Amazon Pulls Purchased E-Book Copies of 1984 and Animal Farm

Oracle Goddess writes "In a story just dripping with irony, Amazon Kindle owners awoke this morning to discover that 1984 and Animal Farm had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for, and thought they owned. 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 George Orwell from people's Kindles and credited their accounts for the price. Amazon customer service may or may not have responded to queries by stating, 'We've always been at war with Eastasia.'"

Comments

Whatever The Party says

[acrobg]

...must be the complete truth. Or else the thought police will come get you.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Forge]

Irony so thick, even my warped mind could not have manufactured it.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Techmeology]

Instead coming to get me, wget http://www.desy.de/gna/html/cc/Tutorial/tutorial.html and http://www.asiaing.com/animal-farm-by-george-orwell.html I'm no legal expert (I gave up on trying to understand the law), but these novels are impiratable since their copyright has expired (well, I think they have anyway). Even if they weren't if Amazon and publishers will do things like this, then they deserve all the piracy they wget!

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Techmeology]

(the first link is meant to be http://www.planetebook.com/1984.asp)

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Techmeology]

Instead coming to get me, wget http://www.planetebook.com/1984.asp and http://www.asiaing.com/animal-farm-by-george-orwell.html I'm no legal expert (I gave up on trying to understand the law), but these novels are impiratable since their copyright has expired (well, I think they have anyway). Even if they weren't if Amazon and publishers will do things like this, then they deserve all the piracy they wget! --- Mod this one up, rather than either of my two comments.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Badge 17]

Okay, let's turn down the rhetoric a couple of notches. There are two aspects to this -

1) This does not appear to be a case where the publisher just "changed their minds." 1984 and Animal Farm are, through the usual idiocy, under copyright in the US but not in other countries, so someone re-publishing the text without paying the copyright licensing is breaking the law, and Kindle customers have, in effect, been sold "stolen" property. (Equivalent: buying software that illegally includes GPL code). If you buy a stolen ipod, it can get confiscated by the police.

2) However, this does reveal a pretty worrying tendency to kill books first, clarify later. If Amazon had just sent out refunds, plus notes that "Due to an oversight, if you are in the U.S., this version of 1984 is unauthorized," that would have seemed sensible.

My suggestion - use the Kindle if you like (I love mine), but backup your books, strip the DRM, and pirate shamelessly. Casual piracy adds features to ebooks - the ability to lend and trade books, which is how we all got hooked in the first place.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

you're no expert on avoiding redundant posts either, you fuck!

Re:Whatever The Party says

[flogger]

but backup your books, strip the DRM, and pirate shamelessly.

Got any methods on how to strip the DRM and share .AZW files?

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

I think comparison to buying stolen property, and your iPod analogy is inaccurate - especially since copyright laws and property laws - iuncluding posession of stolen property are handled very differently.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[blackest_k]

2) Pretty much by owning a kindle your in the united states or your credit card is.

3)now that Amazon have displayed just how much control they have over the kindle and ebooks that you buy, who's going to want to buy into that platform.

Chances are the product we want hasn't been released yet, the EEE tablet story a few days ago had quite a few links to an Arm processor tablet where the screen is removable giving a tablet or netbook experience.

This seems ripe for further development, maybe with a drop in epaper screen or perhaps a screen module with epaper one side and lcd panel on the other, if it was double sided i'd like to have a clear removable cover to protect the outer screen from scratching and damage.

Might as well go one step further and include a hspda modem which supports voice calls. Paired up with a bluetooth headset or in car bluetooth audio system.

why not be really extreme and include gps and of course it would run Linux :)

The E-paper Screen would probably be sufficiently responsive to handle browsing sites like /. and relatively slow input such as typing.

Battery life could be quite impressive when it needs to be.

   

Re:Whatever The Party says

[LuYu]

Kindle customers have, in effect, been sold "stolen" property. . . If you buy a stolen ipod, it can get confiscated by the police.

