]> 2026-04-10T09:42:59+00:00 Cory Doctorow Amazon Lie - Workflow 0 en https://doctorow.medium.com/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism-b885c4cb2719 This is an exchange from a short medium article by the famous author Cory Doctrinow on his subject called Chokepoint Capitalism. This is just a version of the evils of trusts and monopolies. This one is special because I thought a paragraph was a lie, I wrote a response to his lie, Cory responded with why it was not a lie, and I responded on why he was wrong, thus proving he was in fact, intentionally lying. Speaking of chokepoints… The audiobook market is controlled by one company, Audible, a division of Amazon. In some genres, Audible has more than 90 percent of the market. If you’re an audiobook listener, you almost certainly have an Audible subscription, which means that anyone who wants to sell an audiobook needs to be on Audible. But Audible has a rule: to sell in its marketplace, you have to let Audible wrap your audiobook in “Digital Rights Management” — an encryption scheme that can only be legally decrypted using the apps and devices that Audible has authorized. That means that every dollar a listener spends on an audiobook is a dollar they’ll have to give up if they quit Audible, because there’s no (legal) way to convert Audible books so they’ll work on non-Audible players. The more Audible dominates the audiobook market, the worse they treat creators. Professional narrators’ wages have been steadily squeezed, as have payments to the independent studios that produce audiobooks. The self-published audiobook creators who use Audible’s ACX platform report hundreds of millions of dollars in wage-theft. Naturally, we won’t sell our audiobook with DRM, so naturally, it won’t be available on Audible. Instead, we’re kickstarting pre-sales of the audiobook (along with print and ebooks). We’re currently at about $75,000, with 25 days to go. So far, our readers have pre-ordered about 1,500 DRM-free ebooks, 1,175 DRM-free audiobooks, and 650 hardcovers. They’ve also donated about 700 hardcover copies to libraries (if you work at a library and want to call dibs on one of those donated copies, fill in this form!). This is the LIE: That means that every dollar a listener spends on an audiobook is a dollar they’ll have to give up if they quit Audible, because there’s no (legal) way to convert Audible books so they’ll work on non-Audible players. My comment to him: I must be goofy but this is misleading, I think. For example, if you narrate a book yourself or hire a narrator and get the raw audio files, you can put the book on audible (DRMed) and ALSO distribute DRM free, or use another DRM distributor/seller. I don't recall an exclusive distribution provision by Audible of the performance content or a grant of copyright to them. Similarly for kindle. That said, collecting pre-orders on non-DRMed material seems like a good idea if you can get the kickstarter community to want them. But once it's out without DRM, what exactly stops the pirates? At one time in history, the content providers did not have to worry about pirates, but then came bit-torrent (and others). That said, you make a great argument about the failure of the government in its anti-trust responsibilities and the FTC/FCC in theirs. Under the US Constitution I believe it would be legal, and expected, to have a public enforcement agency for copyrighted and patented material. Big companies can afford their own enforcers, but not individuals or little guys. No such agency exists. The FBI LITERALLY LAUGHS IN YOUR FACE when you try to report the crime to them. His comment back to me: Cory Doctorow Cory Doctorow AUTHOR about 20 hours ago Yes, you can sell elsewhere, but how do you get your listeners non-DRM copies if you leave Audible and want to take them with you? Audible won't tell you who bought your book through its service, much less help you deliver MP3 versions to them so they can resign from Audible without losing your books. My comment back to him, saying he is wrong: Robert Thibadeau Robert Thibadeau YOU about 5 hours ago What Cory wants is the sales contact list from his reseller or a willingness of his reseller to sell the form of the release that he wants. As they say, "you can ask" but I've never seen any reseller agree to reselling something they don't want to resell. I actually know the DRM that Audible uses (when I was designing the Self-Encrypting Drive technology for Seagate Technology). It is pretty sophisticated and contains many features that are very consumer oriented in terms of meta data markup associated with the Audible releases. Anybody who prepares an audible book for Audible can see some of this. i.e., Audible is adding content performance value with the DRM and they are in part a performance contributor of consumer value to what they are willing to sell. It's like a band performer saying he want to sing all his songs without a microphone to an audience of 10,000 people. The distributor (event producer) can say no. Again, we need an enforcement division of the Gov. for Copyright and Patent Infringement. Copyright and Patent law already provides for protection but without any enforcers. This is like writing criminal law without any police or Justice Dept. That is what we have in Copyright and Patent Law. Cory does not seem to want this. Probably because a lot of lawyers make their living as paid enforcers and do not care about writers and inventors who have no money to pay them their $400-1200/hr fees. And, Cory does not want to address this. Yet we do have law (National and Local) that DOES cover misdemeamor enforcement. What do you think police do? Let the CONGRESS correct this with a written responsiblity to the Dept. of Justice. As would be expected by any RIGHT that has supposedly been guaranteed and protected in the Constitution. I would argue even further. That certain forms of DIVISIVE PERNICIOUS LYING even by Candidates for Office should be illegal and enforced under the Constitution. Slander is slander. We don't let certifiably insane people do anything they want to do. George Washington made exactly this point in his Farewell Address to us, before we had laws, just the Constitution. Read it here: https://medium.com/liecatcher/hobgoblins-are-not-real-43d7a749067e Cory's Bio: Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and blogger. He has a podcast, a newsletter, a Twitter feed, a Mastodon feed, and a Tumblr feed. He was born in Canada, became a British citizen and now lives in Burbank, California. His latest nonfiction book is How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism. His latest novel for adults is Attack Surface. His latest short story collection is Radicalized. His latest picture book is Poesy the Monster Slayer. His latest YA novel is Pirate Cinema. His latest graphic novel is In Real Life. His forthcoming books include The Shakedown (with Rebecca Giblin), a book about artistic labor market and excessive buyer power; Red Team Blues, a noir thriller about cryptocurrency, corruption and money-laundering (Tor, 2023); and The Lost Cause, a utopian post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation with white nationalist militias (Tor, 2023). AffAbd6ih6af6abDfiHf Workflow User:Rhtcmu User:Isophist 2 User:Merel3 User:Frank Cory Doctorow Amazon Lie https://doctorow.medium.com/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism-b885c4cb2719 That means that every dollar a listener spends on an audiobook is a dollar they’ll have to give up if they quit Audible, because there’s no (legal) way to convert Audible books so they’ll work on non-Audible players. No done done Settled Amazon Lie Cory Doctorow Amazon Lie - Workflow 2022-08-28T20:30:26Z

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