The Microsoft Store announced on June 2 that it would be shutting its Books category down, effectively immediately, but that all its free and commercial ebooks would remain available until July, when they would begin going defunct. Some customers aren't happy.
If you open a link to the Microsoft Store's Books category, you'll find a single phrase in bold text: "No results found." The tech giant's online store announced on June 2 that it would be shutting the category down, effectively immediately, but that all its free and commercial ebooks would remain available until July 2019, when they would begin going defunct. Customers will receive full refunds for their now useless ebook purchases. Now, with that deadline arriving next week, Microsoft's upcoming ebook deletions have sparked an online conversation about the limits of ebook purchases.
"Reminded that the Microsoft ebook store closes next week. The DRM'd books will stop working. I cannot believe that sentence. 'The books will stop working.' I keep saying it and it sounds worse each time," Rob, cofounder of RPG game company Evil Hat, said in a viral tweet.
DRM, or digital rights management, refers to the technology that allows businesses to lock down digital copies of the media they sell. Even ebooks that Microsoft had given away for free will no longer be available to read, Microsoft explains on its site, stating "You can continue to read free books you've downloaded until July 2019 when they will no longer be accessible."
Writing on the BoingBoing blog earlier this month, long-time DRM opponent Cory Doctorow succinctly explained why Microsoft ebook owners aren't happy about the news, despite the full refund offered: "When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn't get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid," Doctorow wrote, adding that "if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job."
The process of deleting swathes of ebooks from Microsoft Edges everywhere comes with another hidden cost, the deletion of any highlighting or annotations made by the ebooks' readers over the years. Microsoft addresses this, offering an additional credit for each annotated book deleted. "Mark-ups and annotations made in books acquired from Microsoft Store will be available until early July 2019 when your books are removed from Microsoft Edge," their site FAQ explains. "If you have made mark-ups or annotations in any of your acquired books prior to April 2, 2019, you'll receive an additional $25 credit to your Microsoft account at the same time refunds are processed."
What's behind Microsoft's pivot away from ebooks? Some speculate that it's not earning enough money on the format, while others say it is part of a larger consolidating effort. Whatever the case, it's a significant change from the company's stance in 2012, when it invested $300 million in Barnes and Noble to create Nook Media.
The fact that this business decision directly impacts their customers' digital libraries serves as a practical reminder for anyone who enjoys books, music, film, or TV: The DRM standards used by massive companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon mean that anyone who purchases the ability to read, listen or watch their media won't have full control over it in the future.
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Microsoft Closes The Book On Its E-Library, Erasing All User Content
Coffee poured. Pillow fluffed. E-book loaded. You're ready to begin a delightful afternoon on your e-reader when, poof, the book disappears.Starting in July, Microsoft will be closing its e-book library and erasing all content purchased through the Microsoft e-bookstore from devices. Consumers will receive a refund for every e-book bought.The company is able to shutter its store – which it launched in 2017 to compete with industry leaders Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble – due to a tool called Digital Rights Management or DRM.DRM allows companies to control content to protect copyright holders and prevent piracy."One of the things that I think people don't realize that's crucially important is that DRM and related software tools are embedded in all sorts of devices that we buy," Aaron Perzanowski, the author of The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy, tells NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro."Your car, your smart home appliances, your home security system – all of these systems have software that allows for this kind of control over how the devices are used, and I think we're going to see these same sorts of situations crop up in the context of physical devices that are being used in people's homes."
It’s time for @FTC to consider whether a refund is really sufficient when a seller confiscates your media or bricks your device. https://t.co/DaO73bLoti
— Aaron Perzanowski (@APerzanowski)
June 30, 2019
The way DRM is widely employed has been criticized by consumers and earned calls for regulation of Big Tech companies.
"The initial vision for DRM was that it was going to allow for the sale of digital goods online in a way that reduced the risk of copyright infringement," Perzanowski says."As this technology has been deployed what we've seen is that the big beneficiaries of DRM have not been copyright holders. They have been technology companies like Amazon, like Microsoft, who are able to control these ecosystems to make it harder for consumers to switch over to new platforms."In a University of Pennsylvania Law Review article, Perzanowski found that users are often misled when they click the "Buy Now" button, thinking that they've gained permanent ownership of digital content.
Other companies, like Amazon and Walmart, have run into DRM-related troubles in the past, wiping out digital content to the chagrin of consumers.The e-book and online shopping giant, Amazon, obtained eye rolls when it deleted some George Orwell books from the Kindle's DRM server, including 1984. Apparently, the company did not understand the irony of erasing a book that famously details the dangers of thought control.Perzanowski worries that DRM erodes personal property rights and that the scope extends beyond digital media."You can go out and buy a car and you think you own the car because it's parked in your garage," Perzanowski says. "But in reality – how it functions, who can repair it, what replacement parts are compatible with it – all of that is controlled through software code. And, so I think that line between the physical and the digital is getting increasingly blurry."
In an explainer posted to its website, Microsoft adds that anyone who wrote notes or marked-up e-books will receive an additional $25 credit. The company has not provided a reason for the closure.Frank Scardera, a Reddit user, is one of the many Microsoft consumers affected by the e-book purge."I was disappointed when Microsoft announced they were shutting the service down..." Scardera says. "In the future, I'll be buying books from sources that use DRM-free formats, so that if a service is shut down I don't lose my books or other media."
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In From Ownership to Belonging, Stadler draws on Ostrom’s economic theory on the division of goods to elucidate algorithm of ownership and property in terms of art and literature. According to Ostrom, goods can be divided into four categories: public and private, and common-pool resources and toll good or club goods. Stadler emphasizes that the notion of property and ownership is only an imagery tool to manage the goods that are owned, possessed, loaned, shared and depleted. In here, Stadler illuminates that the property relations of art and literature is belonging rather than claiming ownership. Because you can own book, but not the literature; instead, the literature owns you. Thus we and the literature belong to each other. The same algorithm applies to art. However because more of works of arts are invaluable and unique, museums sell merchandises that are reminiscent of works of art in art museums.
There is a thin line between public and private property in museum world, particularly in art museum where the ownership is clearly identified due to its uniqueness. The question of the place of the art museum in our community is on-going debate so does its ownership and shared authority. Historically, art museums are elitist institutions where the museum and donors exhibits to works of art to exhibit their ownership to ‘selected public’. At present, many see museums as a public space with the potential for pertaining social value and community engagement. The sense of belonging highlights the role of museum to allow public access and sustain its existence as a public domain. Indeed art cannot be owned by someone as well as literature. It is a fluid of cultural aesthetic that becomes a monetary value to be materialized in certain form through artistic practice.
