This is not an anti-Kindle rant. I have purchased (rented?) several Kindle titles myself.

However, YSK that you are only licensing access to the book from Amazon, you don’t own it like a physical book.

There have been cases where Amazon deletes a title from all devices. (Ironically, one version of “1984” was one such title).

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

There have also been cases where a customer violated Amazon’s terms of service and lost access to all of their Kindle e-books. Amazon has all the power in this relationship. They can and do change the rules on us lowly peasants from time to time.

Here are the terms of use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950

Note, there are indeed ways to download your books and import them into something like Calibre (and remove the DRM from the books). If you do some web searches (and/or search YouTube) you can probably figure it out.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    I can’t wait until a Senator or comparable “it’s not a problem until it happens to me” lawmaker loses access to their digital library and goes on the warpath. That’s the only way out of this “you will own nothing” hellhole we’re in and moving deeper into.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      2 months ago

      Probably won’t happen until Millennials and younger are in meaningful numbers in Congress or Parliament or whatever. A few Gen X politicians might be affected, but the rest probably don’t have gigantic digital libraries of things they’ve “bought.”

    • moody@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      2 months ago

      California is at least taking a step forward in legislating that “sellers” can’t call it a purchase if you’re only getting a revocable license. Shops wouldn’t be allowed to use the word “buy” or “purchase” unless you get to own the product.

    • MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      This is why they rarely pull your whole library, it’s too noticeable and all these services have is public faith they’re going to still be there. More often the case you’ll just lose access to a purchase here and there and usually goes undetected especially if you have a large collection.