When it comes to ebooks there is often a difference between ownership of an account at an ebookstore and using it. We have all long winked at the idea that a single account might be shared between several members of a household, but in light of yesterday’s news about Amazon killing an account over violations of their policy this topic deserves a deeper look.
Amazon closed that Kindle account in a manner which was a complete cock-up but technically correct under their rules and procedures. As some Amazon drone saw it, that Kindle owner had violated a rule which necessitated the Kindle owner being cut off from her ebooks.
Luckily this closure was later reversed (thanks to the public outcry and general stupidity of the decision). And as terrible as that was, there was a lesson in this. If we’re going to be subject to the whims of CS drones don’t you think we should know the specifics of the rules?
This brings me to Kobo. Paul Durrant, a fellow ebook enthusiast whom I know through MobileRead Forums, decided last week to push Kobo to explain the specific details of the T&C we all agree to.
Kobo’s contract with users is fairly standard boilerplate, and there was one particular clause which says that a “Registered Users” cannot share the ebooks, yada, yada, yada. It’s boilerplate, but if you cannot guess what it says click on the link above.
The thing is, the only person who is “Registered Users” is the one whose name is on the account. So naturally this raises questions about whether someone’s spouse can use the account. Now that is an interesting question, isn’t it?
A straightforward reading of the T&C says that you cannot share an account between several people, something which is quite common.
Paul wanted to know if that was really what Kobo meant to disallow when they wrote the contract. And after he sent several emails and received 2 irrelevant replies, this was what he was told:
Legally, only the account holder has license to use the material.
That’s a very interesting answer, because it means that there are potentially millions of Kobo users currently in violation of Kobo’s T&C. They are all at risk of having their account closed and losing access to their ebooks.
But what’s even more interesting is that apparently Kobo expects you to buy a separate copy of an ebook for each person in your household who want to read it!
Heck, that’s something I didn’t even do for paper books, and it’s certainly not something I’m going to start doing for ebooks. And while I’m sure it’s some publishers wishing for this more than Kobo, this still came from Kobo customer service and the Kobo T&C.
It’s Kobo’s CS dept that expects you to buy multiple copies of an ebook. To be honest this almost feels like something out of The Right to Read (by Richard Stallman):
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.
Kobo fits right in, don’t they?
I suppose Kobo is going to revise their T&C, but as it stands many people are currently in violation. They are at risk of losing everything they bought in the Kobo ebookstore (another argument in favor of removing DRM).
But the question I find most interesting is this: Why was that clause in the T&C? It goes against how we all know that paper books are used, so it should be pretty obvious that ebooks would be used in a similar manner.
Don’t you wish Kobo had thought about the terms of the contract before writing the boilerplate?
I do.
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or one of the retailers on
That way two members of one household can pay different amounts for the same book.
Controversy for the sake of controversy?
Kindle, Kobo and no doubt all other commercial ebook sellers are offering you a license to the content assigned to the buyer (technically the buyer’s account). No where does it say you have the right to hand over the content to dozens of others (or even one other). But you are allowed to put the content on multiple devices for your enjoyment. How you use those devices is up to you: including loading up a second licensed e-reader with your account content and then loaning that device to your spouse or neighbour.
Follow these simple rules and everyone stays in compliance. Nothing has changed.
Except that a contract is a contract is a contract. If Kobo is fine with what you describe then they should write that into the T&C and tell their CS dept.
Except Steve Haber of Sony once spoke glowingly in a Sony podcast about how a mother and daughter shared ONE Sony Reader account — and they lived across the country from one another. And he had ZERO problems with that.
I remember being at a demo of Adobe Digital rebook reader when it was first released many years ago. The rep went through the license agreement with some care and pointed out that under the rules, it was forbidden for anyone to read over your shoulder. That’s just how silly some of these guys are.
If that is true, then why are they selling children’s book on the Kobo, as a Registered user in their terms of use agreement is defined as such:
“If you are a Registered User then you agree to the following:
(i) in consideration of your use of the Service, you represent that you are of the age of majority in the jurisdiction in which you reside, or 13 years old or older up to the age of majority in the jurisdiction in which you reside with the express written consent of your parent or legal guardian . . . .” (http://www.kobobooks.com/termsofuse)
Thus, it would be against the terms of use agreement for anyone under the age of 13 to read a book on the Kobo.
