In an apology, Amazon has offered to redeliver copies of George Orwell novels that were mistakenly deleted from Kindle owners’ libraries, or provide a gift certificate or check for $30.
In July, Amazon received a torrent of criticism–not to mention a lawsuit–over its decision to delete copies of “1984” and “Animal Farm” from Kindles after it discovered that certain versions of those e-books were added to the Kindle library by an unauthorized publisher. However, the move to erase lawfully purchased copies of books written about the overreaching hand of a central authoritarian government struck some as funny, and others as outrageous.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologized for the move in an e-mail to Kindle owners on Thursday, a copy of which was provided to CNET News by a reader.
It’s about time… what took so long?
Anyone know the status of that kids 1984 report annotations?
I LOVE proprietary Products. REALLY I DO.
Making devices that only work under certain conditions and with certain companies and Certain formats, is REALLY cool.
Xbox, PS3, Wii are among these SPECIAL companies. Even MS ranks up there someplace.
I wonder what would happen if SOMEONE made an ALL OVER SYSTEM, that could read all the formats, and had NO COPY PROTECTION/DRM and you COULDNT erase DATA from remote access..
could I charge 2 times What everyone ELSE is charging?? I wonder.
You could DL anything from any service and load it up in the tablet and Keep it forever..No mater where you got it from..COOL..
Why is the word “mistakenly” used in the article there was no mistake Amazon knew exactly what they were doing.
Yes, they did it on purpose but it sure was a big mistake.
yep,
they had a secondary company Verifying copyright..AND THEY screwed up.
AND WHY IS THAT?
Copy rights are WEIRD. 90% of works before a certain date ARE RELEASED to Freely distribute. but OTHERS(FAMILY) have had some of the laws ADJUSTED, and they ARENT FREE.
Look up HP Lovecraft. ALL of his material should be free. It isnt.
whats happening is the FAMILY is living off of the originator of the work, in many cases.
It used to be 20 years after DEATH..NOW its over 50 years.
DONT even think about copyrights on Computer hardware software.
#3 Agreed. When I saw the word my eyes popped opened. It wasn’t a mistake 😀
#2 While your sarcasm was a bit funny they also seem to show signs of, perhaps, no knowledge of some of the products you’ve mentioned? I agree with you that certain technologies should be more common; such as connectors, flash formats, cables, programming languages 🙂 but then if everything was one we be in the world of Lord of the Rings or Matrix.
Why would MS, Sony and Nintendo make each of their console the same type? Is this going to make the price cheaper due to 0 competition? Is this going to be a disaster that kills all in one shot because they are the same? So while so things should be common, not everything should be common. Knowing which and why, I think anyways, is just as important 🙂
#5 The amusing thing was that the two Orwell books were, and are, available on Australia’s Project Gutenberg site, as they’re public domain under Australian copyright law.
All Amazon products are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Personally, I prefer txt, compact and no liscensing. Download any book you want from USENET, often times before the official release. You can still legally download over 30,000 books from project gutenberg totally free. I’ve had my Sony reader 6 months now. I’m a compulsive reader, and take it everywhere and still haven’t bought a book. It’s doubtful I ever will, unless they invent some kind of decent online service that’s reasonably priced.
The “mistake” was, they distributed a book that they didn’t have the rights from the publisher to distribute.
So they took it back.
But, as far as I can tell, they still don’t have the electronic distribution rights from the publisher. So how can they legally re-distribute it back to the people who bought it?
the old adage of “it is easier to ask forgiveness , than to ask permission” applies here…
this is how damn near all business work..
here is a lovely little ditty…
at the company i work for ,we are picking up a new distributor for our products, they used to purchase our products through another company (let me call it Company A),
This other company (Company A) didnt like our pricing and had dropped us., they told this other company (the one we are now picking up) that we went out of business.
I just wonder how company A would handle the explanation to us of what they are doing… (prolly just ask forgiveness..)
I was just getting ready to buy one of these when the story broke. Now I’m not interested in any of them.
Why did it take so long?
First they had to hurt in their heart, um wallet, same thing.