IGNORANCE IS NOT STRENGTH

IDEAS ARE NOT PROPERTY

Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod. Having an extra copy of a book does not take anything from anyone. Purchasing unauthorised copies is neither equivalent to nor even similar to stealing.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[noidentity]

Kindle customers have, in effect, been sold "stolen" property.

You forgot scare quotes around property.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[blackest_k]

I was too lazy to add links but these guys do this

http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/

esentially an Arm based netbook tablet with the guts behind the screen and a plug in keyboard which sort of turns it back into a netbook again.
It looks like the keyboard is weighted down with a battery to make a stable netbook.

Pricing appears to be $300 for the tablet or $400 for the tablet + keyboard battery combo. I think they have used something like a wireless keyboard to get a unit which can work detached from the screen.

I'd like to introduce them to these guys

http://pixelqi.com/

who make these screens

http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2009/06/hands-on-with-pixel-qis-new-epaper.html

Essentially its an LCD Screen which can turn off the backlight and run in a black and white mode at quite a low power.

PixelQI used one of the first screens to mod an aspire one.

speaking of mods heres a nice diy version of an aspire one tablet.
http://www.liliputing.com/2008/10/acer-aspire-one-retooled-as-a-tablet-style-umpc.html

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Hatta]

1984 and Animal Farm are, through the usual idiocy, under copyright in the US but not in other countries, so someone re-publishing the text without paying the copyright licensing is breaking the law

It would be legal for an Australian company to print copies of 1984, right? And then it would be legal for me to import that book, right? That's completely legal. How does it become illegal when electrons are involved?

Re:Whatever The Party says

[countach]

I doubt that it is legal to shamelessly copy material in a jurisdiction that doesn't recognise your copyrights, and then import it, otherwise copyright would collapse. But I'm IANAL.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Kalriath]

Actually, they aren't under copyright in the US either. They were published before 1978, so therefore the copyright extension is not retroactive to them (at least according to Wikipedia and the Copyright Office factsheet). The only way they could still be under copyright is if an explicit registration was filed with the office, which there isn't (I checked).

So no, 1984 and Animal Farm are free to get - just be aware that you can't pirate a copy you pick up in a store because the cover art is under copyright.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[shmlco]

There's another troubling aspect to this that's yet to be discussed, and one that's especially double-plus-ironic considering that one of the deleted books was Orwell's 1984.

If they can download a book, and if they can delete a book, then they certainly have the capability to REPLACE a book. Imagine that some night thousands of Kindle ebooks disappear and then reappear... altered.

We are at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia...

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Planesdragon]

but these novels are impiratable since their copyright has expired

Hmm....

George Orwell died in 1950. (link), and 1984 was published in 1949.

The copyright law in effect in the US in 1949 allowed for a 28 "first" term, with a possible 28 year extension. (link).

The law was changed in 1976, allowing any published work still in its first-term to be extended another 67 years. Since 1949 + 28 = 1977, Orwell's work was still in its first term, and would not have expired under the original law until 2005 -- or 2053 under the 1976 extension.

AND, the 1998 Sony Bono copyrgiht extension slapped a flat "life + 75 years" deal, which is kinda a moot point but would still push copyright unil at least 2024.

ANNND, any signficiant edits work of 1984 would have created a new derivitive work, with a whole new copyright.

Or in other words--1984 is probably still well covered by copyright, and not technically in the public domain in the United States.

(Yes, you can find a copy on the internet. This is the internet, where you can also find anything and everything for free if you look hard enough.)

(And, yes, I know Orwell was from the UK. I don't know the UK laws, I don't have a good guide for the UK laws, and as far as I know copyright law on the other side of the pond is still a grant given by the king to a publisher so that a particular work gets published.... so 1984 might never get into the public domain at all.)

(Not to mention that if it's not in there now, the "Mickey Mouse" effect might keep it from ever getting there.)

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Planesdragon]

And then it would be legal for me to import that book, right?

Not unless you have the written permission of the US copyright holder on 1984. Which they usually don't give without receiving money.

