Original link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/17/amazon-kindle-1984 Amazon Kindle users surprised by 'Big Brother' move
Bobbie Johnson, San Francisco
Owners of Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader have received a nasty surprise, after discovering that copies of books by George Orwell had been deleted from their gadgets without their
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*For me the ethical issues this entails are.. troublesome. I can see someone getting the idea to censor and WHAM thousands of people no longer have access to whatever - even though they are adults, capable of choosing and reading what they wish, and have paid for it.
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I find it really ironic that this happened with Orwell because the main reason I never bought a Kindle was that one of its main features is a built-in memory hole. The idea that my entire library could be edited, revised, or redacted with a single network update never sat well with me. (Me: "Hey, what happened to my treatise on the case for war in Eurasia!?" Amazon: "Huh? You mean East Asia?" Me: "No, I mean Eurasia." Amazon: "We are at war with East Asia. We have always been at war with East Asia.") And the name also never sat right with me either. I mean, really, who in their right mind gives a book device the one name that conjures up images of Nazis throwing ( ... )
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One guess why I'm sticking to hardcopies?
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I was disturbed when this happened because I likened it to Amazon coming in my house and stealing a book off my bookshelf that I had bought from them. It is completely unacceptable behavior. And what would happen if Kindle turns out like the 8 track player? Do you get to port all those books you paid good money for to the newer, more relevant device? I doubt it.
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