The point here is that Markdown doesn't have a spec, nor do any of its variants to my knowledge, so I was proposing to come up with some Markdown-like language that does have a spec. Under discussion here is the more ambitious (but also appealing) plan of writing an official spec for Markdown, the same way JavaScript got a spec in the form of ECMAScript that we now identify with JavaScript itself.
A spec is a long, tedious, human-readable document that explains the behavior of a system in unambiguous terms. Specs are important because they allow us to reason about a language like Markdown without reference to any particular implementation, and they allow people to write implementations (Markdown processors) independently that behave identically. The Markdown Syntax Documentation is not a spec (it's highly ambiguous), nor is any implementation (not human-readable; some behaviors are probably accidental or incidental and difficult to port perfectly). The hard part of writing a spec is codifying the details in English, and secondarily making decisions about what should happen in otherwise ambiguous or undefined cases.
My motivation for working on a Markdown spec is first and foremost avoiding "bit rot" of content, which happens when we write content against one Markdown implementation and then later process it with another. We don't have this concern with HTML, JSON, or JavaScript, or at least we know what bounds to stay within to write code that will work on any implementation. This is achieved through specs, even if only implementers ever read them.
I would love pointers to Markdown processors that are implemented in a more principled way than the original code, for example using standard-looking lexing and parsing passes, but that still handle nested blockquotes and bullet lists together with hard-wrapped paragraphs.
Now I can't speak to the truth of these claims. I have no inside knowledge but I will say this: be skeptical of such stories. I have seen other stories like this on HN where I have had some inside knowledge and I can tell you that there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies.
It's a common theme to have a post of "[BigCo] shut down my account for no reason". I describe such stories as "unverifiable stories in which the poster is a victim".
Like I said, this could all be exactly as the poster claims but it might not be as well. It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US. Who knows? Amazon needs to be extremely careful to be right in situations like this or they risk undermining the ecosystem they've spent so long to create.
I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase.
But when it comes to technical books--books I'll often refer back to and that can cost much more--I'll have to make sure I either only buy the PDF version or I buy the PDF+mobi+epub upgrade from the publisher after buying the Kindle book (2 thumbs up to publishers who do this BTW).
Yet that's pretty much what Amazon did to this poor woman, except in the digital realm: Amazon 'broke and entered' into her Kindle, took away all her books, and then did not give her a straightforward explanation as to why they did so.
More alarmingly, Amazon did this with impunity, because this woman never really owned "her" books or, for that matter, anything else she "purchased" on "her" Kindle. In the digital realm, what Amazon did to this woman is perfectly legal.
Legal or not, this looks, smells, and feels so obviously wrong, it ought to be illegal.
"While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts, please know that we have reviewed your account on the basis of the information provided and regret to inform you that it will not be reopened."
This happens more frequently: Google says this all the time, based on posts here; Amazon now does the same thing; even apartment rental companies will say "you've been turned down on the basis of this report that we don't know the contents of."
If your company can't reveal specific reasons or steps behind why an action was taken, DON'T TAKE THAT ACTION. Even my credit card issuer will tell me exactly why my card was flagged and they deal with ACTUAL MONEY. All these statements do is infuriate customers, create bad press, and drive away other customers. Scammers will just back up, look at their entire operation, and hammer away again with 300 new accounts so all you've accomplished is pissing off customers who want to do business with you.
According to my reading of the legal case (I am not a lawyer, but it would be interesting if any of you are could comment - grellas, perhaps) regarding Amazon's remote deletion of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, the settlement involving that case appears to protect what happened in this story from happening to users in the United States.
Of course, it goes without saying that I do not agree with how things went down in this story, where a person has absolutely no recourse with Amazon, with the proverbial door completely shut in their face. However, I find it interesting that, again, according to my interpretation of the aforementioned settlement, it appears that Kindle units that are purchased and used in the United States are afforded special protections by law from what specifically happened in the story (i.e., the settlement outlines very specific cases where remote deletion can occur, but they do not appear to apply with regard to what happened in the story).
Is my reading of this correct? If so, why aren't all Kindle owners afforded this protection?
Here is the citation from the settlement [1]:
"For copies of Works purchased pursuant to TOS granting "the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy" of each purchased Work and to "view, use and display [such Works] an unlimited number of times, solely on the [Devices] . . . and solely for [the purchasers'] personal, non-commercial use," Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless
(a) the user consents to such deletion or modification;
(b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment);
(c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or
(d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device).
