a:64:{s:15:"comment_post_ID";s:4:"7508";s:14:"comment_author";s:6:"LynneB";s:20:"comment_author_email";s:23:"lynnebat@googlemail.com";s:18:"comment_author_url";s:0:"";s:15:"comment_content";s:4086:"Here's a problem I have, as a reader.

About six years ago (yes, I know; a millenium in Internet Time) I dumped about £400 on ebooks.  Legally bought, legally downloaded, from respectable enough vendors -- Amazon was one of them, though I was downloading to my laptop, not a Kindle.  And they were Adobe DRM-protected .pdfs, much to my later regret.  But I jumped through all the hoops to validate them, and life was good.

Until my hard drive died.

That's ok, I thought, I have backups; this was the point at which I found out the hard way that Adobe DRM does not accept the concept of "restore from backup."  I had to revalidate, except that it wouldn't let me; then I tried (after 45 minutes of expensive helpdesk calls to Adobe) the downloaded code which is supposed to reset validation, except that it didn't; then when I contacted Adobe again, they pretty much said "too bad, contact the vendor to see if you can get them again."  Well, that's just great.

I got all but one of them agin from the vendor; for that one, the vendor didn't allow re-dowloads and wanted another £45 for another copy of the book.  I can't buy books like that often, I don't have the money.  So, I have to take that loss -- an expensive text, lost to me.

I got to go through that again when I got a new laptop.  Oh, I followed Adobe's instructions to the letter, and validated all my ebooks on the new laptop before I got rid of the old one; but about 5 months after I wiped the hard drive of the old laptop and sold it, an <i>Adobe software update</i> removed the validation of my ebooks, and Adobe's suggested answer was to revalidate the books using the original machine I had downloaded them onto!  Oh, and the downloadable code for revalidation didn't work again.

So back to download them again, only this time I couldn't get a third of the books, because the vendor had gone out of business.

Then it all happened again, when a WINDOWS update convinced my ebooks that they were on a different computer.

When I contacted Adobe by email saying "I cannot be the only person in the world with this problem, there has to be a better answer to retaining access to products I've legally bought", I got a response in writing from Adobe's 2nd-line support:

"It is not our responsibility to ensure that you can use any particular product."

Well thanks and a great big eff you to you too, guys.

I swore, at that point, never ever to buy another ebook.  I haven't been able to keep that oath, unfortunately, since there are times that I need to get something I can take travelling with me, or that isn't going to take up a huge amount of my nonexistent shelf space.  I can say that Mobi have never screwed my access to something I have legally bought, and I can say that I am eternally grateful to O'Reilly, who have a policy of allowing permanent access to an ebook you have bought from them on the basis of the account you hold, not the device you are using.  But an unfortunate four other times, I have found myself out of pocket and completely without access to something legally bought and downloaded.  In all, I have lost hundreds of pounds on things which I have been robbed of by the "normal operation" of the technology used to store and access it, and in several different software formats.

Believe me, I have absolutely no desire to hurt authors or publishers.  I have too many friends who make a living writing.  You absolutely deserve to be paid for access to your work, and I think the people who argue that "digital reproduction is free" are missing the point completely; giving away one's work for free is not morally reprehensible, but it should be a voluntary choice, not mandatory for everyone. At this point, however, if I want to retain the use of something I have <b>actually paid for</b>, I have absolutely no choice except to look for a pirated copy!

It's a system designed to punish the people who try to be honest.  I am imbued with a burning rage against the software providers who put me in this position.  But what exactly am I supposed to DO?";s:12:"comment_type";s:0:"";s:14:"comment_parent";s:1:"0";s:7:"user_ID";s:1:"0";s:7:"user_ip";s:12:"139.133.7.11";s:10:"user_agent";s:90:"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7";s:8:"referrer";s:74:"http://davidhewson.com/2011/02/another-insight-into-how-book-thieves-work/";s:4:"blog";s:22:"http://davidhewson.com";s:9:"blog_lang";s:5:"en_US";s:12:"blog_charset";s:5:"UTF-8";s:9:"permalink";s:74:"http://davidhewson.com/2011/02/another-insight-into-how-book-thieves-work/";s:9:"user_role";s:0:"";s:21:"akismet_comment_nonce";s:6:"passed";s:11:"POST_author";s:6:"LynneB";s:10:"POST_email";s:23:"lynnebat@googlemail.com";s:8:"POST_url";s:0:"";s:12:"POST_comment";s:4090:"Here's a problem I have, as a reader.

About six years ago (yes, I know; a millenium in Internet Time) I dumped about £400 on ebooks.  Legally bought, legally downloaded, from respectable enough vendors -- Amazon was one of them, though I was downloading to my laptop, not a Kindle.  And they were Adobe DRM-protected .pdfs, much to my later regret.  But I jumped through all the hoops to validate them, and life was good.

Until my hard drive died.

That's ok, I thought, I have backups; this was the point at which I found out the hard way that Adobe DRM does not accept the concept of "restore from backup."  I had to revalidate, except that it wouldn't let me; then I tried (after 45 minutes of expensive helpdesk calls to Adobe) the downloaded code which is supposed to reset validation, except that it didn't; then when I contacted Adobe again, they pretty much said "too bad, contact the vendor to see if you can get them again."  Well, that's just great.

I got all but one of them agin from the vendor; for that one, the vendor didn't allow re-dowloads and wanted another £45 for another copy of the book.  I can't buy books like that often, I don't have the money.  So, I have to take that loss -- an expensive text, lost to me.

I got to go through that again when I got a new laptop.  Oh, I followed Adobe's instructions to the letter, and validated all my ebooks on the new laptop before I got rid of the old one; but about 5 months after I wiped the hard drive of the old laptop and sold it, an <i>Adobe software update</i> removed the validation of my ebooks, and Adobe's suggested answer was to revalidate the books using the original machine I had downloaded them onto!  Oh, and the downloadable code for revalidation didn't work again.

So back to download them again, only this time I couldn't get a third of the books, because the vendor had gone out of business.

Then it all happened again, when a WINDOWS update convinced my ebooks that they were on a different computer.

When I contacted Adobe by email saying "I cannot be the only person in the world with this problem, there has to be a better answer to retaining access to products I've legally bought", I got a response in writing from Adobe's 2nd-line support:

"It is not our responsibility to ensure that you can use any particular product."

Well thanks and a great big eff you to you too, guys.

I swore, at that point, never ever to buy another ebook.  I haven't been able to keep that oath, unfortunately, since there are times that I need to get something I can take travelling with me, or that isn't going to take up a huge amount of my nonexistent shelf space.  I can say that Mobi have never screwed my access to something I have legally bought, and I can say that I am eternally grateful to O'Reilly, who have a policy of allowing permanent access to an ebook you have bought from them on the basis of the account you hold, not the device you are using.  But an unfortunate four other times, I have found myself out of pocket and completely without access to something legally bought and downloaded.  In all, I have lost hundreds of pounds on things which I have been robbed of by the "normal operation" of the technology used to store and access it, and in several different software formats.

Believe me, I have absolutely no desire to hurt authors or publishers.  I have too many friends who make a living writing.  You absolutely deserve to be paid for access to your work, and I think the people who argue that "digital reproduction is free" are missing the point completely; giving away one's work for free is not morally reprehensible, but it should be a voluntary choice, not mandatory for everyone. At this point, however, if I want to retain the use of something I have <b>actually paid for</b>, I have absolutely no choice except to look for a pirated copy!

It's a system designed to punish the people who try to be honest.  I am imbued with a burning rage against the software providers who put me in this position.  But what exactly am I supposed to DO?  
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