them today just made me feel kinda icky.
@Kurt Roithinger: You're right, Amazon probably made the best decision given the circumstances. But the reason it happened doesn't matter. What matters is that it could happen at all. They were pilloried because no one ever expected a purchase to be forcibly removed from their device.
Consumers will now always think that a book that they ostensibly purchased isn't really theirs. It brings issues of DRM and control to the forefront.
To add insult to injury, the fact that it was 1984 was the egg on their face and made it a marketable story.
should they be able to reduce their exposure to a potential lawsuit by removing what is effectively stolen goods?
suppose you go buy a recent model jaguar for $1000. or an xbox for $20. or a new $2000 laptop for $100. now suppose a week later, the police comes-a-callin' and informs you that these items were in fact stolen and are going to be returned to their rightful owner.
and yes, the money you spent just kinda evaporated.
the move amazon made was certainly a bit knee-jerk, but the response they took was within reason and legal means to minimize their own exposure. i actually agree with the above poster that a waiver won't completely indemnify them from any future legal actions along these lines, but at the very least it should make most small publishers think twice about not doing their due diligence, which is prolly how this whole thing got started.
the crux of the matter is whether or not you should be able to own/keep stolen property. the law says no and amazon reacted accordingly. if people wanted to start a grassroots movement to ensure otherwise -- sure, why not. but until then, outrage over effectively ripping someone else off imo is misplaced.
however, another poster above is right about all this highlighting the potential pratfalls of a DRM-based system. the issue as a whole (imo) highlights how problematic navigating an ebook service to potential profability will be, for amazon or any other provider. the challenges and aperils involved are far more daunting (imo) than the ones faced by music and video content providers.
@Kurt Roithinger: One of the issues is that Amazon does absolutely no quality control or verification re: digital publications. It's actually a little more difficult for a publisher to get a book listed on Amazon these days with all their quality-control measures -- gone are the days when a book was listed a day or so after information was transmitted to Amazon. (Took Amazon a month to approve our most recent title, and the morons missed out on a slew of sales after the book was reviewed favorably on si.com and they didn't have it in stock yet.) On the digital side, they just don't care -- they are in a rush to create the largest set of offerings on the digital-book side, and there's literally no quality control or verification process. I can put up ANYTHING on the digital side, and you're seeing a whole lot of crap flooding the system. I'm actually surprised there's not more of this, and at some point Amazon is going to have to exercise as much control over digital book titles as Apple does on music downloads -- and that will cost them some money.
@Kurt Roithinger: I think you're missing the big picture here, which is that this is basically an example of the control amazon has over an individuals library. Are papers books really so difficult to use/carry around that we're willing to trade them for a system that has the ability, legal or not, to delete our libraries at will?
@Kurt Roithinger: Yeah but had I just arrived at the good part of Room 101 with the mask including the ravenous rat and then suddenly find the whole book had been recalled, I'd be expressing my two-minute hate at Amazon.
@pubb13: I don't see a gun to your head, forcing you to buy a Kindle. I'm actually kinda appalled that non-buyers of the system are so indignant about something they are not participating in.
@pantsonfireliarliar: "But the reason it happened doesn't matter." Actually, it does. It happened in a very specific circumstance with some very specific issues. Amazon has had the ability to delete content from the beginning: when you subscribe to a newspaper via Kindle, you don't keep old issues in your library. That is can happen is not a surprise to anyone who actually uses the Kindle.
Amazon did handle this exceptionally poorly. But I am with Kurt: much of this outrage is poorly informed and comes from folks who say information should be free as long as it's someone else's information. And if you don't like it, then don't buy a Kindle. But don't expect Sony or anyone else to do things any differently: the law requires some sort of DRM and control over content.
@Kurt Roithinger: "(read: 'we've made the publishers sign legal indemnification waivers so we can't be held liable by their mistakes anymore')" Sellers already do this when they sign up for their Amazon account: they affirm they have the appropriate rights for sales, but it's strictly an honor system. I've not received any additional requests for anything.
@pubb13: No, the blame rests with the publisher, just as it so often does with Apple's decisions. Amazon and Apple take the heat unfairly here -- they are only conduits for the IP rights of publishers.
@Motoko Kusanagi: I wasn't really speaking about who's shoulders the blame rests on, but rather that this incident should give pause to future Kindle buyers. If Amazon can remotely delete a book from your device, then you do not really own that book, you're just being provide with content. Which is fine in the short term, but a little scary on a longer time line.
@Kurt Roithinger: But the law also disallows self-help. You have to use legal process if you want to reclaim something, you can't just barge into someone's house and take it.
just hold up a god damn minute! ive been away for a few days & am having a hard time processing this, but has the HIPSTER GRIFTER been captured?? aw HELL no! kari, i feel like i hardley knew ya...
Was mostly with you until I saw Eminem is apparently "Alt," and that Oprah combining forces with chicken is apparently more mainstream that Oprah combining forces with Jim Carrey's ex-Playmate girlfriend.
@semiserious: Then again, I guess future hipster boys felt that wacking off to Jenny McCarthy "authentic" than wacking off to Pam Anderson when they were young, because Jenny McCarthy had that weird show on MTV with puppets while their dads got drunk on the recliner and fondled them self through their afterwork pants when Pam was on Baywatch.