This paragraph does not apply to
(a) applications (whether developed or offered by Amazon or by third parties), software or other code;
(b) transient content such as blogs; or
(c) content that the publisher intends to be updated and replaced with newer content as newer content becomes available. With respect to newspaper and magazine subscriptions, nothing in this paragraph prohibits the current operational practice pursuant to which older issues are automatically deleted from the Device to make room for newer issues, absent affirmative action by the Device user to save older issues."
[1] http://assets.bizjournals.com/cms_media/pdf/KindleCase1.pdf?...
When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.
The Guardian is running a story [1] today about how Amazon forces publishers to cover the cost of 20% VAT (sales tax) on ebook sales, even though it only pays 3% to the Luxembourg government (where it is based for tax purposes). It also insists that if a publisher offers a better price to another retailer then it must offer the same price to Amazon.
They also pay no corporation tax in the UK, despite sales of more than £3.3bn/yr [2], through being based in Luxembourg.
I was going to jump ship to The Book Depository, but Amazon bought them last year. Its hard to understand why this was allowed by the competition regulator, and it doesn't give me much confidence that the UK government has much interest in limiting their control of multiple markets.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/21/amazon-forc...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-brit...
It's the game that many people play - trying to find the best Amazon (or Apple) store when they live and travel between countries. This means a constant struggle to find a combination of credit card, store with enough content (The US is best) and a local address (virtual and actual) to satisfy arcane internal rules.
Please Amazon - please move to one global store where any credit card from any country can purchase any edition of any book. Please Amazon and Apple, let us combine content from multiple stores into one account, and let us have a global price based on the best market. Yo usell more stuff, we but more as well.
Meanwhile take the chance to collect, and pay to the local authorities, consumption/sales tax based on the location of the IP address, not the credit card or address of the buyer. That way if someone is standing in the UK, buying content from the USA, then they pay UK tax (VAT), making it fairer versus the physical and local virtual alternatives.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Dear Amazon,
Your service was really nice to me so far. But I happened to read a news that was not comforting. Following is a link to the story.
http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
This makes me hesitant about making any future purchases. I understand your right to act against any abuse but I also believe that users have a right know what was really going on, especially when they are being totally banished.
This email is to direct your attention towards the problem so you can have another chance of finishing things in a nicer way. I strongly believe DRM sucks but I also believe there are valid reasons for it to be there. The problem is not black or white. I'd like to see a solution that is acceptable for both parties (Amazon and the customer).
Thank you
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/kindle-help.html/r...
1. Complain. Keep complaining all the way to the top.
2. Sue. If complaining doesn't get you want you've paid for (or your money back, inc the Kindle you now can't use), you've just been robbed and you need to take legal action. You might think you're under a billion and five EULAs but when challenged, courts seem to side with the user when the EULAs attempt to restrict rights that they're not allowed to impinge upon. There are various sales laws that are protected well beyond the words of an EULA.
If you don't do anything about it, you make it worse for everybody else because <<insert horrid company here>> thinks they can get away with it now.
The DRM'd books are a different story. I still want my son to be able to read them, but I have no assurance that the ebooks will be available to him fifteen years from now.
So I yank the DRM from all of my Amazon purchases. These I put on backups. I do not share them.
I would like to see legislation about the ownership of digital content, requiring that purchased content be accessible /at all times/ -- held in escrow, if necessary. Clearly defining a purchase is probably part of this.
Because it appears to be Amazon UK dealing with the account holder
I'd be interested to know if she would get anywhere by submitting a Subject Information Request [1].
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 an individual can submit a request for personal information held by an organization and they must comply within 40 days.
Whether she would get the information she is interested in, i.e. which account she is linked to, is another question.
[1] http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/personal_information/ho...
I don't understand how that would justify or require revoking access to stuff that was already bought/licensed? You could simply deny the offending user access to buying new stuff instead.
I haven't read the Amazon TOS but is it really as simple as "you rent this book for as long as we feel like and we can revoke it for no reason"?
In which case I would be somewhat surprised if this really held up in a court, for example what happens if you buy a book and they immediately decide to revoke the license 1 second after purchase?
In my mind, you're a complete idiot if you are an e-book consumer at this point in time.
You essentially rent the book for a price often higher than owning a physical copy of the exact same material. All this for the slight mobility advantage, and instant purchase ability. You can't share your ebooks with friends. You run the risk that the publisher might decide you're no longer worthy of that purchase.
