Filed under: Internet
Amazon ironically deletes "1984" from Kindle devices
It's been 25 years since 1984 came and went. But if you ever needed proof that we're living in a world where Big Brother is watching, all you need to do is look at Amazon's recent actions regarding the book, 1984. Basically, the company was offering a digital version of the title in its online Kindle store, but at the book publisher's request, Amazon pulled the title. And not just from the store, but from the Kindle eBook readers of customers who had purchased copies.Sure, Amazon did offer full refunds to those customers. But imagine walking into a book store, buying a volume, taking it home, and then going to read it the next day only to find someone has broken into your home and removed it. That's kind of what Amazon did here, although we probably shouldn't be surprised, because the company never made any claims that it's eBooks weren't wrapped up with DRM (digital rights management) software that gives Amazon more control over the titles than you have.
Now, it sounds like Amazon's actions aren't quite as nefarious as first reported. The book wasn't pulled simply because the publisher decided not to offer it anymore, but because the party that was selling the eBook through the Kindle store actually didn't have the rights to the book. It was a pirated copy that shouldn't have been there in the first place. But that's kind of Amazon's problem, not the eBook readers, no?
Amazon has issued a statement saying that the next time a title is removed from its store in this fashion, the company will take care to remove it only from the digital store shelf, and not from actual Kindle devices. But this incident can't be leaving current and prospective Kindle owners with a warm and fuzzy feeling, can it?
Update: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has posted an apology that is one of the most heartening I've seen from a corporate CEO in a long time.
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The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
sitruc said 9:37AM on 7-18-2009
That's pretty funny/scary/[insert adjective here].
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Argent said 10:38AM on 7-18-2009
"It was a pirated copy that shouldn't have been there in the first place. But that's kind of Amazon's problem, not the eBook readers, no?"
--- sigh. ---
amazon, acting as the middle man propably expected mobi to actually due it's due diligence and check if the book was in the PD or not. they didn't and mayhem ensues.
but to put this in perspective...if you buy a stolen car and later the police shows up to repo the car and give t back to its rightful owner. now, you could probably try to get your money back from the person who sold you the car, but who knows how realistic that option is. if this whole thing was indeed 'amazon's problem', then my guess is that pawn shops everywhere just went out of business.
does this raise questions about DRM? sure.
about property right? well, that depends on how sanguine we all wanna be about keeping stolen property.
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Molly said 1:15PM on 7-18-2009
if you happen to travel to Australia with your Kindle, all may not be lost. you may redeem yourself here:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/
1984 and Animal Farm (amongst others) in perfect HTML format for, free as the happen to be in public domain in Australia.
the lucky folks Down Under also have access to a much broader selection of classic books from the Australian Gutenberg site, which hosts many titles that cannot be found at the Gutenberg Project.
http://gutenberg.net.au/
note: just because you can access these websites doesn't mean your country's copyright laws don't apply!
p.s.: AFAIK Animal Farm is in public domain in the US of A too. correct me if i'm wrong. if that is the case, Amazon shouldn't have sold this book in the first place.
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Molly said 11:40AM on 7-18-2009
"but to put this in perspective...if you buy a stolen car and later the police shows up to repo the car and give t back to its rightful owner."
Amazon ain't the police, thus they have no right to act as if they were, period!
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Votre said 1:15PM on 7-18-2009
I find it interesting that Amazon has only promised they won't do it again.
They have not said that they plan on making any changes to their software such that they can't do it again.
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Saint Seminole said 11:47AM on 7-18-2009
I'm not sure the stolen car analogy holds up here, Argent, because these are *copies* of stolen property.
With intellectual property, and the current ability to make instant perfect copies thereof, we've entered an entirely different field. Imagine if you had a machine that could make a copy of a car. You wouldn't actually have to steal the car, or buy a stolen car. You could simply walk by someone's house in the middle of the night and *copy* their car, then drive away in your copy.
If that were the case, the business world would be a quite a bit different. Only one person on your block would actually have to buy a car, and everyone else could simply copy it. They'd clamp down on that pretty quickly, I think, but it's not quite a same as stealing a car. :-)
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freediverdude said 8:53PM on 7-18-2009
This is absolutely outrageous. If I had a Kindle, I would be immediately returning it or selling it. Would not put up with that kind of crap, having books disappear.
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Rick said 7:20AM on 7-19-2009
I personally find it very distressing. I will find another e-reader and stop all my Kindle reading. It's as if Amazon went into peoples' computers and deleted files...at least that's how I feel about it. There are other e-readers and e-books out there. The experience is not as seamless as Amazon's but I will make sure the next product I choose, the bookstore will not be able to delete content from my device.
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esbee said 9:27AM on 7-19-2009
The question of ownership is being fought on many levels. Those of us who own animals are fighting a similar thing that would allow the USDA to come onto our private property at any time and take (kill) our animals if they think there is a disease within a 6 mile radius. They do it by getting us to register our premises with the govt and calling us stakeholders, both terms which imply we no longer own our animals or property.
The USDA program called NAIS (National animal Identification System) was developed to benefit and improve marketability of factory farms and corporate agriculture. But while factory farms and big ag gets a free ride, the ones who will be hurt most by NAIS are the small producers who raise even one farm animal whether for a pet, their own consumption or to sell locally by all the onerous rules that have to be followed..
Under NAIS, you register your premises, even if you own even one animal, even if it is a pet. This step clouds title to private property. All critters must be microchipped and all births, deaths and movements reported into a database. This costs time and money. Factory farms do NOT have to do this, they get one lot number per group of animals. Any animal in that group could be diseased and who would know. But if animal disease is suspected in an area, the USDA can depopulate a 6 mile radius (140 sq. miles of dead healthy animals).
NAIS will not prevent animal disease nor ensure food safety since tracking stops at slaughter, after which is when food safety issues occur.
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Insomnic said 2:59PM on 7-20-2009
I find the non-owners outrage quite funny.
I see no problem with this situation. Argent has the right of it here - stolen property was returned and Amazon refunded the customers because the customers weren't at fault.
See if your local pawn shop would do the same thing for you.
And the "it's a copy" argument doesn't hold because books and CDs are copies of an original and a stolen CD or book is still a stolen piece of property - just because it's digital doesn't make this less true (despite what people who argue that piracy isn't stealing claim).
I think Amazon is handling this situation well and look - I can still buy 1984 on the Kindle: http://bit.ly/11UffP - it just happens to be the legal version.
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crvt said 11:28AM on 7-21-2009
You are obviously not a lawyer, are you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Comparison_to_theft
holmes said 12:31PM on 8-05-2009
Re: In response to Amazon's remote deletion of 1984 and Animal Farm
Hi there,
Saw you'd written about the Amazon / 1984 flap, and I thought you might be
interested in the petition we launched yesterday:
http://defectivebydesign.org/amazon1984
We have over 1400 signatures already, and signers include Lawrence Lessig,
Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow and other notable authors, librarians, and
scholars.
The petition opens:
"We believe in a way of life based on the free exchange of ideas, in which
books have and will continue to play a central role. Devices like Amazon's
are trying to determine how people will interact with books, but Amazon's
use of DRM to control and monitor users and their books constitutes a clear
threat to the free exchange of ideas."
Please have a look, and if you support the cause or think it would be
interesting to your readers, a blog post would be great!
Thanks,
-Holmes Wilson
Free Software Foundation
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