I was just watching the DVD of “Spirit of St. Louis”, with James Stewart. And Lindbergh goes to the first aircraft maker. They demand to pick the pilot that will fly “their plane”. Even though Lindy was buying it, not leasing it! So even way back in the 1920s, you had industry figuring they had a right to control their products use, after sales. The major aircraft manufacturing industry, especially so. But now, even the electronics industry. Which PCs and ebook readers are a part of. So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Amazon had a delete switch build into the Kindle’s code. I’m just surprised that they chose to use it, so soon. It’s not like they’ve saturated to market with these devices. The next time they remove something (and they will), they will probably replace what they delete, with an “alternative” book. Or an altered version of what they delete. Because it will probably be for “political reasons”, that they dare do it again. Around the next election cycle.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Adobe’s reader software had some secret code, to allow removal of things they deemed bad. Every time some company gets big enough, they decide to take on draconian powers. Or a more powerful entity dictates that they should, or get clobbered.
Hmmm. I love being paranoid. Especially went the business world makes it feel normal to be. Hey, who didn’t trust Bernie Madoff? Wall Street, and all the major banks! Who kept a lid on his scam, but wouldn’t to business with him, themselves. And for eight years, the SEC dropped the ball on him! I’ll bet Madoff was Bush’s secret weapon against prominent democrats. And that’s why the SEC left him operate up until now. He kept the DNC’s coffers lean.
Boycott DRM. Personally, I won’t purchase anything like the Kindle. It looks like a great way to carry your entire library . . . BUT it removes my rights as a consumer. I don’t know if they track all the reading from Amazon, but they shouldn’t be allowed to call it “purchasing” a book when you load it onto your Kindle. You aren’t “purchasing” anything. Maybe you are renting the book. Amazon still has the technical ability to remove it from your device without your permission. Is it even “your device” if you can’t load any reading material onto it without paying for another company to do it? What if that company decides not to support your old Kindle in a few years? You aren’t “purchasing” the book if you can’t loan it to a friend, will it to your heirs, or sell it at a used bookstore. If the book authors want any of my money, they’ll have to let me purchase their works without losing my rights.
Too bad it just took so long for some to figure out that the apology was issued in July
#12 Hey gramps, it’s easier to find and dl books in txt, rtf, and pdf, and lots of readers support these ‘unprotected’ formats. It’s still a damn fine convenience. Hell I carry around enough books in mine to compete with the community library in my hometown, and still have room to spare for some MP3’s – no DRM there either. My attitude is to pay gladly a service that facilitates the localization of what I’m looking for in an open format and with no use restrictions, otherwise I’ll continue to use alternative sources.
17,
AGREED..
I would love an OPEN FORMAT reader.
READ every format out there. Including ALL of PDF and Acrobat and the subsections, NOT just the PROTECTION CRAP.
AND then add Libraries to GIVE out books in the needed/wanted formats.
AND THEN, cheaper distribution of BOOKS in this form. I cant see these costing more then $1-3 EACH..NO SHIPPING/HANDLING/ART WORK/PAPER NOTHING..The prices should FALL to the ground. and People would FLOCK to the new format. Including SCHOOLS.
Schools would love this.
AS you start school, you bring the device in, and they AUTO LOAD it with the materials you need for the year. the teacher can even EDIT what he wishes..
And since, MATH/ENGLISH/READING HARDLY ever change much its only HISTORY and Sciences that MAY need to be added or changed.
WOULD LOVE to see a teacher EDIT a REAL/TRUE history from all the sources that abound.
One of the reasons I love my Kindle is that it has helped me improve a lot on my efficiency and utilize my time. Before I have the Kindle, waiting time like when I’m waiting for friends or waiting for shuttle bus or some thing like that is simply wasted. Now I just need to bring the Kindle 2 along with me, and all my favorite books are inside it. Another thing I like the most is the text-to-speech function, which means I can “read” books without even holding or looking at the Kindle. Now I like to use this function when I’ve myself busy on some boring things, say when I’m on the step machine or doing some housework…