Topic: The Curry Book

[SnS]

This is interesting. You've got 6 hours to decide whether the purchase is what you expected - or you are entitled to a full refund. (PURCHASE not purchse)

Item 5 is also interesting. What the hell is "pre-determined time". These are not legal terms of purchase.

Terms Of Purchase.       
Written by admin    
Tuesday, 22 January 2008 
 IMPORTANT TERMS OF PURCHSE.

1. When purchasing any of the products you should note the following. If you do not agree then please do not purchase.

2. If after purchase you decide the product is not what you expected you may ask for a refund. We will refund your purchase up to 6 hours after your purchase. You must email us within this time frame.Refunding the product purchased will de-activate the product and your licence key will expire immediately.

3. Please give accurate details where requested. You should not use a temporary email address or any throw-away email addresses or false names etc as the system checks your details regularly and will automatically de-activate the product if incorrect or missing information is found.

4. On each page of the Ebook is embeded a code which represents your license information. This is only readable by ourselves and to everyone else it is invisible to the eye. Should any attempt be made to copy the software, use screen capturing software or place the software or it's contents on any other site then your purchased copy will de-activate itself and lock itself rendering the software unuseable. This constitutes software piracy and will result in action.  We will not then re-activate your software.

5. You will after a pre-determined time be allowed to print pages from the book for ease of use. Upon activation of the print function, no refunds will then be entertained. Please remember that your license is embedded in the software and can be seen by us if then placed on the internet.

6. You may receive at times a new registration key. This will replace the registration key being used. Full instructions will be given.

7. You may move the software to any machine you have at home, however only one copy can be active at once. You will need therefore to unistall the copy on one machine to move it to another and visa versa. This is a simple process and takes a matter of minutes.

8. Your activation key must be kept private. If you give the activation key to someone else then our system will recognise this and de-activate  all attempts at using the key including your original purchased copy. We cannot re-activate your original copy. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

 

Should you have any questions then please email sales@thecurrybook.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it before purchasing.
 
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 23 January 2008 ) 

[Woks Up]

There can be little doubt that the sonali is the restaurant and the cottage of india is the takeaway that andy claims his recipes are from.  The postive news for andy is that at least there are a restaurant and takeaway somewhere in the picture.  The questions that remain are:

• is andy (or ali) associated with them in any way
• if so how
• are andys/rcrs/thecurrybooks recipes from these places as andy claims
• are the curries from these places actually any good
• do andys recipes faithfully reproduce them

God dont you just love a good mystery agatha christie couldnt do a better job  :

Sorry ca there goes that bloody smilie again 

[ast]

Re: copyright, there are a number of different ways to register copyright.  The easiest is to publish something in a widely accessible place with the words "Copyright YYYY NAME_OF_COPYRIGHT_HOLDER" or you can alternatively use the "c in a circle" symbol.  You can also post a copy of something to yourself so that it gets dated, and then only open it in the event of any dispute.  Formal registration for copyright does take some time, but it doesn't cost all that much.

However....

The above reflects the US copyright law, which also includes a "fair use" clause to allow you to quote or use parts (not the whole work) in critiques, parodies, and other scenarios.  I almost added this to my other post, but then I discovered that UK copyright law is quite different and doesn't include the "fair use" clause.  Wikipedia also says that copyright is "automatic" in the UK, but that isn't much of a legal description of how it works.  You could also say that about some of the US methods too.

Re: ebook security, my guess (having not seen the book) is that the executable is really just a front-end for an embedded web browser.  If SBF got the pictures off the web, and it seems that you need to be connected to use it, then it's just providing automatic authentication to the website.  Given a copy of the ebook and appropriate network diagnostic tools, I'm sure it wouldn't take too much to figure out how it works.

Like any security scheme, there's always at least one way around it.  That's the thing about security, as I'm sure SnS knows well from his former military background as well.  The trick is to make it inconvenient enough so that you can achieve an appropriate level of risk mitigation.  There will always be people who try and get around it.

In this case, hand transcriptions, digital photos of the screen and probably any of the "really good" screen capture tools would likely work quite well.  Sorry, Andy, but there's always a way.  The other thing which is quite amusing is that most people don't really understand information security techniques well enough to come up with something that really works.  There are a few techniques which are generally accepted by the InfoSec community to work really well, but it doesn't sound like these are actually being employed in the ebook.  It seems more like a "home grown" approach, and nearly always, these only provide the illusion of security rather than actually doing much good.

