[LINK] The Amazon Kindle e-book

[Richard Chirgwin]

Scott Howard wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 2:35 PM, Richard Chirgwin 
> <rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au <mailto:rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au>> wrote:
>
>     You don't buy a book with Kindle. You buy into a license which says,
>     among other things:
>     - the communications channel belongs to Amazon and can't be used for
>     anything other than Amazon content.
>
>  
> Not true.  You can transfer a number of things to the Kindle 
> (including PDF's/etc), either over the air (for a small charge) or 
> directly from a PC (free!)
That's not what the T&Cs seem to say ... quoting:
> and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely 
> on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and 
> solely for your personal, non-commercial use.
I can transfer things TO the Kindle. I can't lend a book to a friend. As 
always, an e-book is not a book. It's a license.
>
>     - you can only get books if you buy cellular services from an Amazon
>     partner; bye-bye mobile portability.
>
>
> Not at all true.  There is _no_ charge for the "cellular" service, and 
> no need to sign up with anyone.  This is built-in functionality, which 
> is basically hidden from the user.
Correction to what I said: Kindle uses cellular services from particular 
patner/s. Yes, the services are free, but they're not portable across 
carriers.
>  
>
>     - the book can't be lent, transferred, sold, copied, backed up (as far
>     as I can tell) and so on.
>
>
> Partially true.  You can transfer/lend/etc books between Kindles which 
> are on the same account.  So basically you can give them to others in 
> your family (for example) but not friends.
So why would I replace property (a book that I can treat like property) 
with a license (in which Amazon can restrict what I do with the book 
beyond the restrictions applicable under copyright law)?
>  
>
>     - you can't buy from anywhere other than Amazon
>
>
> As per above, you can transfer any PDF, HTML, or any other number of 
> formats to them, free.
But that is not the same as having an "open" reader that accepts content 
from anywhere.

Richard Chirgwin