This seems like an isolated case where an illegitimate provider committed fraud in the early days of the program. Amazon refunded and surely readers were able to purchase a valid copy not much later.
Are there any examples where legitimately purchased licenses were made unavailable?
If an illegitimate provider commits fraud with a physical book, a megacorporation does not hire extra-legal mercenaries to break into my house, steal my copy, and leave cash equal to its price in its place.
But this is treated differently just because Amazon manufactured the Kindle (but no longer owns it - they sold it to you, it's not theirs anymore). I suppose if Amazon had built apartments, would we expect them to keep master keys to all the doors, so they can confiscate any of our possessions whose licensing has expired?
>If an illegitimate provider commits fraud with a physical book, a megacorporation does not hire extra-legal mercenaries to break into my house, steal my copy, and leave cash equal to its price in its place.
Except when they do. Hasbro/Wizards of the coast will send Pinkertons (old school corporate "security" firms of the break some kneecaps variety) after you if are inadvertently sent one of their products early by their distributor. They will barge into your home threaten you and take your things and leave not giving you compensation.
In that case, we, too, are allowed to unilaterally determine when a corporation has wronged us, and seek out our own restitution, without involving the police or the courts.
A Mr Luigi Mangione tried that recently it started a multi-state manhunt and shows every sign of being a sham trial and having predetermined sentence. They started with media events where swat team with drawn assault rifles frog march him into court with the NYC mayor in the lead and since been found to have been hiding evidence from his legal defense.
That is sort of my point, once a corporation gets big enough the law that constrain us little people dont apply anymore. You and I get caught torrenting a price of media for personal use and the MPAA, RIAA will bankrupt you just to make an example of you, Publishers will drive defendants to suicide (r.i.p. Arron swartz), Facebook torrents over 80 terabyte of media to feed to their pet ai they are training for commercial uses and they might get a slap on the wrist because they had a low upload ratio?
Corporations do what they want in this country laws be damned because all they get is fines and they have more money than God and will make even more by breaking the law than fallowing it.
The point wasn't that they sold something they weren't supposed to, but that they felt it reasonable to "un-sell" something after someone has received it.
It showed everyone that electronic purchases can be yoinked away at the first whiff of controversy. Unlike all the copycat, fraudulent crap they continue to sell in physical form to this day.
Don't confuse an illegitimately purchased license with a legitimately purchased illegitimate license.
This is the trouble with "licenses" instead of "items". If I purchase a bootleg book from a physical shop it's not getting clawed back later. The supplier might get in trouble, the physical shop might as well, but nothing is happening to the physical good that I purchased.
Still, this is an extreme, seemingly one-off outlier. There's nothing shady or below board about their actions. They made a mistake and made all parties whole.
There are plenty other reasons to argue against DRM, but I'd argue the chance this one weakens the argument.
It's not about shady or below board. It's about the fact that they can, at their choice, remove books from people that have paid for them. Since they have this power, and can (effectively) use it without repercussions, it's now just a question of under what circumstances are the people in charge willing to use it.
It's the same as when government agencies are given broad, sweeping powers with the explanation of "it makes it easier to do the right thing, and they won't use it to do the wrong thing". Only, the person that gets to decide what it gets used for can change. Then suddenly, they _are_ willing to use it for the wrong thing.
Not really. They went overboard. They reached into devices owned by their customers and deleted books without permission. That was absolutely outside of normal. Imagine amazon selling you a physical book and later sneaking into your house to take it back when they find out the seller had pirated them.
They didn't make all parties whole. Purchasers were deprived of access until making another purchase for which they had to expend at least some effort and time. And let's not talk about inflation and interest that mean the the price paid at purchase is not the same as the amount of additional money the buyer would have had at the time of the refund had they never made the purchase. Just returning the purchase price is far from makign a buyer whole. If I rob a bank and get caught and don't get to simply say oops and walk away scott free after returning the money.
Sony has recently been caught up in a few things like this. The Discovery shows being the biggest example I’m aware of. It’s definitively not an isolated thing.
> Are there any examples where legitimately purchased licenses were made unavailable?
From customers point of view, these purchases were legitimate.
But the important point is that they did it in the past and only the right balance between bad PR and expected profits will prevent them from doing again.
Also, there are examples where a company arbitrarily changes its DRM - like when Microsoft launched its Zune media player, it wouldn't play their own "Plays For Sure" DRM music - they just dropped support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PlaysForSure
Naver Webtoons does that, though I'm sure it doesn't fall into the category of selling ebooks and is probably well crafted on the legal side.
You buy in-app credits, you use them to access series and episodes and download them (you download them in a way that you cannot easily save/copy them). Access is typically revoked a few months later or upon series end, and the expiration of your access rights is not announced.
These kinds of practices are why everyone is wary of DRM & Co.
Are there any examples where legitimately purchased licenses were made unavailable?