Amazon Bricking Kindle
April 16th, 2009, 5:07pm by MikeJake twittered about Amazon bricking some guy’s Kindle for some unrelated behavior (it’s not been a good week for Amazon and their fail). This is reported as a case of a “nasty thing about DRM,” but I don’t think it is.
My understanding is that DRM is locking content in such a way that it only works under the seller’s conditions, and often only on a certain device (I even looked it up on Wikipedia to be sure). Like iTunes purchased music on certain authorized Macs, for example, which thankfully is over (in truth, it sucked as a principle to me, but I never found it to be a real limitation). In order to use the content as the user wants, the DRM has to be removed or broken, which is a violation of the DMCA.
In this sense, Amazon’s e-books would count as media that are “DRM’ed,” since they can only be used on hardware with the Kindle software (the Kindle itself and at least the iPhone, don’t know about other platforms), and only by the purchaser. But the device isn’t, any more than a DVD player, which plays only DRM’ed content, is.
So this story isn’t a case of DRM gone amok, since what is being lost isn’t the device’s operation, or the content on the device, but its connection to Amazon. The content was apparently still viewable, just no new stuff could be added. Don’t get me wrong, this sucks, but it’s just like if Tivo decided to turn off your service, but all the content on your device would still work. You could argue that the Kindle’s connection to Amazon is part of its core functionality (and I’d agree), but it’s not a case of DRM. It’s a case of Amazon not respecting the agreement they have with their customer to provide service, not DRM. Not everything bad is DRM.
When you buy hardware locked to a service provider, this is the risk you take — you’re at the mercy of the content provider to continue to provide service. If you don’t like that arrangement, don’t buy the device. Hopefully enough people not buying it will tell the seller that open platforms are more valuable to consumers.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
That’s a good distinction to make, Mike, and I happen to agree. The issue has nothing to do with the DRM, it’s the fact that the device is next to useless without Amazon. Kind of like my Sprint phone is mostly useless without Sprint. On the other hand, the connection to Amazon is most of the reason why the Kindle exists and is more attractive than open ebook readers like the Sony.
Getting kicked off Amazon is a pretty odd situation, but you can envision other gray areas where Amazon might be inclined to terminate your Kindle’s service– if you hacked it so you could use it as a modem, for instance, or heck if you used too much data just browsing on their hokey web browser. Maybe the limitations on use are covered explicitly in our contract (who knows), but yes, it’s clear that our $360 investment can be bricked on a whim. Amazon’s reputation in this regard needs to be watched pretty closely.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Yeah, not a DRM problem exactly. But where it relates is that the primary way of getting content onto the Kindle is via Amazon’s DRM solution. Of course, there are other ways to get books onto the device– but these either require a DRM-free publisher (rare), public domain books, or relying on P2P networks to download non-DRM copies that can be sideloaded onto the Kindle. Not sure if a “bricked” Kindle can download files OTA.
Kelvin’s point about the Kindle being “bricked” for abuse of the service is fair, but that’s not what happened here. Also, it’s not clear if the Kindle could be sold or otherwise activated on someone else’s account. Of course, then the books he “bought” are gone for good.
This is fundamentally different than the iPod/iTunes, whereby even if you got banned from iTMS, you could still get loads of music easily for the iPod. (Assuming it wasn’t stolen. D’oh!)
Bottom line– this has made it MUCH less likely I’ll buy a Kindle. I had been tossing the idea around, and this is just enough to get me off the edge. Now, if there were a DRM-free ebook marketplace, it wouldn’t really matter.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I think we’re all agreeing, basically Amazon dropped the ball badly on this one. It’s not just the DRM on the content — everybody knows that going in — and it’s not just that we realize Amazon is capable of redefining the rules of the game, which we conceptually knew could happen. It’s that Amazon has actually gone and done it — they’ve sold the device with the implication of unconditional service forever (at least as long as you don’t do anything blatantly illegal), and now they’ve arbitrarily imposed rules and imposed penalties — not because of illegal or immoral behavior, but because the user’s behavior didn’t support their business model.
And Jake, you’re right with the distinction with the iTMS, but it seems like it goes even further in this case, where not only does Amazon act as basically the sole content provider (with the exceptions you mentioned), but also it seems like Amazon controls access to the network — I don’t know how their relationship with Sprint works, but I’m guessing that the Kindle can’t access “Whispernet” without Amazon’s blessing.
I wouldn’t buy a Kindle, either — not because of the DRM, but more because they’re now on record as having screwed over their customers. I just wouldn’t trust them.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Having a DRM-free ebook marketplace wouldn’t change that much. Amazon could be selling their own books DRM-free and but once they decided they no longer wanted you as a customer, your Kindle would become an unconnected Sony Reader, which I suppose is better than nothing. If anything, this makes me leery of returning anything to Amazon, for fear of getting my Kindle bricked. Which of course makes me less likely to BUY anything from Amazon.
The implications on the content you might have purchased on their Video on Demand or Unbox services are even more insidious. If you purchased that stuff from them, they should be obligated to provide you access even if they no longer want you buying anything new.
July 18th, 2009 at 2:01 am
I’m trying to figure out my favorite pun concerning the Amazon/Kindle/1984 & Animal Farm fiasco. Personally, I’m inclined to support a variation on “You Kindle never had 1984 on it.” So while all Kindle purchases are equal, it turns out that some are more equal than others.
Part of me thinks that the guy who offered 1984 for sale (without authorization) may have hoped for exactly this outcome. Apparently this has happened before, but it was only the delicious irony of Amazon re-educating your Kindle to forget 1984 was too much for the Twittblogoposguesphere to pass up.