Comments on: Amazon E-Deletes Bought And Paid For Orwell Titles From Kindles

By: holmeswilson

holmeswilson — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:00:03 +0000

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

By: Mike_Licht

Mike_Licht — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:06:47 +0000

Six months ago bloggers (notably Stephanie at UrbZen) warned about this kind of thing.

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/...

By: ChrisWWW

ChrisWWW — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:04:36 +0000

What Amazon should have done is let users keep their books, and transferred all sales proceeds to the true copyright holder.

But Amazon would still be liable in a lawsuit against them, because the copyright holder would say they would have charged more than $.99. This is just Amazon covering their asses.

Another huge aspect is America's draconian copyright laws which say "1984" doesn't enter the public domain until 2044. That's 95 years after it was published.

By: Marlowecan

Marlowecan — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:46:58 +0000

Kudos to Joe W. As Dr. E observed...excellent coverage on this story's complex angles.

Joe Windish said: " The technology that allows that pull back is new and should be understood -- or disclosed -- prior to purchase."

I think you went to the heart of the real story here. It is the tethering technology of the Kindle that is the main issue here.

Who knew that Amazon had the power...or felt it had the right...to modify any aspect of the Kindle or its legally purchased contents?

This is why I refuse to let my Blu-ray player or other tech directly connect to the Net for Blu-ray Live or such User Experience Enhancement rubbish.

That said...I foresee a run on tinfoil hats this weekend!

By: ChrisWWW

ChrisWWW — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:22:30 +0000

Interesting that I just ordered a Kindle a few days ago. What are the chances a nice controversy would erupt so quickly?

By: GeorgeSorwell

GeorgeSorwell — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:23:06 +0000

Big brother is violating his own ToS?

By: archangel

archangel — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:10:33 +0000

boy, agreed Joe. I saw some informed posts today saying the media had done a poor job informing the public about the difference between a hard item and an electronic item, that the ebooks have always had that feature of being pulled back because of the method of delivery on the sony and the kindle. You're on the right track in finding out about all this and letting us know how it works behind the scenes. Thanks again Joe!

By: JWindish

JWindish — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:00:52 +0000

Thanks dr. e, I will be following this as well and agree that there is likely to be much more to the story. HOWEVER, none of what you say changes the FACT that an ebook that was purchased from a retailer in all good faith by the buyer was pulled back without the consent of the purchaser. The means of that pull back is new and should be understood — or disclosed — prior to purchase.

By: archangel

archangel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:09:23 +0000

I did read Pogue on this matter and I sense there is MUCH more to the story yet… and the updates will no doubt come in…

But, away from the idea of owning or not owning a copy of whatever, I am surprised at Pogue's comments, esp that Amazon will bend over backward to make publishers happy. Pogue must be living on Mars. The publishers and Amazon are a marriage of convenience with much push and shove continually. Bezos doesnt bend. If he doesnt like whatever, he sues.

By: archangel

archangel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:00:23 +0000

Here's more of the story and thanks Joe: the publisher did not pull the books, unless you count a ebook flyer a major publisher. Amazon did not cave. Bezos pulled the kindle editions of books by this joint: moibi (see below). Some who seem from the inside, infer they were illegally uploaded to kindle distrib. According to various sources, the mainstream publisher versions of Orwell's work will be avail on Kindle as soon as they straighten this other out. There was allegedly also a copy of film half-blood prince uploaded to Amie for about an hour in the last few days.

this is just one of many comments in the same vein from other sites talking about this. I agree with you Joe but for other reasons likely. I have a kindle sitting here gathering dust. The selection of books might be big on kindle as Bezos brags, but there are dang few, a lot of people would want to read. The exception would be people who like novels. But kindle downloads are being swamped by self-published books, some of which I imagine are great, but from what I've seen of the 'spread', very weak presentations.

"The Kindle edition books Animal Farm by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) & Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) were removed from the Kindle store and are no longer available for purchase. When this occured, your purchases were automatically refunded. You can still locate the books in the Kindle store, but each has a status of not yet available. Although a rarity, publishers can decide to pull their content from the Kindle store.
"