Barns and Nobel changes purchased eBook content!

[John442]

Here is something I just found out and I am not happy about! Years ago a purchased a first generation nook e-reader. I purchased and downloaded the eBook “I am Ozzy” from the Barns and Nobel website. The book was very funny and I enjoyed the numerous photos in the eBook. Supposedly all my purchased eBooks are saved in my account on the Barns and Nobel server so that I would be able to download them again to my computer or another nook. I backed up all of my eBooks from my nook and then purchased a new nook tablet last month and downloaded all of my purchased eBooks from my account on the Barns and Nobel website to my nook tablet. As I reviewed the “I am Ozzy” eBook, I noticed that the content of the eBook has changed and all of the photos are missing. I notified Barns and Nobel and they said that they would find out what happen and get back with me. I waited a month and did not hear from them. I went to a Barns and Nobel store and talked to their customer service representative. I showed them the backed up copy of the eBook (which I had to enter my credit card number to open the eBook each time) that had the photos and the eBook that was downloaded from my Barns and Nobel account. Both eBooks had approximately the same number of pages but the content was different. To make a long story short, they said that they do not know why I need enter my credit card number to open my back up copy of the eBook. Also they said that the publisher changed the content of the book and Barns and Nobel can’t do anything about it. I was furious. How can a publisher go into MY Barns and Nobel account and change the contents of MY PURCHASED eBooks! Something is definitely wrong here. I have about 30 eBooks in my account and I don’t know if any of these eBooks had their content changed also. So do you think this is deceptive practices or just plan theft?

[geertm]

The books are not in your account. Your account has a link to the one copy of the book on B&N's server. And this is always the latest copy of the book. If you download a book (or archive/unarchive it) the latest version of the book will be downloaded from B&N's server.

Publishers often release updated versions of their ebooks, for example to correct errors. In this case the publisher probably did not have the rights to use the photo's in an ebook. This is a common problem, and the reason why ebook versions often lack the photo's of the "real" book. So the publisher had to remove the photo's. In this case there is really nothing B&N can do. B&N does not create the ebooks, they just sell them. And they can only sell the version of the ebook that the publisher allows them to sell.

[moose_tracker]

The fact you have to enter your ccard so many times for your sideloaded copy of the ebook is strange though.. I am not a guru on this only having done it once.  but was told that once you use your ccard for one book, not only does the device open for that book without need for the ccard again, but it opens for any book that uses that ccard for it's DRM..  That is just what happened when I sideloaded a book onto my son's device.

If you could fix that, you could just work with your sideloaded book. and archive the one at the B&N website, so that only your sideloaded book remains.  The one you are happy with.

[John442]

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geertm wrote:

 "And they can only sell the version of the ebook that the publisher allows them to sell"

Well, the publishers allowed B&N to sell the first version of the eBook since that is what I bought! I should be notified of the change and asked if I want to keep the original or download the new version.

Also B&N needs to inform buyers of their eBooks that this will happen.

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[Ya_Ya]

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John442 wrote:

Well, the publishers allowed B&N to sell the first version of the eBook since that is what I bought!  

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Yes, but the publishers had no right to provide that document to B&N, even though they did.

Basically you received "stolen property" and B&N recovered it.  

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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John442 wrote:

B&N needs to inform buyers of their eBooks that this will happen.

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They did. From the B&N Terms of Use:

Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right to modify or discontinue the offering of any Digital Content at any time.

Every e-book seller has the same situation. Amazon got a lot of people upset when it turned out that a couple of George Orwell e-books they were selling weren't legal, and Amazon removed those e-books from peoples' Kindles.

[AlanNJ Inspired Bibliophile]

I just wonder if the OP would be complaining if they purchased a badly formatted book or one missing pages that the publisher corrected?  Isn't that the same thing?  Should they ask "permission" to fix mistakes in that case?

[John442]

They did not "fix" anything. They removed content from the eBook that I purchased. If I were borrowing the eBook then it would be different. It would be just like you buying a car with a radio in it, you take it home, and then the car manufacturer comes to your home and removes the radio because they decided they do not want the radio in the car.  

[MacMcK1957]

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John442 wrote:

They did not "fix" anything. They removed content from the eBook that I purchased. If I were borrowing the eBook then it would be different. It would be just like you buying a car with a radio in it, you take it home, and then the car manufacturer comes to your home and removes the radio because they decided they do not want the radio in the car.  

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Not exactly.  More like somebody came and removed the radio because it had been stolen from his car.  This particular case appears to be one where the original book had published pictures they had no right to publish.  They revised the copy on BN's website to remove the unauthorized content. 

They did not touch the copy on your Nook.  You were just unable to download another copy of the original, improper book.  There is no way you could have, since it would have been illegal for BN to keep a copy of the original for you.

[geertm]

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John442 wrote:

They did not "fix" anything. They removed content from the eBook that I purchased. If I were borrowing the eBook then it would be different. It would be just like you buying a car with a radio in it, you take it home, and then the car manufacturer comes to your home and removes the radio because they decided they do not want the radio in the car.  

