We Don't Need To Burn Books Anymore
As if I needed any more reasons not to buy a Kindle, Amazon gives me one more. Amazon remotely deleted this person's copy of the classic novel Animal Farm, along with anyone else who purchased an electronic edition of this book. Furthermore, and the irony of doing so apparently lost upon Amazon, they bent over to the publisher's whims, and threw
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1. Amazon wasn't authorized to sell the digital versions. They apparently had a "gentleman's agreement" or somesuch, and the estate of George Orwell decided to be rather ungentlemanly and cancel the agreement.
2. Amazon did not delete the volumes from the Kindle. What happened is that people purchased the books and left them in their archive on Amazon's servers. Anyone who had the books downloaded to their Kindle still has it on their Kindle. Likewise, anyone who downloaded it to their desktop machine also has it.
3. Amazon may have given everyone that bought the books a refund-which is smart-but they've apparently violated their own TOS. To whit:
Use of Digital Content. Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon. (from here)
The reasons for Amazon's actions are certainly quite valid? The owner of the copyright said "Jump", and on the way up, Amazon asked "How high?", which is the "technically correct answer" when dealing with the people who give you your money making machine.
However, it is the "PR Nightmare From Hell" that is going to haunt them for quite a very long time.
It makes one wonder if the Orwell Estate did this deliberately, just to cause a stink.
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2) As quoted from the first link, when the person enquired about the copy of Animal Farm still on their Kindle:
The next time the wireless is activated on your device ” Animal Farm by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi)” by George Orwell will be removed.
3) See my point made in item 1.
They are within their right to discontinue sales of a book, if doing so is no longer feasible. That's not where I have issue. Where I have a problem, is when they have the ability to delete something I own, regardless of it being their fuck-up, regardless of whether they refund me my money. It scares me that it would be so easy for them to make a book disappear. That's not the sort of information control I'd like for a corporation to have.
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