Electrons mean crap here. It's copyright.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Planesdragon]

so therefore the copyright extension is not retroactive to them

Go read the law linked to by the copyright office. The relevant section is below. Short form: 1984 got a second extension of 67 years, instead of 28. So instead of expiring back in 2005, it's expiring circa 2039

(a) Copyrights in Their First Term on January 1, 1978. â"
(1)
(A) Any copyright, in the first term of which is subsisting on January 1, 1978, shall endure for 28 years from the date it was originally secured.

(B) In the case of â"
(i) any posthumous work or of any periodical, cyclopedic, or other composite work upon which the copyright was originally secured by the proprietor thereof, or
(ii) any work copyrighted by a corporate body (otherwise than as assignee or licensee of the individual author) or by an employer for whom such work is made for hire,
the proprietor of such copyright shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for the further term of 67 years.

(C) In the case of any other copyrighted work, including a contribution by an individual author to a periodical or to a cyclopedic or other composite work â"
(i) the author of such work, if the author is still living,
(ii) the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author is not living,
(iii) the author's executors, if such author, widow, widower, or children are not living, or
(iv) the author's next of kin, in the absence of a will of the author, shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for a further term of 67 years.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[w3woody]

So you wouldn't mind at all if I downloaded your Libreria project, stripped off the GPL v3 headers, tossed my own name on it, wrapped it in a GUI and sold it for a profit? Just sayin'...

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Chris Burke]

Kindle customers have, in effect, been sold "stolen" property. (Equivalent: buying software that illegally includes GPL code). If you buy a stolen ipod, it can get confiscated by the police.

I get your the point you are making, and the analogy. I'm just going to mention that wrt the GPL, the equivalent would never result in the end user, as in recipient of the code, being in trouble or losing their software. The GPL is, as is appropriate of a copyright license, only about distribution and basically the only way you can violate it is by distributing the software without granting the recipients the same rights. Any hypothetical recipient of GPL software is hypothetically licensed to use because 1) the GPL is explicitly not a usage license, anyone can use the software however they received it and 2) the GPL is an open offer whether the party that gave it to you include the GPL notice or not so you can still distribute the software under GPL terms. It would be the non-GPL parts that would result in anything getting confiscated.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all of us subscribe to the FSF's notion of 'freedom through coercive copyright licenses'.

That being said, there are some people here who think that DRM, proprietary software, copyrighted content = EVIL but GPLv3's legal controls on hardware = OMG RMS IS SAVIN OUR FREEDUMZ. I am not one of them and I highly doubt the grandparent poster is.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[countach]

That would be double-plus ungood.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod

Wow, someone went and made the emphasis tag awesome.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Dan541]

On the other hand if you actually purchased a book you would still have it.

This is just a VERY good reason to avoid the Kindle.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[AK Marc]

Not unless you have the written permission of the US copyright holder on 1984.

Nope. If you get a legal copy elsewhere, it is yours. You are not distributing it (the only thing copyright covers) by bringing it back in. This was decided because there are companies that sell their products for less outside the US. Someone importing grey market items was sued. The re-importer won. If you can buy it legally outside the US, and it's legally sold in the US, you can bring it in, even if the copy wouldn't have been legal if made in the US.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[epine]

The problem with Vonnegut's "Man Without a Country" is that you can't tell when he's kidding.

He says "The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practising an art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. ... Do it as well as you can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

The problem which arises when we attempt to turn the arts into a way of making a living, is that the larger social context breaks down. We make art out of our experiences. If your experiences are effectively owned by another party, you can make art out of your experiences, but then you won't entirely own the end result. Not even enough to give it away.

The soul-growing aspect of art is not its consumption, but the creative synthesis which art inspires. Art consumed is popcorn and butter. Nourishing in a caloric sense, but not nutritious.

At the risk of quoting a spoiler, Vonnegut recites the wisdom of his friend Saul at the end of the book, "what you respond to in any work of art is the artist's struggle against his or her limitations."

