A Million or so Kindle books available now: where to get them and how

I just purchased my Kindle too, and while waiting can fI really go ahead and begin ordering my books? I don't have to wait until I have the kindle in hand?

Thank you,

Karen

Karen Marchant said:
" just purchased my Kindle too, and while waiting can fI really go ahead and begin ordering my books? "

You can order your books now. When you receive your Kindle, by the time you go through the initial startup, the books will be there.

Re Blackbeard post about Amazon's automagical retraction of e-books that have improper copyright clearance:

I'm not sure what would be the "proper" thing for Amazon to do in this circumstance? One might hope that the copyright clearance would have been better veted by Amazon in the first place -- although I suspect that Amazon would say that by legal contract the responsibility for veting the copyright clearance lies with the publisher, not with Amazon the distributor.

One point of clarification, however, if you purchase something that doesn't have correct and legal copyright on it, the mere fact that you "purchased" it doesn't make it "yours" anymore than purchasing a stolen camera or a stolen bike makes it "yours". If you bought it from a innocent party who didn't know it was stolen, then they would have the responsibility to return the stolen bike, and return the money that you paid for that stolen bike.

And isn't that in fact, what Amazon did?

One might hope that Amazon would show a greater sense of contrition, by, for example giving you double your money back, and sending you a mea culpa apology letter, but, in any case their first responsibility is to the legitimate copyright holder.

My Opinion Only!

James,
That's a good analogy, with one exception.

The innocent seller should not come get your bike or your camera without telling you first, just taking it away in the night, leaving you a check and a rather curt note under the door.

It was an invasive, stealthy move that Amazon has now thought better of (symbolically it was the worse way they could have handled it in a world worried about the changes coming with digital books and also worried about the control over our Kindle content).

I say that as someone who absolutely loves my Kindles and who recommends them to people who love to read a lot. This was just not a good move but at least they recognize it now and should put stronger, clearer language in their policy area as well as changing their systems as they said they will.

- Andrys
http://kindleworld.blogspot.com

Re taking "your" bike in the middle of the night:

Agreed that taking it in the middle of the night is probably guaranteed to make people unhappy, but then, once again, its not "your" bike. Which is why I suggested Amazon maybe ought to send a "mea culpa" email and double-your-money back. I think when you even innocently distribute something without proper copyright permissions that puts you in an awkward situation. Not sure that what Amazon did makes the situation any better. Seems like they should have been able to negotiate a proper settlement with the true copyright holders, even if they lost some money on the deal. Rather than "blaming the customer" which is what the take-back would seem to imply.

James,
Right. I had been thinking of a compensating extra too, to invaded buyers, but then I thought it might encourage some to put up illegal copies that, if bought, would result in bonuses for the buyers. I guess there should be definitely something added about putting up illegal editions.

Compensating purchasers for having removing a purchased item from their personal storage on their own machines was a given, even if not 'required' as some say, since 100% trust and credibility would have been out the window if they hadn't.

I think next time they should send an email explaining what happened and ask people to delete the book for a refund. Would the copyright holder sue Amazon then for not doing all it could? What a world.

Vetting every upload, including from a trusted and worthwhile source like Mobile Reference, is labor intensive and increases wait-time for anything to get done, but I guess something will have to be done.

- Andrys
http://kindleworld.blogspot.com

Latest newspaper reports on this issue say that Amazon has issued a press release saying they will not remove books like this from people's Kindles again -- but I have not been able to find a copy of the actual press release.

ok, so here's my take on the whole take-back thing. On many levels, they shouldn't have done it.

- Their action doesn't follow precedent. If it were any other product, they would not so easily be able to take the product back, and the "normal" procedure would be to pay the copyright holder "damages" probably amounting to any profit they made in the sales. And if the products were already legally available, but at a higher price, Amazon would probably have to pay the difference as well, since the total represents the lost sales to the legal copyright holder. Amazon took the easy way out by simply pretending the sales never happened. Of course this isn't necessarily a complete solution, since anyone who made an offline copy of the file still has access to the book. But legally they could pretend the sales never happened, and stick it to the customer, instead of face damages litigation, sticking it to themselves.

- It shows people just how much control Amazon has over their "books". Your "library" is represented by a few bits floating around on an Amazon server. You don't really own anything. It's an illusion.

- It is the mother of all ironies that they performed this Orwellian maneuver on a work of Orwell.

- And as for any apology they might have issued, well, you know what they say, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Is there any chance that this whole thing is a stunt for publicity? I mean, I realize it's bad publicity, but you know what they say. Seriously, have you ever seen more news on the kindle out there? This is the most exposure it's gotten. And the irony of it being 1984....so fitting...it's perfect.

Can anyone help me with a Stanza issue? I purchased 3 books from Fictionwise to read on my iphone 3G. I would like to put them on my Kindle DX. Has anyone been successful in a transfer from iphone or your Stanza account to the Kindle DX? If so, please advise necessary steps to accomplish the transfer.

[Deleted by the author on Jul 19, 2009 11:43:06 AM PDT]

Thanks for the great info, T. Beck! I've been trying to organize/accumulate many of these wonderful resources on my web site. Hope you don't mind that I've added yours.

http://wiredbookworm.com/
Click on "Libraries-Kindles"

Re Having to pay copyright damages:

http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/copyright-damages.htm

describes how the legitimate copyright holder can win their choice of either THEIR lost profit, which they might claim is closer to the $10 book price than the $1 pirated price.

OR

they can ask for statuatory damages. The example given at the above website ends up being rather high.