I wonder who they think is reading any of there nearly 3,000 illustrated for kids books that they sell: http://www.kobobooks.com/browse/Illustrated_Kids/Zerc-vPd-UuMPArD5YBDGw-1.html.
I received the same response from Smashwords. And Fictionwise has the same T&C.
If your spouse also wants to read the ebook, they need to purchase their own copy unless they borrow your ereading device.
Smashwords sells DRM free ebooks, so if you’re cut off you won’t be harmed all that much. And Fictionwise is so tiny they are irrelevant.
This kind of legal lunacy makes me want to air-drop e-books over America to help free the people from the tyranny of their nutty lawyers…
Is it April Fools Day?
Gosh, so crazy. Nate, loved your link to The Right to Read. What a brilliant and far sighted piece of writing!
Kobo Says You’re Not Allowed to Share Your Account – Not With a Spouse, Your Kids, Anyone | The Passive Voice // Oct 24, 2012 at 8:01 am
[...] more than Kobo, this still came from Kobo customer service and the Kobo T&C.Link to the rest at The Digital Reader and thanks to Eric for the tip.Tech companies typically don’t think about their Terms and [...]
Amazon has the same thing in its TOS. So does B&N. All of the ebook stores do. All of them say that only the account owner has the right to access the ebooks–with the thin exception of Amazon and B&N’s limited loaner program.
I have no idea what they expect is being done with children’s books.
(And gee, the publishing industry wonders why the YA market for ebook sucks. Could it be that… KIDS CAN’T BUY EBOOKS? They’re not the account holders and don’t have credit cards.)
The official answer is, and has been, only the account holder can read the book–it’s against the TOS to hand your ereader to a friend, or your spouse, and let them read the same book. It’s not against copyright law, but it’s against the user agreement at the site.
This, of course, directly contradicts Amazon’s frequent advice that spouses both share an account, and the advice they give for having relatives sign up on the same account. That advice is in the forums, not the TOS page; it’s unofficial. They *like* the arrangement that millions of people are technically breaking the rules and can be shut off at any time–for using ebooks the way books have been used for centuries.
No, Amazon does not have this exact same language in their T&C. Theirs is much less strict. Also, if you head over to MR you will see the response they sent to Paul. It is very different from Kobo’s response.
Amazon’s TOS does have the ubiquitous “personal noncommercial use” phrase, with neither of those terms defined.
Fascinating stuff; I’d missed that he’d gotten an answer from Amazon. Amazon says
So, here they’re using language that contradicts the “license to use” claim–they say “it is your copy,” not “you are authorized to use the content.” (Also, does this mean that books that are temporarily free are allowed to be installed on 99 devices, regardless of DRM issues?)
They dodged the question of “are there limits on the number of people to whom I may loan my device?” although the answer does imply that they’re not interested in controlling access to the text itself, only to the number/type of devices that can acquire the text.
This, people, is why paper books are still best.
Alexander is correct.
I am quite sure that there are very few (if any) people who on there own, with no other people using the books in their account, own enough devices to reach the Kobo limit. Will Kobo come out and say we can share our accounts? Of course not. It opens all sorts of issues: if we can share with our spouses, can we share with our live-in partners? If we can share with our kids, do they have to live with us, or is there an age limit?
I own several devices. My husband uses one of them. My son uses another. I have a Glo, a touch, and also read on my tablet. It’s all good.
Amazon came out and said we can share accounts.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2271039#post2271039
More, since Kindle “devices” includes apps that can be activated and deactivated, you can temporarily enable a friend’s tablet, PC, or cellphone to access your account and your whole library. As long as you trust them not to go crazy spending your money.
Basically, Kindle accounts are *all* “family” accounts whereas Kobo accounts are *legally-speaking* individual accounts.
In real word terms, you can do more or less the same thing with your Kobo account as with Amazon but you would be *technically* violating the termss of service. Whether Kobo or (more likely) a publisher would squawk is a whole different story.