Thus, I suppose, breaking DRM is a form of art, and our response is to the plight of the artist's prison term.

But seriously, if you view the creative works of others as fuel for your own soul-growing endeavours, it's not sensible to become emotionally invested in creative works which are militantly encumbered.

Somewhere I encountered an anecdote about children given an amazing toy, but what they end up playing with most at the end of the day is the packaging the toy came in. I don't know anyone who was inspired to a life of artistic expression by the Mona Lisa. For that matter, it's debatable whether sex is improved with skill. Isn't skill mostly a compensation for the fact that the sequel rarely lives up to the original?

We're actually pretty bad at predicting our happiness states. Gilbert says the same thing in his videos at TED.

Why We Suck at Predicting the Future.

What I'm saying is that we too often talk ourselves into needing the latest and greatest (and most encumbered) media, but we don't, and it often defeats the greater purpose.

Lessig has figured out that this quandary is harming our children. Part of his motivation here is that we're making an ass of the law. I guess I have less to lose if RIAA succeeds, as seems likely.

Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity

The deeper problem here is that many of us believe that we garner status through what we've experienced, rather than what we've created, a sentiment which Twain noted when he observed that "A classic is something everybody wants to have read, but no one wants to read."

How much of this stuff are we hurtling through so that we can sit around at the bar or the coffee shop and go "yeah, I've seen that; yeah, I've read that; yeah, I've seen that, too"?

I've been to Holland. I spent two hours in Schiphol. I've been to Tokyo. I spent 12 hours in the Narita complex. We had long enough to take a train into the city and drink one beer.

Sometimes we get a bit carried away with the belief that a gadget from Amazon or an air terminal is the gateway to a life well lived. If you don't stick around and engage emotionally, it's all meaningless. The Kindle model is a form of literary tourism. Hey, if you love airport security, here's a chance to carry it around on your person.

Flash forward to Kubrick's AI when the love of our life disappears in an electronic instant (with full refund) due to a minor copyright glitch on the charming dimple module. I've love to read the verse Shakespeare might have penned concerning that scenario, but as things are shaping up, I'd have to live another 600 years to legally post it here on slashdot.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[iamacat]

I am sure commercial users of Libreria derivative who bought it in good faith would mind if you break in - physically or logically - into their data centers and delete the software they rely on to run their businesses. Believe me or not, even if own rights are violated, you are legally and morally obligated to defend them in civilized manner. If you break into burglar's apartment to steal back your TV, you are going to jail.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

IGNORANCE IS NOT STRENGTH

What about retard strength?

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

tl dr

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Hognoxious]

If you're in the US you're allowed to violate copyrights that belong to a foreigners. Number one! NUMBER ONE!

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Toonol]

Related: My son's physics textbook was going to cost us $150. Few used copies, because it was a new edition. But the publisher sold the exact same book in India for $15. The EXACT same book, in English, page for page identical, except a note on the back that said "not for sale in the United States."

Well, it was being sold in India. I bought it in the United States. Legal?

Hell if I care. Textbooks are a scam.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[The_Wilschon]

Hey man, I think you've had enough. I'll call a taxi.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[kelnos]

He may not be ok with that. But that still doesn't make copyright infringement the equivalent of theft of a physical item.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[pjt33]

I don't know the UK laws, I don't have a good guide for the UK laws

Life + 50. So it expired a while back.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Frogbert]

Completely ot but how the hell did he get that "deprives" to look that way?

Re:Whatever The Party says

[malice]

Kindle customers have, in effect, been sold "stolen" property. . . If you buy a stolen ipod, it can get confiscated by the police.

IGNORANCE IS NOT STRENGTH

IDEAS ARE NOT PROPERTY

Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod. Having an extra copy of a book does not take anything from anyone. Purchasing unauthorised copies is neither equivalent to nor even similar to stealing.

RHETORIC IS NOT REALITY

UNSHAVEN HIPPIES SPEAKING IN TONGUES ARE NOT THE MESSIAH

You are taking the right to copy an original work from the artist who created it. You are depriving him or her of the right bestowed to him by law, just as freedom of speech is bestowed unto him or her by law.

