Slog
News & ArtsMonday, March 18, 2013
Books You Don't Own Those Comic Books You Bought
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 2:22 PM
The Daily Dot says that online manga publisher JManga sent out an email to all their users last week that included this line:
It is our regret to inform you that JManga.com will be concluding its retail and viewing services. All existing accounts and private information will be deleted without further notification.
What does this mean?
The announcement informed users that all user accounts had been deleted early yesterday morning, and that all of the website's content, including popular in-progress manga series which are currently only available through JManga, would be taken down on May 30.
No, you could not get refunds for your purchased works. No, you could not download copies.
The comics that users paid for will just be gone, forever. This is the problem with e-book buying situations like Comixology and Kindle books. When you're just buying access to an e-book and not the file itself, you're not really buying anything. You're just licensing the book, and your access to it can be removed at any time. That's what's happening to JManga buyers, and if you buy ebooks from an online seller, it could happen to you, too.
2
And when it happens to Kindle (and it will at some point) expect Americans to bend over and say "Fuck me again Corporate America!! Thank you SIR!!"
3
Mostly unrelated, but it kind of reminds me of Questionland. That site supposedly "broke" and then never came back. All the content that users contributed just vanished overnight.
Since The Stranger had a stake in Questionland they could never be bothered to publically answer the question of "What killed Questionland?"
Buying ebooks, being involved with an online community... it's all pointless eventually.
Since The Stranger had a stake in Questionland they could never be bothered to publically answer the question of "What killed Questionland?"
Buying ebooks, being involved with an online community... it's all pointless eventually.
4
I think this is the direction almost all media is going to be taking. Video games are already moving there (e.g., Steam).
If corporations can just rent their products instead of selling them, they get the opportunity to fuck you multiple times for the same thing.
If corporations can just rent their products instead of selling them, they get the opportunity to fuck you multiple times for the same thing.
5
I have some print books I tried to re-read many years after I first enjoyed them, and somehow, the magic was gone. So watch out for that too.
8
Comics publishers would do well to not increase incentives to stealing digital comic books. Because it is really fucking easy to steal digital comic books.
10
Yep. Always make sure if you buy digital content, that you are actually downloading the content to a local file, and that you know how to crack the DRM.
11
Funnily enough, Paul catches yet another news item that further confirms his view that Amazon is super-duper-mega-evil. I mean, what are the odds?
12
This is why I feel vindicated for never trusting online file backup systems (how long until you have to pay what's effectively a ransom so the company doesn't delete your shit?) and for almost always buying physical copies of media.
If companies are going to play this game of reserving the right to pull your license (or their server support or whatever) whenever they feel like it, they need to make digital copies much, *much* cheaper than the physical version.
If companies are going to play this game of reserving the right to pull your license (or their server support or whatever) whenever they feel like it, they need to make digital copies much, *much* cheaper than the physical version.
13
@12
With hard drives being so cheap, including networked backup systems for home/business; I really don't see the need to pay for some online backup service. Especially that they almost all require access to the files in an unencrypted format, for legal reasons.
With hard drives being so cheap, including networked backup systems for home/business; I really don't see the need to pay for some online backup service. Especially that they almost all require access to the files in an unencrypted format, for legal reasons.
15
five second google:
Dear Questionland folks,
Over the past year or so Questionland has become a very part-time hobby for the Questionland team. If there was a problem, we'd fix it, and the community made the rest happen. This arrangement was working fine until we had a major server problem that brought the site down. We tried hard to bring it back to life but failed. It became clear that a lot more investment of money and time was needed and we just couldn't make it happen.
It's really a drag that Questionland, a site that the community and it's founders invested so much in, died so abruptly, and we apologize for that.
We're blown-away by the wit and deep knowledge that this community has been willing to share, and we hope you had as great a time as we did.
Thanks for your questions and answers.
You will live on but the Mushroom and the Gnome have crossed to the other side.
Dear Questionland folks,
Over the past year or so Questionland has become a very part-time hobby for the Questionland team. If there was a problem, we'd fix it, and the community made the rest happen. This arrangement was working fine until we had a major server problem that brought the site down. We tried hard to bring it back to life but failed. It became clear that a lot more investment of money and time was needed and we just couldn't make it happen.
It's really a drag that Questionland, a site that the community and it's founders invested so much in, died so abruptly, and we apologize for that.
We're blown-away by the wit and deep knowledge that this community has been willing to share, and we hope you had as great a time as we did.
Thanks for your questions and answers.
You will live on but the Mushroom and the Gnome have crossed to the other side.
16
When Slog vanishes in the bitstorm, as it eventually will, Index Media and its heirs and assigns can just re-use the Questionland farewell @15.
It'll be sad, but I'll have folders upon folders of threadlinks to all my clever insights, to keep me warm at night.
It'll be sad, but I'll have folders upon folders of threadlinks to all my clever insights, to keep me warm at night.
17
oh lets compare amazon.com to a failing old comic website, that makes sense! next week amazon could close forever!
18
We obviously don't want to buy a license for a book - we want the damn book. We're forced to buy just a license because that's the only option we have. I'm seeing less of consumers buying something they want than buying the only new option available to us.
19
@15: Yes, that is the announcement. But it doesn't go into detail about the "server problem" and database problems and lack of backups that prevented them from returning. I'd love to read an article about all the technical problems and how they decided that they couldn't recover. Instead QL has been mostly swept under the rug. The co-founder doesn't even list it on his LinkedIn page. It's like those 3+ years of QL never existed.
20
@10's absolutely right. I don't know about e-comics but I do know about Kindle books, and it's not that difficult to strip the DRM or to convert Kindle mobi/azw to epub or other formats. Back your stuff up on your own computer.
Although I doubt that the time when Amazon shuts off its Kindle-verse will be anytime soon. Still, be prepared.
Although I doubt that the time when Amazon shuts off its Kindle-verse will be anytime soon. Still, be prepared.
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