Books Mar 18, 2013 at 2:22 pm

You Don't Own Those Comic Books You Bought

Paul Constant
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Comments

1
I love the smell of class action in the morning...
usagi on March 18, 2013 at 2:43 PM Report this
2
And when it happens to Kindle (and it will at some point) expect Americans to bend over and say "Fuck me again Corporate America!! Thank you SIR!!"
Cato the Younger Younger on March 18, 2013 at 2:46 PM Report this
3
Mostly unrelated, but it kind of reminds me of Questionland. That site supposedly "broke" and then never came back. All the content that users contributed just vanished overnight.

Since The Stranger had a stake in Questionland they could never be bothered to publically answer the question of "What killed Questionland?"

Buying ebooks, being involved with an online community... it's all pointless eventually.
stinkbug on March 18, 2013 at 2:52 PM Report this
4
I think this is the direction almost all media is going to be taking. Video games are already moving there (e.g., Steam).

If corporations can just rent their products instead of selling them, they get the opportunity to fuck you multiple times for the same thing.
Urgutha Forka on March 18, 2013 at 2:55 PM Report this
5
I have some print books I tried to re-read many years after I first enjoyed them, and somehow, the magic was gone. So watch out for that too.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on March 18, 2013 at 2:56 PM Report this
6
All we are is dust in the wind, baka gaijin.
Zebes on March 18, 2013 at 2:56 PM Report this
7
Luckily, pirated e-books have no such problem.
Doctor Memory on March 18, 2013 at 3:15 PM Report this
8
Comics publishers would do well to not increase incentives to stealing digital comic books. Because it is really fucking easy to steal digital comic books.
bleedingheartlibertarian on March 18, 2013 at 3:43 PM Report this
9
From the depths of Digital Hell I shall stab at thee!
Will in Seattle on March 18, 2013 at 3:48 PM Report this
10
Yep. Always make sure if you buy digital content, that you are actually downloading the content to a local file, and that you know how to crack the DRM.
drewm1980 on March 18, 2013 at 3:58 PM Report this
11
Funnily enough, Paul catches yet another news item that further confirms his view that Amazon is super-duper-mega-evil. I mean, what are the odds?
also on March 18, 2013 at 4:12 PM Report this
12
This is why I feel vindicated for never trusting online file backup systems (how long until you have to pay what's effectively a ransom so the company doesn't delete your shit?) and for almost always buying physical copies of media.

If companies are going to play this game of reserving the right to pull your license (or their server support or whatever) whenever they feel like it, they need to make digital copies much, *much* cheaper than the physical version.
keshmeshi on March 18, 2013 at 4:16 PM Report this
13
@12

With hard drives being so cheap, including networked backup systems for home/business; I really don't see the need to pay for some online backup service. Especially that they almost all require access to the files in an unencrypted format, for legal reasons.
uptown on March 18, 2013 at 5:37 PM Report this
14
What DID happen to Questionland anyway? No word...just gone.
Last of the Time Lords on March 18, 2013 at 5:43 PM Report this
15
five second google:

Dear Questionland folks,

Over the past year or so Questionland has become a very part-time hobby for the Questionland team. If there was a problem, we'd fix it, and the community made the rest happen. This arrangement was working fine until we had a major server problem that brought the site down. We tried hard to bring it back to life but failed. It became clear that a lot more investment of money and time was needed and we just couldn't make it happen.

It's really a drag that Questionland, a site that the community and it's founders invested so much in, died so abruptly, and we apologize for that.

We're blown-away by the wit and deep knowledge that this community has been willing to share, and we hope you had as great a time as we did.

Thanks for your questions and answers.

You will live on but the Mushroom and the Gnome have crossed to the other side.
emor on March 18, 2013 at 6:35 PM Report this
16
When Slog vanishes in the bitstorm, as it eventually will, Index Media and its heirs and assigns can just re-use the Questionland farewell @15.

It'll be sad, but I'll have folders upon folders of threadlinks to all my clever insights, to keep me warm at night.
rob! on March 18, 2013 at 9:10 PM Report this
17
oh lets compare amazon.com to a failing old comic website, that makes sense! next week amazon could close forever!
hans millionaire on March 18, 2013 at 10:02 PM Report this
18
We obviously don't want to buy a license for a book - we want the damn book. We're forced to buy just a license because that's the only option we have. I'm seeing less of consumers buying something they want than buying the only new option available to us.
prompt on March 18, 2013 at 11:02 PM Report this
19
@15: Yes, that is the announcement. But it doesn't go into detail about the "server problem" and database problems and lack of backups that prevented them from returning. I'd love to read an article about all the technical problems and how they decided that they couldn't recover. Instead QL has been mostly swept under the rug. The co-founder doesn't even list it on his LinkedIn page. It's like those 3+ years of QL never existed.
stinkbug on March 18, 2013 at 11:26 PM Report this
20
@10's absolutely right. I don't know about e-comics but I do know about Kindle books, and it's not that difficult to strip the DRM or to convert Kindle mobi/azw to epub or other formats. Back your stuff up on your own computer.

Although I doubt that the time when Amazon shuts off its Kindle-verse will be anytime soon. Still, be prepared.
dlauri on March 19, 2013 at 6:00 AM Report this
21
This is why people choose to illegally download that stuff instead.
treehugger on March 19, 2013 at 8:55 AM Report this

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