This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.
But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.
…
You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?
The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.”
35 more years until “1984” enters the public domain!
The wonder of digital distribution of content. Nobody actually owns anything anymore. I’ll stick with paper.
Indeed! Buy a REAL BOOK! and you will at least be able to read it again.
Until the ‘dissapearing ink’ fades!
If you think 1984 is going to enter the public domain, you better have a conversation with Disney. They alone will prevent anything from ever entering the public domain for as long as there is a penny to be made.
if i decide after I buy a book on it, that i don’t want the book can i return it? it seems if they have the right to a “take-back” i should as well!
Can I get a digital wife?
#2 – Bill
Books printed in disappearing ink – what a great idea! I’m going to run right out and patent that idea. The publishers will love it!
Don’t worry – I’ll give you 1% of 5% of 7% of net profits from the sale of this idea to publishers 🙂
I always buy my books at the library.
Not so long ago they had 1984 for sale!
ahhh they library..where old people go to eat their lunch, nerds go to play magic, and i go to buy books for 1 euro!!LOL
Thank you google amazon and others for killing the library, so i can buy all the books HAHAHA
At last, news for TWIT.
I wonder if you had kept a backup copy of the book, would be able to read it if you loaded it back on to the Kindle? Or is there some kind of DRM scheme that would stop you?
[My Kindle died and I got another one. I had backed up all my books on the computer. When I got the new Kindle, I transferred all of the saved books to it… and couldn’t read any of them. They have to be re-downloaded from Amazon. So yes, if they don’t want you to read a digital book that you’ve purchased… you won’t. – ed.]
Why is this a surprise? Who would know more about “big brother” than the very creator of this popular term. What’s really a surprise here and amazingly ironic, is that all those other Nazis who were into control who used book burning instead of DRM would have become all powerful had they lached on to the concept of “copyright brother”.
This is why all my e-books are public domain or drm-free LIT or PDFs. Screw Amazon and the DRM horse they road in on.
Don’t read Orwell. Particularly not 1984 which he duly plagiarized. Original, “We” by Y.Zamyatin is public domain, find it for free and enjoy.
I found a few releases, but not in TXT form. I found a few MP3’s and even movies released
Even a few movies..
Amazon zaps purchased copies of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles – Boing Boing.
I’ve had a Kindle for a year, and wouldn’t buy another. There is just too many little annoyances that add up. I can increase the font size and read in bed without glasses. That is the best thing I can say about it. Page formatting can be horrible. I’ve had huge libraries of real books, and have sold or given them away. Too much stuff to carry through life, so I thought electronic books was the answer. Maybe in ten years or so. I also had a Rabbit Reader with a built in modem. Over all the experience was not much different with the Kindle mark I. I haven’t used version II.
I find it stupid that copyrights AFTER a persons death LAST so long.
HP Lovecraft died 1940? and his books still have a copyright on them. AND most of these arnt to the FAMILIES of the author.
How many generations After death do these last?
#12, don’t forget Darkness At Noon, by Koestler. 1984 is a blatant rip-off.
But I liked 1984 better anyway, so all is forgiven.
Amazon has effectively killed the Kindle. As soon as this story gets wide-spread MSM coverage, sales will dry up.
The only way to avoid the negative publicity would be for Amazon to immediately reverse this policy and announce that it will make all its books DRM-free.
One further thought: in this case, the publisher decided, after the fact, to stop making the electronic edition available.
Imagine if a publisher sold 1000s of hard-copy books, then later “changed it’s mind” and hired people to break-and-enter in your home and steal the book back, leaving a few $$ on the book shelf.
The RIAA shrieks about how “piracy is theft” – In this case, this is actual theft. Someone should sue the crap out of Amazon.
“The only way to avoid the negative publicity would be for Amazon to immediately reverse this policy and announce that it will make all its books DRM-free.”
Not gonna happen, at least not soon. These things are up to the publishers, not Amazon. And book publishers are only now getting to the point that the music industry was at in 2001 when the iPod came out. I would say that it will take 10 years for the book industry to realize that DRM is silly.
Meanwhile, someone will surely crack the DRM long before that, and I suppose there will be lawsuits over that…
Why they can’t learn the correct lessons from the music industry’s experiences I don’t know. For sure, the movie industry has drawn the wrong conclusions from the music industry example. So will the book publishing industry, apparently.
And that’s why you should buy the Palm Pre or the iPhone/iPodtouch.
Q; did they also kill the same books on the iPhone – running the Kindle iPhone app?
So it turns out that 1984 if public domain in Canada, Australia, and Russia. I guess that is how I got it from Project Guttenberg a couple of years back and read it on my Palm Vx.
I bet someone just made a mistake when they searched for books in the public domain, and got some that were PD in locations other than the USA.
I guess the publisher considers this the same as a recall, demanding that all unsold books be returned so they can be pulped. The problem is that Amazon built in the ability to recall a book.
I know that any time I have the urge to read a classic book I check PG to see if it is they have a public domain version available.
Can I say something about Contracts and DRM.
A FAIR contract means that YOU have rights and abilities, as DOES the company.
Unless you sign them AWAY, it MUST BE FAIR.
I only have 1 point to make.
iPhone.
How many contracts are you signing to have/use it?
AT&T
APPLE
iTunes
3 contracts, and if 1 of them fails/quits/makes a mistake, your iPhone is a book mark.
Think of those that bought the 1st gen/version of the iPhone.
I would prefer 2 devices, that can Link together. If 1 part needs an Update its easier to fix.
Thanks a whole bunch apple.
Apple were the one that made (relatively) unintrusive DRM popular via iTunes, and all the fools who bought iPods without knowing/caring that apple only exists to further its own profits by seriously limiting what anyone can do with its products.
Anyone that knowingly buys something with (non-easily cracked) DRM gets what they deserve. I won’t buy anything with DRM that I can’t easily crack (like dvds).
Good news everybody, all the books on BitTorrent are DRM free.
So if I had bought that book on my Kindle, and it was deleted, Amazon certainly will credit my account, right? And, if I had finished reading the book, I will have read it for free. Just like a library, but more to the point, the publisher lost a sale, didn’t they?
People read?
I digress:
Just purchased over 30 Bonanza episodes for $5. This was entirely due to the fact that the copyright owners screwed up and forgot to extend the copyright for these particular years, pushing it into public domain.
Had to laugh that it was marketed as “The Best of Bonanza”
They couldn’t use the iconic Bonanza theme likely due to the fact that it has it’s own separate copyright.
Instead they use a piece of lame stock music.
No way sez I and I insist upon synching a Bonanza theme CD cut with the opening credits for my young kids to properly enjoy “the classics.
Didn’t help. They thought Bonanza was boring. What is the world coming to?
RBG