I question the sanity of any person that has done a pro/con comparison and actually judged e-books to be superior. My guess is that most people don't bother to actually think about these purchases.
e-books can and should be revolutionary, but what is on offer now is essentially nothing more than window dressing - and people are eating it up.
It doesn't matter if it's 30 or 50 years from now; this person has been told that for the rest of their life, until they die, that they are never again able to become a customer.
Sounds like a long time to be banned without being told why.
A part of me would like to dump amazon due to stories like this, but at the end of the day the whole set up is just too convenient (I can find, 'buy', and start reading a book in less than a minute directly from my kindle)
The worst part is that attitudes like mine are probably a big part of the reason Amazon will continue to get away with this. The even worse part is that I just don't care enough to do anything about it.
I wonder how many others there are like me who should know better, but enjoy the convenience too much?
Before everyone starts hating on Amazon specifically, remember that this same thing would happen with Apple, Xbox Live, or Barnes & Noble accounts. It's not that all these companies want to have DRM. It's the content owners who dictate the terms of licensing.
Me:I have really enjoyed Kindle on multiple devices so far but I just read the following account of a different Kinde customer and am appalled at Amazon's treatment of this individual: http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
Is it really true that at any moment, Amazon could delete all my books and not tell me the reason? If so, I strongly request that Amazon revisit its DRM rules & regulations. Thanks!
Hi Elakkiya!
Elakkiya:Hello, I'm Elakkiya from Amazon Kindle support.I'll be happy to help you today
Me:awesome
Basically it comes down to these terms cited by Amazon Exec Michael Murphy in his letter: "Per our Conditions of Use which state in part: Amazon.co.uk and its affiliates reserve the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders at their sole discretion."
Is this true?
Without needing to cite any reasons whatsoever, is Amazon able to delete all my books?
Elakkiya:I'm sorry for the inconvenience you had about this.
May I place you on hold for 1 to 2 minutes while I check this for you?
Me:Sure
No inconvenience so far for ME
just for the person in that article
so I'm asking if it is factually correct
Elakkiya:Thanks for waiting.
Me:sure
Elakkiya:It seems there was some problem with the account. This is the reason for the account closure.
Me:obviously. :) the appalling thing is that amazon doesn't want to tell her what problem
so my question is: does Amazon not NEED to tell its customers which problem an account has before closing it?
obviously amazon needs to have the right to close accounts
but i'd say in those cases it also has the responsibility to state why
more than a hand-wavy "there were problems"
Elakkiya:May I place you on hold for 1 to 2 minutes while I check this for you?
Me:sure
Elakkiya:Thanks for waiting.
Me:sure
Elakkiya:On further going through this issue, I see that I need to transfer your concern to the appropriate department who handle these kind of issues.
Me:ok
please do that. will they respond via email then?
Elakkiya:Yes, you should hear back from them in the next 1-2 business days.
Me:great. i assume you have my email since i'm logged in, right?
Elakkiya:Yes,John.
Me:Thanks, Elakkiya. Have a great day!
Elakkiya:You're welcome.
Thank you for visiting Amazon.com. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
I've always been afraid of what might happen to vendor-controlled content (either cloud servers or DRM), so I maintain a local de-DRM'd version of every file. For Audible, I actually had to go through a download, aac playback in iTunes to mp3 compression, mp3 file split workflow to make Audible books work with the RNS-E audio in my audi (it has built-in SD slots to play MP3, but the iPod in interface won't work with Audible due to DRM restrictions in their app).
It's a shame that you have to go through all this trouble just to use things you've legally purchased. It's sort of ok when the system just works (like Steam does now, although it didn't always), but horrible when you don't trust the vendor much and where the software doesn't work very well (EA Origin...).
I don't think I'd buy anything where there wasn't at least a technical workaround to rip to servers and formats under my control.
Dear Sir/Madam,
We've deleted your EC2, S3... Services and Permanently suspended your AWS account due to it's been linked to another account somewhere on the internet. In other words your companies services/product/startup is offline without notice and we don't care.
this is a risk for publishers and loss-leaders (like amazon) alike.
I'd like to retain ability to send documents from my computer to my Kindle over the internet.
Rights? You have no right to your eBooks.
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-y...
Edited to add: So this seems to be a case of a used Kindle's UDID being tied to a previously-suspended account and she got caught in the dragnet by buying that device used without knowing of its history. At some point -- if someone can get through to a live human being at Amazon -- this should all be straightened out. This is yet another reason why everyone should be careful buying used electronics with UDIDs (see eBay and Craigslist for all the "clean ESN" mentions for used phones!).
http://aaron.kavlie.net/2011/12/web/amazon-com-just-closed-m...
