mike | Shared With: Everyone - Dec 14 2007 | drm, legal, piracy, kindle, amazon
I disagree with the author here. I think Amazon strikes a good balance for this v1 product. Unlike iTunes, digital media purchased on Amazon is stored in your account on their servers. If you lose your device in the future, you can download books from your library for free to a replacement device - in perpetuity (in contrast, if you lose an iTunes dowloaded song - Apple says "tough luck" - and you have to buy it again).
Amazon DOES support a minimum level of sharing of media - I have multiple Kindles in my account (for different family members). Since they are all part of our family's library, any one in our family can download these media to their Kindle to read.
I agree, it would be better to have an ability to transfer media to another user (delete from my devices and library, and add to someone else's). 20 years hence, I would imagine that my online digital library at Amazon will be itself quite a valuable personal asset. When I die, do I get to pass that on to my heirs? Can I sell my account to another person?
Once lawmakers understand how much is at stake for individuals (thousands of dollars of digital assets per person), I would hope they will be compelled to enact legislation protecting our investments.
- mike | Shared With: Everyone - Sep 25 2007 | mp3, music, download, drm, shopping
FAQ about Amazon's MP3 download service. No DRM, so you can put on any player, burn CD's, copy to multiple computers. License is for PERSONAL non-commercial use.
File are encoded at 256 kbps - excellent fidelity to the original CD recording (they use variable bit rate encoding for most songs so this is an average).
I also like that they support downloading via the browser with NO downloaded software needed (though they do have a downloader application that will help organize all your amazon purchases into an "Amazon MP3" folder).
ShareViewed: 3 Times - mike | Shared With: Everyone - Sep 25 2007 | music, Norah Jones, shopping, mp3, drm
You can now by Norah Jones and other artists songs for less than $1 per song, and NO DRM. Thank you Amazon!
Quoted: Amazon.com: Norah Jones: MP3 Downloads
ShareViewed: 58 Times - mike | Shared With: Everyone - Mar 01 2007 | drm, anti-piracy, copy protection, microsoft, real, fsf, dbd
I hate DRM. Think of what a drag "copy protection" schemes have been on technology development over the years. Any product is made MORE VALUABLE by removing copy protection from it.
Stealing is against the law. Can't we just punish the criminals, and leave the rest of us alone?
ShareViewed: 2 Times - mike | Shared With: Everyone - Feb 09 2007 | music, apple, jobs, drm, crypto
I don't buy DRM protected music. Because I want portability for my library - everything gets ripped to MP3. If iTune sold DRM-free music, I'd be all over it.
Jobs' argument here is pretty sound. People who want to support the artists they like - will continue to pay for music - if it's available in a form they want to consume.
Quoted: Apple’s DRM system is called FairPlay. While we have had a few breaches in FairPlay, we have been able to successfully repair them through updating the iTunes store software, the iTunes jukebox software and software in the iPods themselves. So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.
...
The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.ShareViewed: 9 Times
- jacoxnet - Jan 01 2008
- mike - Jan 02 2008
You must be Mike's friend before you can comment on this Fave.It's fine as long as you trust Amazon and as long as Amazon continues with that business model. A few years ago, I bought several ebooks from Amazon, which at the time was using the Adobe encrypted ebook drm. Amazon maintained your "digital library" online, where you were free to re-download these items if you happened to need to do that, as you sometimes did if you wanted to move the books to another computer. One day, I guess their business model changed (probably in anticipation of the Kindle) and the ebook functionality simply disappeared from Amazon. There was no way to re-download the books anymore. I have them now on an old laptop, but there is no way I know of to move them to any other computer.
Well, that sucks. It does seem odd that their is not an integrated eBook offering on Amazon - you should be able to purchase any ebook, and then download to multiple readers (Sony's, Kindle, PC).
Send Mike a friend request or a personal message instead.