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You do not buy an DRM'd ebook. You buy a license to do those things with the book that is tied to that license that the publisher allows. In this case the book tied to the license changed, probably because of a rights problem.

[sirwillard]

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John442 wrote:

So do you think this is deceptive practices or just plan theft?

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Neither. The terms of service spell this out, so there's no deception and no theft.

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John442 wrote:

They did not "fix" anything. They removed content from the eBook that I purchased. If I were borrowing the eBook then it would be different. It would be just like you buying a car with a radio in it, you take it home, and then the car manufacturer comes to your home and removes the radio because they decided they do not want the radio in the car.  

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I understand, somewhat, how you feel (though the fact that you were smart enough to make a backup means that this is mostly a rant about nothing). But your analogy doesn't work. You didn't buy a physical item here. You paid for a limited license allowing you specific rights to the usage of digital content. This is the way all digital "purchases" work, even software. The rights and limitations granted to you by the license are clearly spelled out, and nothing in that contract was violated here. This is one reason why it's recommended you keep your own backups of the files and not rely solely on the B&N cloud service.

BTW, you missed the point being made about "fixing". It wasn't being suggested that the removal of the photos was a "fix" (though from a legal standpoint this was a fix), only that if the change were one you considered good you'd be singing a different tune. The sword here cuts both ways, and you can't have one scenario without the other.

[John442]

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sirwillard wrote:

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John442 wrote:

So do you think this is deceptive practices or just plan theft?

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Neither. The terms of service spell this out, so there's no deception and no theft.

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John442 wrote:

They did not "fix" anything. They removed content from the eBook that I purchased. If I were borrowing the eBook then it would be different. It would be just like you buying a car with a radio in it, you take it home, and then the car manufacturer comes to your home and removes the radio because they decided they do not want the radio in the car.  

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I understand, somewhat, how you feel (though the fact that you were smart enough to make a backup means that this is mostly a rant about nothing). But your analogy doesn't work. You didn't buy a physical item here. You paid for a limited license allowing you specific rights to the usage of digital content. This is the way all digital "purchases" work, even software. The rights and limitations granted to you by the license are clearly spelled out, and nothing in that contract was violated here. This is one reason why it's recommended you keep your own backups of the files and not rely solely on the B&N cloud service.

BTW, you missed the point being made about "fixing". It wasn't being suggested that the removal of the photos was a "fix" (though from a legal standpoint this was a fix), only that if the change were one you considered good you'd be singing a different tune. The sword here cuts both ways, and you can't have one scenario without the other.

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Please provide to me any documentation showing that the content from the eBook "I am Ozzy" was removed do to any sort of legal action. If you can't then all the talk about the content being removed do to legal action is B***Sh**.

Also, I could have sworn that I clicked the "Buy Now" button not a "Paid for a limited license" button. 

[MacMcK1957]

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John442 wrote:

Also, I could have sworn that I clicked the "Buy Now" button not a "Paid for a limited license" button. 

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If you want to be picky about the button, was there anything on that button that said identical copies would be permanently available for future download?  No.

[John442]

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MacMcK1957 wrote:

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John442 wrote:

Also, I could have sworn that I clicked the "Buy Now" button not a "Paid for a limited license" button. 

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If you want to be picky about the button, was there anything on that button that said identical copies would be permanently available for future download?  No.

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Was there anything on that button that said "Buy Now - Psych! Do you really think you were actually buying this eBook? Wrong! We are just going to let you think that it yours and then we will screw around with the content afterwards!"? No.

[Ya_Ya]

I think there's a lonely bridge somewhere.

[kamas716]

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John442 wrote:

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MacMcK1957 wrote:

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John442 wrote:

Also, I could have sworn that I clicked the "Buy Now" button not a "Paid for a limited license" button. 

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If you want to be picky about the button, was there anything on that button that said identical copies would be permanently available for future download?  No.

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Was there anything on that button that said "Buy Now - Psych! Do you really think you were actually buying this eBook? Wrong! We are just going to let you think that it yours and then we will screw around with the content afterwards!"? No.

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You might want to go back and review your terms of service for your Nook.

[John442]

From B&N's FAQs webpage:

"Deleting a book, periodical, or app will permanently remove it from your BN.com account and cannot be undone. 

Archiving keeps a copy of your content in your account on the Barnes & Noble Web site, while removing all but the most basic information about the book (such as its cover, title, author, and description) from your NOOK. You can un-archive a book at any time, so your reading material is never lost."

[sirwillard]

Look, you can whine all you want to on here (I wouldn't use such harsh words, but you've become rather unpleasant, and I'll respond in kind), but you're wrong. Think otherwise, hire a lawyer. After you spend some real money he'll tell you the same thing. Learn from this and move on.

[Lugaid_Llyr]

Please Do Not Feed The Troll. Obviously, the OP is looking for justification and is not interested it the actually reasoning, logic or legality of the situation. If he wants to wallow in self pity and name calling, let him. Nothing else is needed. 

[AlanNJ Inspired Bibliophile]

All of the whining and foot stomping in this thread is making my monitor shake.