My story got to the top spot on Hacker News and, thanks to the exposure there, Amazon reversed its decision. At no point did I get anything that looked like a personalized response -- just terse form emails that didn't divulge any details.
What surprises me the most about this story is that they use the same approach with the consumer end of the business. I figured that the ham-handed treatment I got was due to Amazon's lack of care for that particular piece of their business, and that any issue with buyers would be taken up with more personal attention, and provide ample opportunity for appeal. Guess I was wrong.
It's going to be interesting to see if they are able to get any traction on this.
They actually might since her contact in Amazon seemed to be working for Amazon.co.uk, and Norway is part of the EU's inner market.
IANAL. But for anyone in a similar situation, consumer protection law is usually better than you think. Don't assume you can't sue, or have to sue in another country, just because the contract says you do. Consumer protection laws can trump contracts!
In particular, for anyone in EU or EFTA at least (i.e. part of the Brussels regime for determining jurisdiction to sue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_Regime ), who is acting as a consumer, you can sue in your own country: "A consumer may bring proceedings against the other party to a contract either in the courts... in which that party is domiciled or in the courts... in which he is himself domiciled."
If Amazon want to do business in a country, they have to abide by the consumer laws of that country.
I am not a lawyer. Get yourself a lawyer and know your rights!
via http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-d...
However, I am going to take the opposition view here because I feel like people don't understand 'the beast' also known as Amazon.
Amazon optimizes on low margins, and cheap prices for goods (both physical and electronic). Amazon optimizes on the benefit to the mass majority of their customers at the expense of a small minority who do occasionally get "thrown under the bus."
I buy lots of Kindle books, but there are a few things I do to mitigate risk. First, for technical books I try to buy from publishers who have daily 30% to 50% off sales where I get PDF, a MOBI (Kindle format), and a iPub files. Secondly, I buy a physical book if I think that a book will have long term value (for example, I would read it several times during a financial meltdown when electricity is scarce, and we spend most of our time grubbing around for food - this has happened in Argentina, Russia, Iraq, etc., and it may well happen sometime in the USA). Thirdly, I buy "good deals" on the Kindle; for example, I am reading James Joyce's "Ulysses" right now and I only paid about $2 for it - a great bargain.
When everything works we all ooh and aah over how great Kindle and a thousand other things like it are. When someone tries to bring a more expensive product to market we scoff and criticize and shake our heads.
Well kids, "cheap" has its price, and the price is shitty, impersonal, bullshit customer service. Amazon has been great at customer service for many years in their physical goods-business, but to push cost down for electronic services, this is what you have to expect.
In the future things will be cheap and human interaction will be at a premium.
Go back through the New York Time Best Seller list in 5 year increments, and see at what point you start reaching books you've never heard of and that are no longer in print.
It's pretty revealing that except for novels that are in school curriculum or transferred to another medium (book, TV) the majority of best sellers are only relevant for 15-20 years.
If you're in your late 30s or old, try to find a new copy of some favourite novels from your adolescence. Good luck.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&outpu...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/forums/kindleqna/ref=...
The very fact this story is this popular is because we all understand it could happen to us, think that by upvoting it, commenting on it, and sharing it, we're making a difference, but then we go right back to Amazon and purchase more things. Perpetuating the cycle.
I've spent more than $1k on ebooks for my kindle. If Amazon did this to me they'd definitely have a lawsuit on their hands. Not because I would win in court, but because I could use it as a springboard to do millions of dollars in damage to their reputation.
Assuming Lynn did no wrong and this is entirely a fraud algorithm problem on Amazon's side, you would think there is a higher authority within Amazon to dispute the problem. It's a shame they they didn't offer her anything in terms of dispute resolution or fraud prevention.
I'm going to email Amazon's feedback link as chanux did, I hope the larger HN community does the same.
Accounts are accounts on Amazon and will they link a consumer account you or your developers use with an account you use for hosting business web sites on EC2?
Or, reading the blog entry, will they mistakenly link another account with your other Amazon accounts, including the one you use for EC2?...
I hope Amazon releases more about the specifics that led them to take such a draconian action. This is either a terrible mistake that'll come with profuse apology & additional scrutiny at their (maybe trigger happy) fraud processes....or a last ditch action to deal with a serious violation. Either way, this will need to be explained, for now conclusions are being drawn on the basis of nothing but speculation.
