Hi Everyone.
This little piece was written about me by my brother, it discusses the
consequences of digital lockouts. I was unfortunately enough to loose access
to my Amazon account last week, and the likelihood is that I will not be able
to have it reopened. This wouldn’t be a serious issue if it weren’t for the
enormous audible library I thought I owned:
Amazon have closed my brother's account because he was returning too many
articles to them. He'd apparently crossed some sacred threshold or
other--presumably one calculated to be the least profitable to Amazon--with the
result that he can no longer log in to his account.
And you'll never guess what that means for his very handsome collection of
Audible books.
Go on, take a guess. You'll probably get it first time ...
The DRM on Audible content requires that any device obtain a key from Amazon,
after logging in to an account. Any device already possessing that key can of
course continue to download and play any content, but without logging in, a new
device cannot obtain the key. Amazon have made it very clear to my brother that
they have no intention of allowing him further access to his account. So Amazon
has put an effective end-of-life date on all of my brother's Audible
"Purchases"; as soon as he resets the devices, sells and replaces them, etc.,
his Audible collection will be no more.
I'd just like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that DRM is
thoroughly and fundamentally evil. It's wicked. It's corrupt. It's iniquitous.
And it's not about piracy at all, it's about control. You don't own the things
you "buy" if the content is locked with a key you don't have and can't get. The
true owner is simply parting you from your money with the vague promise of
letting you use the key, which they endeavour to keep you from discovering,
lest you use it in ways not approved by the owner--for instance by unlocking
your digital content permanently and thus freeing yourself from the owner's
grip--but which they will make available to you while using software that they
trust to protect their, and not your, interests. And of course, the owner
always has the option of not letting you use your key at all, by telling the
server not to give it to the software. While your decryption key is in their
hands, anything might happen to your content, at any time, even if the owner
promises to the contrary.
This racket is only possible because we give these content distributors the
money to enable it--to write the software that keeps the keys safe from
discovery while in your hands, to write laws that prohibit people from breaking
the software to access the content without use of that software, and to
criminalise perfectly legitimate uses of content that are inconvenient for the
bottom line, but that are recognised by copyright and common sense as being
reasonable and fair. I sincerely hope you take something from this incident, as
I surely do, with something like this so close to home happening, and I hope
you'll be willing to think carefully about whose business practices you'll be
willing to support if you have the choice. I understand that we don't all have
the choice to exercise all the time, and that it's easy to make up excuses and
pray that it never happens to us. I'd say that this was particularly true for
blind people and those with other reading challenges, because the selection of
material is already very limited. Audible makes a fantastic, sometimes
exclusive collection of audiobooks available.
But they, and any other DRM peddler, simply cannot be trusted. I have made it a
habit never to value any protected content too highly, and I'm gratified to see
the truth in it, sad as I am for my brother's plight. For your own sake,
wherever possible, you should make arrangements to avoid DRM. Try not to
purchase anything you wouldn't keep from a DRM merchant. You never know, it
could be you this happens to, and you might be the next person to own a
handsome collection of strongly encrypted, utterly useless files that you have
no hope of playing, and who will be out of pocket for the amount you "Bought"
them for.
Hope this encourages some debate on the issue and those who use Amazon, take
heed!