Re Stanza and Fictionwise: I personally haven't had much luck with Fictionwise -- I ordered a "free" book there and it took forever to show up -- so I can't help you on that end, but I have had good luck using Stanza with other E-book suppliers. First, note that Stanza does not support DRM which I think is what Fictionwise means when they say "Secure" and/or "encrypted" as opposed to "Multiformat" which I think you might be able to get to work. So if you bought a DRM'ed version of a book in other than Kindle compatible format it aint going to work unless you do some kind of DRM cracking which I am not into and certainly do not recommend. If you do not like DRM, then do not buy products that come with DRM!

The way I use Stanza -- I have an older copy which I use with free books -- I run it, I do a "File/Open File" to bring whatever Ebook format file into Stanza. The book shows up readable inside Stanza. I then do a "File/Export As" and choose either "Amazon Kindle" or "Mobipocket" as the output format. I normally just save the output file to my desktop. I am then done with Stanza, so I exit it. I attach my Kindle to my desktop computer. On my computer the Kindle shows up as drive J:, with the Kindle books files at J:\documents. I drag and drop the book file that Stanza created from the desktop into the J:\documents directory. Going to "Computer" I right-click on the J: drive and choose "Safely Remove." A second later my computer confirms that it is safe to unplug my Kindle. I unplug it, it recovers its mind, discovers that it is in fact a Kindle, and displays this new book in its list of books. Tada!

PS: Eventually the free book from Fictionwise showed up and worked with Stanza and Kindle as I described above. Again this was a book that Fictionwise describes as being "Multiformat" not "Secure" -- which again I'm guessing means "DRM'ed." And the "free" book -- which was pretty obviously a public domain book ie a book long out of copyright -- showed up with evil Fictionwise copyright notices plastered all over it saying if *you* do with this public domain book that which *we* just did with this public domain book our lawyers will hunt you down and kill you. So, personally, I know much better places to get my "free" books!

PS: Please don't get me wrong -- I happily buy books from B&N and Amazon and other retailers when they offer me good value for my money -- I just don't want to pay good money for bad copies of long out of copyright public domain books when I can get better copies of those books for free elsewhere!

I think Amazon has made the worst move they possible could, while at the same time trying to enter the textbook market. While this time, it might be only one or a few users, who have entered notes, because they were reading the books as part of a student assignment, this incident will be a warning for every student. Textbooks are typically heavily annotated in preparation of major exams and based on this incident, no student will be prepared to take the risk and rely on Amazon taking good care of his Kindle Library, since may be going forward the policy has changed, but an employee presses by accident the wrong button. Unless I have to accept any deletion of books from my Kindle, prior to them actually taking place, nobody can be sure that his / her books will be safe.

I compare this incident much more to the licensing of software than to purchasing a book from B&N. If I have purchased a license of MS Office and produce a variety of documents using my MS Office license, having Microsoft sneaking on to my computer, while being connected to the Internet, and removing the product that I have officially bought from my PC, because they got any rights issue wrong, leaves me with all my work lost, unless a competitors product can import these documents. Since Kindle is a highly proprietary technology, Amazon must find a way to protect the rights and investment, I have in my own work, one way or another, or otherwise e-books will be limited to reading books for leisure purposes and nothing more.

If somebody needs me to return a "stolen" bike or camera, that has been sold to me, I do not have to repeat past bike rides with my new bike and I do not loose my pictures taken with the camera, since these are standardised image formats. Whenever proprietary formats result in my continuous use of my own work being linked to the availability of a certain license or product, I do expect a totally different level of due diligence, prior to a major market player like Amazon selling this kind of license or product to me.

@James Adcock - Thanks for the reference re Copyright Damages. Very interesting.

Karen Marchant:
Go ahead and order while you are waiting. I got my Kindle. turned it on and got 5 books I ordered immediately. Just make sure you put it on charge before you turn it on so it won't die while downloading. I don't know if that happens, but just in case.

I agree with the "due diligence" issues -- I do not see how Amazon can get away without doing a better job there.

Re The Comparison to Microsoft, Microsoft has not removed software from my computer, but many many times over the years their algorithms to determine whether my software is correctly licensed or not -- and it IS correctly licensed -- their algorithms have been so screwed up as to deny me the use of my computer which I spent a couple thousands bucks on. And then *I* have to pay Microsoft $100 to speak to a technician in India to fix the problem who then insults me for not having my software correctly licensed -- when it IS correctly licensed! Also Microsoft HAS effectively unilaterally withdrawn support for product paid for in the music business, where customers paid for music and then Microsoft had conflicts with the music businesses or something, and the customers ended up holding the bag -- I can't remember the technical details. Also we've had problems where Microsoft music DRM management kept us from using music in home movies even though we owned the music involved outright. The point being, if I have a point, is that Amazon is certainly not alone in regards to having problems with how they administer their DRM issues. DRM is troublesome and irksome to honest consumers. I believe publishers have a right to earn a profit from works still in copyright, and I believe consumers have a right to use unmolested that which they have paid for. The problem is companies not fully understanding, and correctly implementing, both sides of this equation!

[Deleted by the author on Jul 24, 2009 2:29:52 PM PDT]

I was looking for this to forward the link to a new user. Now that I've found it, here's a bump so others can see it.

just log on...luck would have it to find your site. thanks. will be very useful. keep up the good works. gas

[Deleted by the author on Nov 5, 2009 8:14:16 AM PST]

Dear T,

Thank you very much for the detailed posting on how to get books. This posting is a real tresure!
Marta

I have been debating over the Kindle for months now. I finally purchased it about 5 min. ago, yay! Thanks so much for this info...very useful especially for a "newbie" :)

[Deleted by Amazon on Sep 24, 2009 8:34:09 AM PDT]