Oh jeez, Gizmodo, it’s bad enough when newspapers get the facts wrong about ereaders, but you’re supposed to be a source of expertise in this domain. You’re a flippin’ gadget blog.
Anyway. The point is this: you don’t lose back issues of Kindle (or Nook) magazines you already paid for when you cancel a subscription. Gizmodo says they’re deleted. Gizmodo is wrong.
Check out Andrys Basten’s detailed and informative explanation of how this really works over at Teleread. And don’t trust Gizmodo for ebook news.
“You will NOT lose your Kindle back issues when you cancel a subscription: Gizmodo is wrong!” [Teleread]
By Caitlin December 4, 2011 - 9:11 PM
“Once you cancel a subscription, you will stop receiving new issues immediately and you will no longer be able to re-download back issues, and a refund for the remaining balance of your subscription will be issued if applicable.”
-Kindle’s website http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200396170&#status
What does this mean, then?
By Caitlin December 4, 2011 - 10:13 PM
Realized this comment might sound like I’m trying to say you’re wrong, which I don’t mean to. I just don’t understand what Amazon’s statement means if not what Gizmodo said it does. I want a Kindle, but would probably get a Nook if I lost magazine and newspaper issues I paid for.
By Chris Walters December 4, 2011 - 11:27 PM
Caitlin: I think Gizmodo oversold the problem by not describing the policy in greater detail, which could lead people to think that Amazon deletes back issues from your Kindle when you cancel a subscription.That’s not what happens.
What actually happens is once you cancel a subscription, Amazon stops providing an online backup of any back issues on their servers. This means if you delete an issue from your device and didn’t keep your own backup somewhere, you won’t be able to retrieve it from them. However, if you’ve got your own backup, or if it’s already on your Kindle, you’ll still have access to it.
That policy still isn’t as consumer-friendly as it should be, because according to Basten, unlike regular ebook purchases Amazon won’t let you transfer your old periodical issues to a new Kindle. (The DRM Amazon uses to lock Kindle files relies on your device’s serial number. ) That means if you cancel a subscription on one Kindle but keep your back issues on the device, then later on buy a replacement Kindle, those back issues won’t open anymore.
The best solution to that problem is to always strip the DRM from your purchased files, whether they’re ebooks, newspapers or magazines.
I hope that helps clarify things. I probably went a little overboard on the Gizmodo hate, but if I recall I was really annoyed at the time because the mainstream media was picking it up as another “omg Amazon deletes your files!” story, which was inaccurate.
By Chris Walters December 4, 2011 - 11:35 PM
Quick update: I don’t normally recommend the Nook because I’m not a big fan of Barnes & Noble’s customer service policies, but in this case, based on a quick reading of their FAQ on Nook magazine subscriptions, they offer a slightly better deal to consumers. They’ll still remove old back issues periodically to save space, but after you cancel a subscription, they say they’ll continue to provide access to a backup copy in the cloud:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks/help-faqs.asp#enews
By Steve Wilkinson December 21, 2011 - 12:34 PM
IMO, it’s nearly as bad though. Some of the magazines I’ve tried are really big! Kindles don’t have a ton of storage and/or I might not want to use up a ton of storage on my iPad (etc.). One of the big selling points of the Kindle is that you don’t have to keep your entire collection on the physical device if you don’t want to. If I subscribe to the physical magazine (or buy a physical book), I can keep it on a shelf or in a box under the bed and always access it if I ever want to. I think it should be the same for magazines. I don’t care if they tie it to my device to prevent theft, but I do care that they won’t let me, say, download it again in 5 years on my new Kindle or some future device I sign into my Amazon account.
Overall though, I agree on the DRM issue that it creates a long-term problem for book and magazine buyers. I used to have a pretty big book collection and have slowly been donating my paper books to libraries and getting the ones I need (for research, etc.) on the Kindle. It’s a trade-off; I’m currently trading the ability to have my entire collection with me or available to me anywhere I go with all the downsides of DRM to the future value of my collection. I just don’t think the downsides should be so steep. For example, in 20 years, will I easily be able to pass my collection on to my son like I’d do with paper books?
I’m just hoping (and somewhat trusting) that they will work this all out over time, kind of like what happened in the music industry. Many of the books I buy are not just pop novels (which seems to be where the current DRM vision is targeted) which I more or less discard after reading. Most of my books are non-fiction and used for study and research. After I read them, they might sit ‘on the shelf’ for years to be accessed again down the road as I need them. The current DRM setup isn’t well suited towards that (once again, hurting the legitimate use of the product). I understand wanting to protect their interests, but they need to do some rethinking of how this works.