Amazon deletes "e-books" it's sold. Kindle

[Pure]

One's Kindle is subject to Amazon's interventions, e.g. to remove books it decides to, for various reasons. You do not actually own what you bought: it's not an item, it's a service (ongoing) that may be revoked or continued, like the songs you buy for IPhone

Does this bother anyone? Is it a reason to choose the Sony Reader, instead?

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Why 2024 Will Be Like Nineteen Eighty-Four

How Amazon's remote deletion of e-books from the Kindle paves the way for book-banning's digital future.

By Farhad Manjoo
Posted Monday, July 20, 2009, at 5:53 PM ET

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos with a KindleLet's give Amazon the benefit of the doubt—its explanation for why it deleted some books from customers' Kindles actually sounds halfway defensible. Last week a few Kindle owners awoke to discover that the company had reached into their devices and remotely removed copies of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Amazon explained that the books had been mistakenly published, and it gave customers a full refund. It turns out that Orwell wasn't the first author to get flushed down the Kindle's memory hole.

In June, fans of Ayn Rand suffered the same fate—Amazon removed Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and The Virtue of Selfishness, with an explanation that it had "recently discovered a problem" with the titles. And some customers have complained of the same experience with Harry Potter books. Amazon says the Kindle versions of all these books were illegal. Someone uploaded bootlegged copies using the Kindle Store's self-publishing system, and Amazon was only trying to look after publishers' intellectual property. The Orwell incident was too rich with irony to escape criticism, however. Amazon was forced to promise that it will no longer delete its customers' books.

Don't put too much stock in that promise.
[...]

Consider the legal difference between purchasing a physical book and buying one for your Kindle. When you walk into your local Barnes & Noble to pick up a paperback of Animal Farm, the store doesn't force you to sign a contract limiting your rights. If the Barnes & Noble later realizes that it accidentally sold you a bootlegged copy, it can't compel you to give up the book—after all, it's your property. The rules are completely different online. When you buy a Kindle a book, you're implicitly agreeing to Amazon's Kindle terms of service.

The contract gives the company "the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service at any time, and Amazon will not be liable to you should it exercise such right." In Amazon's view, the books you buy aren't your property—they're part of a "service," and Amazon maintains complete control of that service at all times. Amazon has similar terms covering downloadable movies and TV shows, as does Apple for stuff you buy from iTunes.


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[voluptuary_manque]

I give that no more than one year. Within twelve months, someone will come up with a device that allows you to download books from the Library of Congress, a place that contains more books than any other library in the world. I'll bet you'll be able to load up an iBook with titles the same way you can load up your MP3 player. Forget Amazon's Kindle!

 

[sr71plt]

That's a problem with all of these devices/schemes. They obsolete faster than they develop.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Yup. That's why I like hardbacks. They've been around since the Middle Ages and are still going strong.

 

[sr71plt]

I prefer paperbacks. Although I have a good many hardbacks, over time they feel like more of a burden and a release.

 

[DeeZire]

On the one hand, you have the copyright issue. If they sell digital books that can be cloned and distributed for free, they set up the publishing industry for the same kind of problems as the music industry has encountered with illegal downloading. On the other hand, if you limit the rights acquired when selling downloads, you piss off the customers.

I suspect it's going to take a while before a stable model is established. In the meantime, I come down on the side of protecting intellectual property, especially after watching what the lack of protection has done to the music industry. What I don't condone is Amazon's utter lack of professionalism in distributing intellectual property it had not secured the rights to. WTF were they thinking?

 

[michchick98]

On the one hand, you have the copyright issue. If they sell digital books that can be cloned and distributed for free, they set up the publishing industry for the same kind of problems as the music industry has encountered with illegal downloading. On the other hand, if you limit the rights acquired when selling downloads, you piss off the customers.

I suspect it's going to take a while before a stable model is established. In the meantime, I come down on the side of protecting intellectual property, especially after watching what the lack of protection has done to the music industry. What I don't condone is Amazon's utter lack of professionalism in distributing intellectual property it had not secured the rights to. WTF were they thinking?

But when you pay for and download a song to your MP3 player or other device, can the company you downloaded it from later delete it? You paid for it, regardless. It's not your problem if the song was bootlegged and put on the site illegally.

Same concept should go along with the Amazon Kindle. The book was paid for. And while I appreciate Amazon's concerns for the author, I think "punishing" the customers who'd already downloaded the books isn't fair. They didn't know the copies they downloaded were illegal.

Amazon should've just removed the books in question and posted information on their site (and sent notice to Kindle users) about the problem to warn their customers what they're downloading.

 

[sr71plt]

But when you pay for and download a song to your MP3 player or other device, can the company you downloaded it from later delete it? You paid for it, regardless. It's not your problem if the song was bootlegged and put on the site illegally.

Same concept should go along with the Amazon Kindle. The book was paid for. And while I appreciate Amazon's concerns for the author, I think "punishing" the customers who'd already downloaded the books isn't fair. They didn't know the copies they downloaded were illegal.

Certainly sounds resonable, but by law the end user can be prosecuted too. So, it can be the enduser's problem that it was an illegal copy if the prosecutor decides to prosecute--even beyond just destroying the illegal copy. That's the law that passed, presumably so that the enduser does need to worry about it coming from a legal source.

 

[michchick98]

Certainly sounds resonable, but by law the end user can be prosecuted too. So, it can be the enduser's problem that it was an illegal copy if the prosecutor decides to prosecute--even beyond just destroying the illegal copy. That's the law that passed, presumably so that the enduser does need to worry about it coming from a legal source.

So you're saying it's the enduser's problem if they were unaware the copies they downloaded were illegal and they're sued for it?

I still stand by my original opinion: Amazon should've just removed the books in question and posted information on their site (and sent notice to Kindle users) about the problem to warn their customers what they're downloading.

 

[neonlyte]

Kindle is nothing more than an electronic book store. Like any book store it can decide to stop stocking uneconomic volumes. 'Buyer Beware' caveat applies; 'purchasers' were not offered the opportunity to download their purchase, consequently when the item is de-stocked, it is no longer available to the 'purchaser'.

Smells!