10/07/09
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10/07/09
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10/07/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
You think this is troubling? Go try to find information about economics-related grants on the National Science Foundation website.
Try for example grant no. 849224, Principal Investigator Kenneth Rogoff, Co-PI Carmen Reinhart.
07/18/09
Well now the results show up if you search by name. It will also come up if you add a 0 in front of the grant number.
Considering that this is the NSF, one wonders what the deal is...
07/18/09
BTW, Amazon grabs a whopping 70 percent of each book purchase and gives only 30 percent to the publishers, even though their glorified newsstand costs pennies per person to make and use to deliver copies. That sort of oligarchic grab is terribly unjust, and that's why you see publishers warring on Kindle -- and you will see more of this.
07/18/09
07/18/09
Bookstores sell with a markup of forty percent, correct?
07/18/09
That is, for the copies they sell. Book retailing is a consignment business: any books B&N do not sell go back and are unpaid. The distributor and publisher get paid only if the retailer sells the book. It's a horrendous, inefficient, bloated, unresponsive system that needs to die.
07/21/09
07/17/09
07/17/09
07/17/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
Actually, I would consider it appropo.
07/18/09
07/17/09
search for the comment by amazon kindle customer service.
what happened here was this:
1. publisher put up a book that was in PD elsewhere, but not in the US and got called on it.
2. publisher pulled the book rather than be sued.
3. amazon does much the same and gives a pretty terse and unsatisfactory explanation as to why.
4. an utter shitstorm erupts all across the interwebs as every tech blog and their cousin decides to fricassee amazon for doing this. lets be honest -- amazon did handle this poorly and deserves to be called out about that.
but the amount of vitriol and bile spewed today over this felt kinda disproportionate, especially in lieu of the fact that most every blog just seems to have parroted the same stuff others said without ever bother researching what really happened -- the above post being an excellent example. this story is kinda old and much of the information of what happened has filtered out by now. but it's kinda easier to just say 'amazon is big brother! hur! hur! hur!' etc.
5. so now amazon puts up another post and says they won't do this anymore (read: 'we've made the publishers sign legal indemnification waivers so we can't be held liable by their mistakes anymore') and with that, we pretty much have the whole story in hand.
which i fully expect to be reported almost nowhere, because, hey, why bother doing a little bit of research when being sensationalist takes almost no time at all?
don't get me wrong -- amazon did walk the dog on this one and does deserved to called out for how non-transparently they handled this, but the way everyone pilloried them today just made me feel kinda icky.
07/17/09
07/17/09
Consumers will now always think that a book that they ostensibly purchased isn't really theirs. It brings issues of DRM and control to the forefront.
To add insult to injury, the fact that it was 1984 was the egg on their face and made it a marketable story.
07/17/09
It would be one thing to pull the book from the site and not sell any more copies, but the ones that already got it? It should be tough shit.
Yes, a lot of sites aren't telling the whole story but none of it changes the fact that they remotely wiped two purchased books off people's devices.
Even if he Kindle WAS available in my country, I wouldn't buy one because frankly, this just makes my tinfoil hat tingle.
07/18/09
07/18/09
should they be able to reduce their exposure to a potential lawsuit by removing what is effectively stolen goods?
suppose you go buy a recent model jaguar for $1000. or an xbox for $20. or a new $2000 laptop for $100. now suppose a week later, the police comes-a-callin' and informs you that these items were in fact stolen and are going to be returned to their rightful owner.
and yes, the money you spent just kinda evaporated.
the move amazon made was certainly a bit knee-jerk, but the response they took was within reason and legal means to minimize their own exposure. i actually agree with the above poster that a waiver won't completely indemnify them from any future legal actions along these lines, but at the very least it should make most small publishers think twice about not doing their due diligence, which is prolly how this whole thing got started.
the crux of the matter is whether or not you should be able to own/keep stolen property. the law says no and amazon reacted accordingly. if people wanted to start a grassroots movement to ensure otherwise -- sure, why not. but until then, outrage over effectively ripping someone else off imo is misplaced.
however, another poster above is right about all this highlighting the potential pratfalls of a DRM-based system. the issue as a whole (imo) highlights how problematic navigating an ebook service to potential profability will be, for amazon or any other provider. the challenges and aperils involved are far more daunting (imo) than the ones faced by music and video content providers.
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
Amazon did handle this exceptionally poorly. But I am with Kurt: much of this outrage is poorly informed and comes from folks who say information should be free as long as it's someone else's information. And if you don't like it, then don't buy a Kindle. But don't expect Sony or anyone else to do things any differently: the law requires some sort of DRM and control over content.
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
And I didn't even know I was promotable :)
07/23/09
07/17/09
05/09/09
aw HELL no!
kari, i feel like i hardley knew ya...
05/09/09
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05/08/09
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05/06/09
The broadsheet is the classic homeless guy blanket. Tabloid works in a pinch but it's sort of the Ladies model of last ditch shelter.
And you can't take that away, apple.
05/06/09
Amazon. Contrary to popular bloglief, there is more than one innovative technology company on planet Earth.
05/06/09