If I had 15 quid to throw away and a few hours, I'd buy it for the craic just to see how it worked.  Information Security and Assurance is another aspect of what I do professionally, so I have some basis for these comments as well.

I think the 6 hr refund policy is crap.  Are you really going to be able to make all the dishes (or even one of them) in 6 hrs from the time of purchase to determine if you don't feel like you got what you paid for?  I agree with SnS.  I don't think there'd be much of a legal foundation for those terms and conditions if someone pushed very hard.

At least the recent developments on this thread finally made me chuckle a bit.  It seemed to be giving diminishing returns earlier.

As P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

ast

[George]

These are not legal terms of purchase.

Good point. Perhaps the eBook is classified as software and I guess software is exempt from distant selling regulations - something like 7 days to make your mind up, but not if you've opened the software, presumably.

Woks Up - yes, there are still a good few remaining questions. It would have been so easy for Andy to play the honest broker and outline his situation up front, without giving too much away if he didn't want to. We would have understood that, rather than the smoke screen which has been put up.

Regards
George

[Unclebuck]

I'm tempted to get a copy, just for the hell of it, so I can report as much as possible without going as far as breaching copyright law. It will be a challenge to take some kind of backup, long before they realise who's copy it is and 'turn me off'. It would be saying something if the CIA could do that. I mean, would you have to be connected to the Internet just for the wretched eBook to open and function? Has anyone ever heard of such extreme and ridiculous control measures for any other eBook, especially if you've paid a whopping 15 pounds?

I won't buy it myself, of course. I'll reimburse a friend to, with no connections to, or interest in Indian food websites whatsoever.

If one can read it, then I'm fairly certain I can take a backup.

Regards
George

hi George,
 yes you need to been connected to the INTERNET for it to work. you cant copy it mate, its encrypted with software.
http://www.file-secure.com/
you cant print it ether not yet anyway which is a complete bummer as most people who don't have there PC next to there hob.

[slimboyfat]

I have added a little something to the downloads section that MAY help!

[ast]

Following UB's link, I stand partially corrected.  It's a bit more sophisticated than I thought from the earlier descriptions, but the product in question certainly uses liberal amounts of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) to sell the product to people who don't really understand the issues.  Since it works on a minimum subscription fee of $67/month, I'm guessing this is why the e-book is so expensive.

After you cut through all the hype, the File Secure Pro product uses the built-in security features of the PDF file format specification as well as seemingly using some embedded JavaScript (as I think someone else mentioned) to provide real-time checks to the File Secure servers to ensure that the copy hasn't been deactivated.  The techniques are essentially the same as one of the ways used by your browser to make sure the security certificates on "https" websites haven't expired.

That said, it still won't stop hand transcriptions or taking pictures of the screen.  I'm sure it isn't supporting any accessibility features for screen readers either, so I still stand by my earlier comments about treating customers as criminals isn't a sound business practice.

For me, even if it was to provide the best BIR recipes on the planet, I don't think it'd be worth it when you have sites like this and documented proof that many real chefs are willing to help the home cook by providing recipes and tips.  There isn't any such thing as the "silver bullet" that provides the "one true way" to solve complex problems in business or technology, so I don't put much faith in claims that there's one for BIR cooking.

I think I'll spend the 15 quid on ingredients for my next batch of base.  It'll provide a much better return on investment than an ebook surrounded by so much hype and so little proof of substance.

ast

[Secret Santa]

Quote from
http://www.file-secure.com/
mentioned in uncklebuck's post


"CIA-Strength Security Software Stops Thieves And 'Scum-Sucking Rip-Off Artists'


If that's the case it clearly doesn't work very well as it manage to let Andy use it.

[George]

Assuming that the recipes are based on those at the Sonali restaurant, the priority must be to go there unannounced for a meal. I would if I lived closer. If the food is amongst the best BIR cuisine in taste terms, then that MAY bode well for the book, if they've been honest in writing out and testing the recipes.

But if the Sonali food is lacklustre, like so many BIRs these days, then who's bothered if the book contains accurate renditions of the recipes. We wouldn't want to make lacklustre food, anyway.

Regards
George

[ast]

...one more thing

While it should've been obvious from my earlier post, what happens when Andy Inc. or whomever gets tired of paying the ~800 quid a year to keep the e-book working?  Doing the math, the minimum costs for the security software are 804/yr, meaning he must sell at least 27 e-books a year to pay for the security measures.  Depending on how he manages his P&L, it might not matter...

BUT, if he gets tired of paying the subscription fee for whatever reason:  e-book-y no work-y!

Buyer beware!

ast