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Quite amusing that 1984 is one of the books in question =)

I love my Kindle, but I really, really don’t like this precedent. I don’t think that this is made clear enough when you purchase a book on amazon.

How horrible would it have been if you were less than 30 pages away from finishing 1984 before they pulled it from your Kindle?

You’ve got that right about 1984. A great PR move!

Yeah, Great PR move by the publishing company

Wow, if a “seller” can revoke my “ownership” at any time, this decreases my incentive to own a Kindle. It’s one thing to be denied the right to purchase but to have the seller’s long arm reach over and take it back is disturbing.

I agree with David; though I have to say the word I would use is not “amusing”.

The irony of this is almost too thick to cut through. This is absolutely unacceptable, and Amazon must recant this position. Once books are legitimately purchased, it is decidedly wrong and completely unethical to even have the power to perform an action such as this. This cannot be tolerated.

Please flood the Kindle product page with negative reviews so that prospective buyers can be aware of this jaw dropping breach of trust and display of power:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Generation/dp/B00154JDAI/

While I have long taken a stance against DRM, this is horrifying and cannot and should not be tolerated by anybody, out of principle if nothing else. I sincerely hope this results in a class-action lawsuit.

That’s outrageous, I can’t believe they can get away with that! Why would I want to buy a Kindle, with that in mind? /stroppy

I think start to understand what ebooks can be :
They are like borrowing but with the price of a purchase. They are not a purchase, as neither can't they be resold nor given away, but they can easily be retracted by Amazon. With the advantage of 'traceability' as purchases via Amazon can be tracked down.

Now with regard to these two titles sudden 'overnight' evaporation :
1- I'm wondering how many people are possessing a kindle;
2- How many of these people have actually purchased the '1984' book of George Orwell. I have actually recently read that very few people had read this book!
3 – Knowing the high professionalism of the work of Amazone's lawyers, I'm very surprised that the contract binding publishers to Amazon would have allow them to retroactively 'decide to pull their content from the Kindle store'

Finally, I can only honor the way consumers and the press have reacted to make their voice heard and contest against an abusive decision.
One more positive of internet voice!!

That’s kinda scary. I wonder if Amazon or Apple would ever try that with mp3s…

Some books are more equal than others. (different Orwell book but whatever)

No, Jason. You have it right. Your reference is to Animal Farm which was also remotely deleted.

This is either a great, great example in irony or the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard or both. It’s both, right? Do we get the prize now? The bigger the Amazon, the dumber the Amazon. What is going on? Support your local bookstore, yadda yadda yadda.

“it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.”

yeah its JUST like that except I turned my Kindle on. Saw the book was missing. Saw I had a refund and used the refund to buy the book from a different publisher on the kindle. It was cheaper and I saved money and was reading 1984 again in minutes. So it isn’t exactly like “one of Pogue’s readers described it.”

I suspect that there’s a copyright dispute at the heart of this particular case: Orwell is in the public domain in Canada and Australia, but not in the United States and European Union; the Mobipockets edition would be legal in some places, but it’s not in the U.S.; it shouldn’t have been available for download in the States (licensed Kindle versions of Orwell are still available).

Doesn’t change the fact that this is still an egregious power that a bookseller (or publisher) ought not to have. I’ll keep my Orwell on my physical shelves, thank you very much; Winston Smith’s job would have been so much easier with Amazon technology.

Section 3 of the Amazon Kindle: License Agreement and Terms of Use states:

Use of Digital Content.

“Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.”

First of all, what is the definition of “non-exclusive rights” in this instance? Secondly, the agreement states that the licensee is permitted “to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times”. Amazon taking it away is in essence, a breach of contract, since the use of said content has now been limited by such an act. Lastly, where in the legal terms is it stated that they (Amazon or the publisher) have the right to revoke the purchasers license at any time without express consent when no violation of terms by the end user has been found?

Maybe someone with more legal common sense can clarify some things.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200144530&qid=1247875725&sr=1-5

I’ll bet that in at least one State, the Amazon “forced return and refund” AKA theft violated the law.

Sounds to me like all you actually own is a “license to read” which can be revoked at the seller’s discretion (as happened in this case). You don’t actually own actual property – virtual or otherwise. Welcome to the beginnings of a subtle transformation of capitalism into a totally new kind of socialism & welcome, a little late perhaps, to 1984. LOL.

I can understand the publisher changing their mind about selling it. But to delete books already purchased is outrageous. This is bad. What’s to stop Apple from deleting songs I purchased from my itunes, because they want to bend over to publishers? This makes we not want to get ANY digital content.

Well, I was thinking about getting a Kindle. Not anymore.

Would have been better if Amazon deleted Fahrenheit 451.

Sounds like the Ministry of Truth got to Amazon, or Mobile Reference or whomever. That is ironic and kinda creepy, especially after clicking on the Amazon link and reading in the very second comment that there were some refunds on Ayn Rand books recently as well…

I wonder, does this kind of thing happen often with the Kindle? And no one really noticed until it was George Orwell because, well, it’s Orwell and reading 1984 makes you notice that kind of thing?