You are taking the fruits of someone else's labor, the hours and days and years of study and work that culminated in the creation they put out on the free market for sale.

That the tools used didn't create a physical object you can fold, spindle, or mutilate means little. R&D costs are the bulk of most sophisticated manufactured goods, whether physical or ephemeral.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[koxkoxkox]

With the "em" tag inside a "b" tag for a bold emphasis

Re:Whatever The Party says

[koxkoxkox]

Let's not forget that in this particular case, the artist producing the original work died more than 59 years ago.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Techmeology]

I find life is much simpler if you just ignore copyright.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[ToddlerArmyofOne]

US law=UK law=worldwide copyright laws. The copyright laws are more or less the same all over the world since most countries (=all countries you have heard of) have signed the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. The US signed this convention much later than all western countries, and therefore Orwells estate should be protected a long time.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Hatta]

Not unless you have the written permission of the US copyright holder on 1984

Are you sure? Where in the US code does it prohibit importation of copyrighted works?

Re:Whatever The Party says

[BarefootClown]

You're just noticing this? Online news has been doing this forever.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[cemulli]

George Orwell died in 1950. (link), and 1984 was published in 1949.

The copyright law in effect in the US in 1949 allowed for a 28 "first" term, with a possible 28 year extension. (link).

The law was changed in 1976, allowing any published work still in its first-term to be extended another 67 years. Since 1949 + 28 = 1977, Orwell's work was still in its first term, and would not have expired under the original law until 2005 -- or 2053 under the 1976 extension.

Actually, works created prior to 1976 still had to have their copyright renewed. There's a whole big mess if you're trying to explain to a Copyright class how to tell whether the old formality of having to renew was still required to be followed. [[Round 1, Battle of the Legal Semi-Professionals]]

This is actually like a final exam question, so I'll do my best. As I recall (I can dig around in my notes from last semester for more concrete stuff, but I'm on a different computer right now), in 1990, there was an amendment to the Copyright Act that created automatic renewal, but ONLY for works that were still in their first renewal period at the time of the Act. PRIOR TO 1990, then, the old renewal rules for works created before 1976 were still in place. Translation: Works created between 1962 and 1976, which previously would have had to go through the renewal process, suddenly found themselves automatically renewed, no worries.

However, because you provided such well-documented information already, we already know that 1984 was first published in 1949. Because it was in its SECOND renewal term when 1990 amendment was passed, then the renewal requirement still existed for 1984 when it hit the end of its first renewal period in 1977. Accordingly, the all-important question is whether Orwell's heirs exercised the renewal right during 1977, regardless of the fact that works created AFTER 1/1/77 did not have a renewal period at all.

And as to the copyright law on the other side of the pond, the Sonny Bony Copyright Term Extension Act was defended in Eldred v. Ashcroft as being a way to put U.S. copyright law more in line with European copyright law. I don't know a whole lot about the Berne Convention though, so I don't know what the law was like in the UK in 1949... I mostly just know that European copyright emphasis tends to be more on moral rights (ie, more focus on attribution) than our system (ie, more focus on the $$bottom line$$).

Random Copyright class trivia: For the first couple hundred years, the U.S. view of copyright was "What can we steal from other countries?", and it evolved into the perpetual copyright regime of profit and corporate interests that you see before you today. The U.S. system back in the 1800s wouldn't even recognize a copyright from another country as valid unless the work was actually manufactured/published by a publisher in the U.S. - and as to other boring history of Copyright, yes, Copyright did come about in the UK entirely to protect the economic interests of the publishers. Translation: Author? What author?

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already happened. Earlier this year, Kindles all over the country automatically downloaded revised copies of King's The Stand for customers who had purchased it. No authorization or input from the owner, no ability to refuse, and no word on what was revised.

