Amazon outlines Android bill of rights Amazon's foray into mobile applications is getting firmer, with the company's approach to copy protection showing how it plans to differentiate itself from Google's Marketplace, or not. Amazon Appstore Digital Rights Management apparently "simplifies life for developers and customers", but only by virtue of operating on …
I don't mind spending money on stuff, so long as it does what it says and I don't have to spend ages finding it. Googles android market is crap. I haven't bought anything. The search is terrible.
Amazon on the other hand, is in the business of selling stuff in online shops, so I'm interested in what they will come up with. I've signed up for both dev programmes (just to play), and amazons seems more in tune with you wanting to sell what you make (they have regular emails with ideas for marketing, for example)
... if you want to find good Android apps then use AppBrain (an app recommendation service) or just use an internet search for 'best android apps'. I only ever use the search function of the android market for finding apps that I already know I want - I can imagine it would be terrible for just browsing the market.
Even my sony Blu ray play likes to connect to the internet and regularly "update" itself.
With app, music, and video Piracy, its been more of an incentive to persuade developers to stay with them if they can guarntee ligitmacy.
Once again its because of the few people who pirate eveyone else has to suffer with DRM.
"Once again its because of the few people who pirate eveyone else has to suffer with DRM."
You are being misled by the corporate propaganda - DRMs have nothing to do with piracy at all.
The only purpose for DRMs is to give the IP owners technological tools to impose their otherwise unworkable business models on markets and people that do not want or need them.
And "most other things already do this" is the lamest excuse there is for accepting abuse from the very people who ought to regard you as the "king" (as in "the customer is king").
For them, you, the customer, are the schmuck who can be gouged at will.
Would you count DVD ripping as piracy if it is my own DVD? What about those borrowed from a library? Point is, thanks to whatever they changed in Macrovision around 2000, many newer titles screw up my analogue TV and just point blank are not watchable on my netbook using the video capture box. Thus in order to watch some of the bigger titles I have to rip the thing (which on my geriatric hardware runs to maybe 8fps, so it is annoying).
Elsewhere you will see both DVD and Bluray images, so what purpose has DRM solved except to try to lock in customers - look at Sony with their anti-hack legal mess...
There's something deeply offensive to me with this 'seemingly buy but actually rent' DRM model.
Can one imagine if Amazon arrived at your house to take away all the books, CDs and DVDs you had previously bought simply because you declined to remain on their mailing list or decided you'd rather buy from Play.com?
I don't believe such licensing is much differerent from demanding 'protection money'.
So, like others, I'm not going to play their game but I expect plenty will, either through choice or not realising what they are tying themselves into.
"Once again its because of the few people who pirate eveyone else has to suffer with DRM."
If only a few people acted in breach of copyright the very high cost of developing and maintaining DRM would not be commercially justified through the small loss of revenue, so we would not have to put up with DRM. The reason we are made to suffer with DRM is because a few people stand to make a lot of money by being in a position to control use by very many people of saleable packages of information.
So if you don't want to have to suffer with DRM you are better off not buying content protected in this manner or equipment programmed in the interests of those who stand to make money by controlling what you can and can't do with it. Your alternatives are then using unlicensed content and risking civil action or using licensed programming and content exclusively DRM free.
Amazon is a bit of a risk given then mix politics with business. They are also the 'cloud' behind the flaky Police.co.uk crime site.
The most important thing to know is if there is an Amazon 'back channel' in their store App and what does it report?
Additionally, will all your purchased Apps return if the Store is re-installed after deletion?
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