"Reaction [beta]"
Kindle Swindle 13 Dec 2007
Defective By Design is encouraging its readers to tag Kindle and all Kindle-ready eBooks with the phrase "kindleswindle" on Amazon.com. Why? Because they're vehemently opposed to Amazon's restrictive DRM policy - a policy that prevents Kindle users from sharing books and reading them on different devices.
Will this become the first major example of tagging turning against a company? Not if the results delivered by the campaign to date are anything to go by (The Kindle itself has only been tagged "kindleswindle" twice at the time of writing). It's certainly a good example of fauxonomy in action though.
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1 comment so far
Ed 13 Dec 2007 03:56 PM
I stand by my belief that the general population doesn't care about DRM, until it screws them.
Microsoft screwed its customers by creating a new DRM for the Zune, so older PlaysForSure files won't play.
Apple, to date, hasn't done so. I can still use iTunes purchased songs back when I had my 1st gen iPod, on my (theoretical) iPod touch. (I'm rocking the 5th gen iPod)
As long as Amazon allows me to transfer my Kindle purchases to whatever new generations they come up with - I don't really care about DRM. And a converter is available to handle protected MOBI files, which opens up the possibility of borrowing ebooks from the library or buying from other vendors.
The bigger problem I have with my Kindle, is not that I can't share a book - but rather that someone can't send me a book. My mum should be able to go Amazon.com, buy a book, and have it delivered automagically to my Kindle (maybe with a little memo, I know she'd like that).
Before I stray too far off topic, I've always found it odd Amazon uses tagging anyhow. Granted, I've never used categories or the such to just randomly browse for items. I seem to use the search to limit results (i.e. "3ccd 1080i camera"). I'd imagine some censorship may occur soon in regards to the tagging system - or there is the off chance they might loosen the DRM.