when is the work of the intellect "property?" (part 635)

Just in time for the federal government's copyright consultations, Amazon.com has managed to make a complex issue a whole lot denser.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on consumer advocates lobbying Amazon to drastically alter their current business practices for fear the new tools of retail may someday be used as tools of oppression.

It seems Amazon recently flipped one of their all-powerful switches and erased illicitly obtained copies of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four from the Kindle reading devices of many Amazon customers. This spawned countless uses of the adjective "Orwellian" by headline writers around the globe; inspired a potential class action lawsuit; and somehow managed to align those who do not believe in the concept of intellectual property with the idea that files they have acquired to their digital devices are some form of "property" others should not be allowed to arbitrarily yoink from their hands -- especially when that "property" represents the "intellectual" freedom we as a society demand.

I think what I find most interesting about the Boing Boing posting (see link above) is the house-breaking analogy they quote:

"it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands..."

So, unauthorized use of intellectual property is somehow like the unauthorized use of physical property? As Mr. Spock would say... fascinating.

UPDATE:
One-stop shopping for both the catchy headline and the physical property analogy can be found at e-consumer advocate Michael Geist's blog.

... and in further electronic reading news

(image courtesy Amazon's blog kindle)

Coming soon to the Discovery Channel... Is the Kindle the result of patent subterfuge?

Amazon's increasingly popular electronic reader is now the subject of a patent dispute. Discovery Communications, owners of the Discovery Channel, are suing Amazon, saying the Kindle violates a patent Discovery has held since 2007.

It's funny -- for an industry generally thought to be teetering on a precipice, there seems to be a lot of interest in the potential profits of publishing's future.

Thanks to artsjournal.com for the tip.

kindle me this

That's right, I own an iPhone. So what?

In my increasingly complicated life, it is a comforting constant -- calendar, e-mail device, camera and podcast library all in one. Ironically, the phone part of my iPhone is probably the least used, though that will change as my kids get a bit older.

I promise you I am not one of those iPhoners who play ridiculous body contorting video games on the subway. Seriously people, you're in public.

Awhile back, I browsed through the iPhone app store and discovered eReader, an inexpensive application that turns my phone into a book. I already use the device to listen to audiobooks, but now I can also read full texts. I downloaded The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper -- a hole in my North American classics reading and, I'm discovering, a fascinating text with all sorts of cultural questions and challenges wrapped into it. My favorite feature of the eReader (other than my ability to make the print size gigantic) are the endnotes, which appear as numbered hyperlinks. I touch one of the numbers, read the related citation or information, touch the return arrow and am brought right back to the endnoted section of the main text. Oh the wasted time and energy of my student days spent physically flipping back and forth in old fashioned paper books. No more!

Yesterday it was announced that Amazon.com wants my twenty minutes per day of commuter iPhone reading time, and it's willing to fight eReader for it. Amazon has launched a Kindle application for the iPhone, for free. I now do not have to buy a Kindle (are they even available in Canada?) to read Kindle formatted books, and with Amazon's recent reversal on the text-reading feature of the Kindle I am more willing to give their format a look-see. So, let the electronic book format wars begin.

I'll report back once I'm out of the northern New York woods of 1757.

so there's free!... and then there's free?

As mentioned in the previous posting, this is Freedom to Read Week in Canada -- a time to celebrate and insist upon the right to free expression.

But just to be clear, "free" does not necessarily mean "unpaid."

From the New York Times today:

The Kindle Swindle?

... thanks to Bookninja for the link.

Cory's kindle concerns

Copyfighter novelist Cory Doctorow wonders aloud why Amazon.com doesn't apply the same trusting business practices to its digital wares it does to physical objects. Full article in The Guardian Unlimited here -- and an excerpt:

Amazon can change your ebooks without notifying you or getting your permission; and if you violate any of the "agreement", it can delete your ebooks, even if you've paid for them, and you get no appeal.

It's not just the Kindle, either. Amazon Unbox, the semi-abortive video download service, shipped with terms of service that included your granting permission for Amazon to install any software on your computer, to spy on you, to delete your videos, to delete any other file on your hard drive, to deny you access to your movies if you lose them in a crash. This comes from the company that will cheerfully ship you a replacement DVD if you email them and tell them that the one you just bought never turned up in the post.

Critics of my call for strong copyright may be surprised to hear that I share Doctorow's wistful bafflement over Amazon's digital business model. It certainly does seem they've gone a little slap-happy with the technological locking devices, and I anticipate a future in which Amazon sells fewer than hoped for Kindles and e-books under these terms and with these technological conditions.

Unlike Doctorow, though, I am not at all confused as to why Amazon would try to run its digital show like this. They do it, I imagine, because they're not quite sure what else to do. Accepting that a single physical copy of a book can be lent or resold, as Amazon and every other publishing related professional should do, does nothing to threaten the traditional writing and publishing business model. In fact, all audience-building devices such as limited lending and sharing can only be good for the book world in the long run. What would not be good for the business model of the book world is unlimited lending and sharing without a compensatory mechanism of any kind attached. Amazon locks up its e-books, for now, because it fears this unlimited lending and sharing.

Should they fear it? No, I don't think so. I think the mass of consumers can be trusted to respect copyright and the need for compensation that encourages continued creativity in a market-based economy, eventually.

Key words:

Trust -- Amazon needs to learn to trust its customers to do the right thing.

Respect -- Amazon's customers must respect copyright.

One won't work without the other -- and this is kind of a chicken and egg scenario. Not one of these key words comes first -- they both must happen at once.

Should we pass laws that remove Amazon's ability to make the kind of mistake it's making by alienating its own customers. Why would we do that? Strong copyright, including the right to lock your stuff away from your customers, is about giving the limited rights holders the freedom to choose their business model, even if it's one that won't work. At the moment, Doctorow and I agree, Amazon is probably choosing the wrong one. I have faith the market will send them an appropriate message.