Kindle ‘license limits’ restrict using a paid-for digital book on multiple devices
I’m reading 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s long-awaited new book. In hardback, it’s 944 pages and weighs several pounds. I am a pasty blogger with weak arms and soft hands, so the Kindle version seemed like a no-brainer.
Except the Kindle version is hobbled. Extensively hobbled, in fact. It lops off two of Amazon’s best features, public highlights and, far worse, the ability to read on all my devices.
Honan says he started reading on one device, wanted to pick up on another and got an error stating ‘License Limit Reached’. Amazon subsequently said that the device limit for 1Q84 is one. Clearly, this is down to the publisher, but I’m surprised Amazon has allowed this. Yet Amazon customer service confirmed the device limit to Honan and added that device limits vary by publisher.
I’ve not heard of this restriction on Kindle before, so I guess it must be fairly rare. That said, it is troubling. The point of a digital ecosystem is to free us of restrictions. Buy a digital book for Kindle, and you should be able to read it on any device for which you have Kindle access. Restricting it to one device is like the bad old days of digital music, where publishers demanded you rebuy per device. That’s great for publishers, in their deranged minds, but it’s not something modern consumers will have any truck with, and it’s also damaging to the systems publishers increasingly rely on.
The path forward for media is clear: re-engage with consumers by making your content affordable, accessible and easy to transfer between devices. Lock users into a system (iBooks, Kindle, Comixology) if you absolutely must, but don’t think you’ll get away with locking things down further per device, or you’ll just drive people to other publishers and, for your content, torrents.
Ahh. Now I understand the fuss on Twitter. A lame restriction. I strip the DRM off before I read anyway, but for most folks this is a kick in the nadgers. Not sure what they are achieving by this, even setting it to 2 would harm hardly anyone, but 1 is daft.
If amazon is going to allow publishers to lock down content to one device then they can’t be terribly suprised when the best device to own it on turns out to be made of paper…?