Now we have all heard of recall, when a product is faulty – but even then you have the option to return it or use it at your own risk. To purchase a product and have it taken away without your approval, is like someone coming in the middle of the night and taking it. It is a theft!
—
And it makes you question your purchase of all digital content. What about my games on Steam, or songs from music providers?
—
I still want Kindle, but I hope our collective voices will see Amazon reverse this action or at least promise never to do it again!

It is crap like this that will ensure I never go Digital for Books. #Amazon owes it to their customers to honor past purchases. If Amazon ever does the same thing for Music I will take my business elsewhere for Digital and Physical Goods.

Well at least they screwed you first.

Yeah, this is pretty much why I don’t like electronic books at all, compared to a paper book. There’s an amount of tangibility that I like.

“I may never own a Kindle just because of this.” Some of you guys make me laugh. With all that the Kindle offers and you get frightened and paranoid about some little incident like this. It reminds me in the Gulf War after the transport unit got hit and the media was in a frenzy figuring the war was going to hell.

Get a bit if perspective, make a copy of your purchases and give yourselves a slap people!

Greg, your comment:
<>
…sort of defeats your purpose. The ’90s Gulf War actually turned out to be an initial battle in the larger Iraq conflict, which as we now know, *did* turn to hell.

Kindle is seeing some early wins but, as I earlier pointed out, the concept is fundamentally flawed. Like I said–when I can not have to worry about it costing me hundreds of $$ if it gets lost, stolen, or dropped in the water (instead of $6.99 like a real paperback), then the market may warm to it. That’s a pretty tall order.

And this is not to be compared to saying one will only buy a computer until it costs as little as a sheet of paper. All a Kindle does is let you read a book. I can do that for $6.99 now, and not worry about leaving it on my seat in the bus, train, whatever.
–Jim

“He had won the battle over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

They did the same thing with some Ayn Rand books and if I remember correctly issued a statement that is very similar to what they issued today.

Sadly that is a possibility ;-)
—
Wonderful news though, that Amazon has now announced this will NOT happen again :)

I like paper books. Barnes & Noble can’t take them back. An electromagnetic pulse, an Amazon bug, a cyber attack, the government, etc., can’t delete my entire library. I can read by candlelight when the power’s out, long after the Kindle battery is dead. I can pass the books on to others and my kids. Yep, I’m sticking with good ol’ paper books.

I see the kindle wikipedia page has already been updated to reflect amazon’s draconian business practises in regard to ’1984-gate’ :D

Upon receipt of payment , the ownership of electronic copy should be transferred to the buyer how can ….? BUT for a free copy, it is another story.

Next they will be deleting Animal Farm.

Has Amazon come out with a public statement answering to this?

If this is the only way that Amazon could convince publishers to go digital on Kindle then it seems to me to be a pretty poor judgment of what is more important – adding new titles or risking enormous inconvenience to users.

Because of this, I refuse to buy a Kindle. And I probably will boycott Amazon for doing this and I will encourage others to do the same.

Am I the only one who thinks this was 100% a calculated publicity stunt?

So a Saudi courtier, instead of having all unsold copies of a book reduced to pulp, could instead make it vanish entirely? 1984 indeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/books/review/Donadio-t.html

Re deleting 1984:ironic that that was the book. Re digital ownership: I had an issue outside of Kindle. I had a Rosetta Stone Spanish set that I had never opened. I tried to sell it on eBay, but right before auction was finished, eBay closed it and told me I was in violation of copyright/contract (I forget exact phrase but it was pretty scary-sounding). I had a legit copy, even had the receipt. After some research I found the problem: it turns out that when you get one of the yellow Rosetta Stone boxes you buy a lease on the content, one which you're not allowed to transfer. Rosetta Stone enforces this no resale policy on eBay (and I'm guessing Amazon and other major marketplaces). It isn't as bad as going in and deleting your stuff, but I was surprised that I didn't have all the rights I thought I got with the purchase.

funny. a netbook (acer aspire one) with utorrent is a much better option for reading digital books. the 1984 pdf is widely available on most public trackers. not that i condone that sort of thing.

Maybe we should be allowed to return our purchased digitial books at anytime for a full refund if we decide we “No longer want to own digital copies of these works”. It would be the as them taking them back.

This tactic is nothing new. 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.

The irony in this is magnificent

And this is exactly why I still buy books and CDs. I got burned when I bought some music. I’ll never do it again. At least not until these issues are dealt with. That could be years! :(

Or, y;know, you could always buy an E-Reader from Sony instead…

How permanent is content online? http://jarrodhiggins.com/?p=96

The Kindle will not be truly relevant until:
1. I can bring it to the beach and not worry about it falling in the water or sand.
2. If it gets lost, stolen, or stepped on by an elephant, it will only cost $6.99 to replace, like a real paperback.
3. I won’t have to worry about titles getting electronically re-posessed by Big Brother.

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

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/kindle-see-we-told-you-so/

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

I think it would be wrong even if only 1 person owned a kindle or only person had purchased the book.

It is very wrong.

but what if rocket theme takes back my WP template – the internet will get ugly again :-P

Dec	NOV	Mar
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2010	2011	2012

Big Brother: Amazon Remotely Deletes 1984 From Kindles

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