They aren't her books, they aren't even books in the physical sense. They are the copyright owner's "books". All she had (and paid for) were licenses to display (in limited fashion) "books".
Linn might not like this, she should fight (infinite, broad) copyright which is the root of all this evil, not Amazon.
Now my questions:
Does her account use her home address? That seems unlikely as she is in Norway but is dealing with Amazon US. What are the rules for purchasing content when you're not resident? Could this be the problem? If so that sucks.
Secondly, it appears that she began her Kindle odyssey with a used Kindle. Could that be what links her account to a fraudulent one? A unique ID from one of her devices has been used by someone else in the past?
My experience, as a Canadian, is that Amazon encourages use of amazon.ca (your local version of their site) and you have to go through some tricks to use Amazon.com.
Many of my friends did because that was the only way to get a kindle and books for years. Are they all at risk of this?
These are two options for who Michael Murphy is:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-murphy/17/b72/231
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-murphy/0/b84/9b5
Some low level intern screwed up somewhere. While that hardly excuses Amazon for their exceptionally horrendous CS in this case (usually they're know for being good on that front), ask yourself:
The answers there are "a hell of a lot" (>100M), not many, and not very.
One cockup with one customer hasn't shaken my faith in Amazon's ecosystem. They're going to have to try a lot harder in order to achieve that goal.
Look at another platform like Steam. I'd say they have even more issues because they'll actually dismiss people from the service for things like card chargebacks or restrict multiplayer account-wide in case of cheating. They've had errors too. They're rare and statistically insignificant, just like in this case.
And for the love of god if you're going to downvote me, please at least bother to explain why so we can all learn something.
Amazon's service was so sweet I didn't mind the DRM, the metaphorical diabetes. It seems now is the time to open my eyes and (again) realize 'RMS is always right'. I think I will stop buying any amazon e-book at least until I hear something good regarding this issue.
I still read a mix of kindle stuff and paper books, but the kindle is invaluable for travelling light. This is disappointing to hear about.
If everything is as stated - I have no reason to doubt it - it's very disappointing.
1/ Amazon is a private company.
2/ You don't buy books from them, you buy a license to read them.
So by buying a book, you agree with their power.
If you don't like to be in such control, then please, apply one of the start up credo : find a better competitor.
But don't complain, please.
(and the same goes with Apple who surely has some super control on your phone, and don't complain about FaceBook when they'll kill your account when you don't behave.)
Welcome to the privacy nightmare you all voted for by buying their shiny stuff.
Another option is : court ! Hey but you don't have enough money ? Hey, but that's what happens when you deal alone with a megacorp : you're just a small insect.
Funny people often forget that...
stF
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-d...
On a related note (unfortunately not an alternative to everything Amazon offers):
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/torforge-e-books-are-now-dr...
"We would like to clarify our policy on this topic. Account status should not affect any customer's ability to access their library. If any customer has trouble accessing their content, he or she should contact customer service for help. Thank you for your interest in Kindle."
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/22/kindle-user-claims-amazon-d...
http://goo.gl/MZVzZ (Norwegian website digi.no via google translate)
Unfortunately, I see no shortage for stories like this in the future.
Of course, for the ones willing to search, the truth is out there ... but the truth is copyrighted. That's what they forgot to mention in the X-Files.
You can try to find the Kindle/iBook version, but as this article points out "its a license to read" ... and very often, the quality of the digital conversion is very poor, especially for literature with illustrations.
DRM-free PDF is the only way for me.
It is pathetic what we have allowed corporations to do to us when we are the one's providing them the power to do it. Maybe we, as a society, have just become too lazy and complacent to worry about being trampled on?
I've mailed amazon to hear if this is the norm.
I don't really expect a response, but hopefully a few 1000's emails like that will at least let them give the situation more attention ?
It is detailed in the contract few people bother to read prior to signing!
.
> The problem? Microsoft has your operating system,
> Google has your email, eBay has your stuff, PayPal
> has your money, Amazon has your books, Facebook has
> your social life, etc.
.
The problem is YOU GAVE each of those entities information out of hand with misplaced trust.
.
> We need to push for a universal option for arbitration
Push for less inane contractual terms first. Then change the cultural ethos of wrong-tolerance.
Yes the Kindle is awesome, but how hard is it for a bookstore to come to your house and repossess a book?
Now I know I won't.
Thanks for the reminder