I buy some ebooks, always without DRM where possible, and promptly strip DRM and stash free copies for others (e.g. from Kobo).
This could be - or is - an ultimate form of gaslighting. If it's not on your hard drive, you can never be sure that what you're seeing today is what you saw yesteryear.
Good thing it was zero to start with
Are there any examples where legitimately purchased licenses were made unavailable?
If an illegitimate provider commits fraud with a physical book, a megacorporation does not hire extra-legal mercenaries to break into my house, steal my copy, and leave cash equal to its price in its place.
But this is treated differently just because Amazon manufactured the Kindle (but no longer owns it - they sold it to you, it's not theirs anymore). I suppose if Amazon had built apartments, would we expect them to keep master keys to all the doors, so they can confiscate any of our possessions whose licensing has expired?
Except when they do. Hasbro/Wizards of the coast will send Pinkertons (old school corporate "security" firms of the break some kneecaps variety) after you if are inadvertently sent one of their products early by their distributor. They will barge into your home threaten you and take your things and leave not giving you compensation.
Corporations do what they want in this country laws be damned because all they get is fines and they have more money than God and will make even more by breaking the law than fallowing it.
It showed everyone that electronic purchases can be yoinked away at the first whiff of controversy. Unlike all the copycat, fraudulent crap they continue to sell in physical form to this day.
― George Orwell, 1984
Don't confuse an illegitimately purchased license with a legitimately purchased illegitimate license.
This is the trouble with "licenses" instead of "items". If I purchase a bootleg book from a physical shop it's not getting clawed back later. The supplier might get in trouble, the physical shop might as well, but nothing is happening to the physical good that I purchased.
There are plenty other reasons to argue against DRM, but I'd argue the chance this one weakens the argument.
It's the same as when government agencies are given broad, sweeping powers with the explanation of "it makes it easier to do the right thing, and they won't use it to do the wrong thing". Only, the person that gets to decide what it gets used for can change. Then suddenly, they _are_ willing to use it for the wrong thing.
Not really. They went overboard. They reached into devices owned by their customers and deleted books without permission. That was absolutely outside of normal. Imagine amazon selling you a physical book and later sneaking into your house to take it back when they find out the seller had pirated them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/technology/sony-playstati...
From customers point of view, these purchases were legitimate.
But the important point is that they did it in the past and only the right balance between bad PR and expected profits will prevent them from doing again.
Also, there are examples where a company arbitrarily changes its DRM - like when Microsoft launched its Zune media player, it wouldn't play their own "Plays For Sure" DRM music - they just dropped support. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PlaysForSure
You buy in-app credits, you use them to access series and episodes and download them (you download them in a way that you cannot easily save/copy them). Access is typically revoked a few months later or upon series end, and the expiration of your access rights is not announced.
These kinds of practices are why everyone is wary of DRM & Co.
Not Amazon, but yes: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47810367
I have a paper book being shipped to me right now, and I'll have to wait a week. The only electronic version was the Kindle though, and fuck that noise.