Mobi-dicks

I'm very surprised by this post. All the moreso because I'm rewriting it.

I wrote a post railing against Amazon for shutting down a piece of software that would allow other companies to sell books, and then trick the kindle into thinking they came from Amazon. But by the time I got to the end, I realized that for the most part, I switched sides.

Briefly, as detailed at mobipocket, Amazon is trying to prevent anyone else from selling books for the kindle.

I am not a fan of the restrictions Amazon puts on kindle content, and I'm not a lawyer so I can't argue if the technicalities of the take down notice. But I am hugely surprised to find myself agreeing with the action in general.

Why am I suddenly agreeing with Amazon's attempt to keep other people from selling content for the kindle? Because it'll be Amazon's headache when things go wrong.

Bought a book from publisherX, but the kindle won't display the images? No one you can bug about that but Amazon.

Bought a book from publisherY, but it has encoding errors and bricked your kindle? No one you can bug about that but Amazon.

Bought a book from publisherZ and want your money back? You'd be amazed at how many people would bug Amazon about that too.

It's lots of hassle for Amazon, for no money, so I understand why they want it stopped in it's tracks.

What they should do is follow Apple's lead and open up their bookstore to publishers. Amazon validates the content, handles the money, takes a cut and passes the rest on. It would even be a hammer they can use against the pricing policies of the printing houses.

That validation I mentioned? Unlike music or video computers are really good at sorting text, by keeping control of distribution Amazon would be able to ensure no copyrights are broken.

I'm ambivalent about the take down notice, but I'm excited for the future self-publishing kindle store. I'm sure it will launch with kindle3.

kindle - success!