Probably just some spelling changes, but no easy way to be sure, and surely a bad precedent.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's what's wrong with our culture: any kind of thought that isn't short, or sensationalist, or peppered with bold and FREE is mocked. Fuck you.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Brandee07]

Actually, you would not, since in this case it would be a stolen book, which would have been confiscated and returned to the rightful owner.

At least the Kindle owners here got a refund.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh. Quite the contrary. Now the other two comments can be downmodded and the right one modded up. This way we need only read one post instead of two partial ones plus he only gets half the potential karma he'd get otherwise. I'm sure you've seen the post couples where both the wrong post and the correcting one were modded up, you probably don't fuck.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[VJ42]

So it expired a while back.

I'm afraid not, it was amended in 1995/6 to life + 70. A human readable summary of UK copyright law is here. In short:

Duration of copyright

The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states the duration as:

      1. For literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works

            70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies.

            If the author is unknown, copyright will last for 70 years from end of the calendar year in which the work was created, although if it is made available to the public during that time, (by publication, authorised performance, broadcast, exhibition, etc.), then the duration will be 70 years from the end of the year that the work was first made available.
      2. Sound Recordings and broadcasts

            50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was created, or,

            if the work is released within that time: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first released.
      3. Films

            70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last principal director, author or composer dies.

            If the work is of unknown authorship: 70 years from end of the calendar year of creation, or if made available to the public in that time, 70 years from the end of the year the film was first made available.
      4. Typographical arrangement of published editions

            25 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published.
      5. Broadcasts and cable programmes

            50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the broadcast was made.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[w3woody]

His assertion is, from what I read, that intellectual property is not actually property. I'm fascinated that anyone who supports the GPL would make that assertion, since the GPL is backed by the idea that ideas and speech are not free, but can be constrained by its owner to certain uses--notably to uses that are compatible with the GPL.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Stray7Xi]

Comrade, post is oldspeakful near-crimespeak, provided resub:

There is another badful aspect that is crimestopped, it is double-plus-ironyful regarding unbook.

Minitrue can rectify misprint by removing and replacing with goodbook. All books can be rectified double-plus-speedwise when misprints are identified.

We are at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[HiThere]

But if it was first published in the UK, then by the US copyright law in effect at the time it wasn't entitled to ANY copyright in the US.

Was it? I think so.

P.S.: That law wasn't specifically aimed at Britain. If it was first published anywhere but the US, the US copyright law of the time didn't recognize that it had any copyright. That was why both Ace and Ballentine were able to print LOTR. And Ace didn't pay Tolkien any royalties. Ballentine advertised on the back cover they they were paying royalties, so you should buy their version instead.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Drakin020]

Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod. Having an extra copy of a book does not take anything from anyone. Purchasing unauthorised copies is neither equivalent to nor even similar to stealing.

So if I walk into a store and *Take* a pack of gum without paying for it, is it not stealing? I mean...I didn't deprive anyone from their gum.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[berend botje]

Copyright is about making copies. Not about importing items. Importing a book is not copying a book. You can import every book on the planet and not worry about copyright.

However, this _is_ about electrons. It was easy for Amazon to cancel the book on the Kindle, therefore they did.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Warhawke]

Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod. Having an extra copy of a book does not take anything from anyone. Purchasing unauthorised copies is neither equivalent to nor even similar to stealing.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. The reason why we have copyright law in the first place is because owning or producing a "copy" DOES take something away from the original producer. Copyright law exists because it provides financial incentive for research and development. No one would dare dump millions of dollars into researching drugs or technology if the next schmuck who came after could copy their work and publish it without and R&D costs. Without those laws, the original producer would lose all of those future cash flows (which ARE substantial and very real). Copyright law, as it was introduced as an intermediary between producer and consumer rights, is a good thing. The way it's been extended to entirely forsake consumer rights is what's criminal and wrong, NOT copyright law itself. Your argument is a reductio ad absurdum. /Dons the "Score -1: Disagree" suit

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

Here. Doesn't work for .AZW1 or .TPZ files. And use Calibre to manage your collection.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[LuYu]

There is a big difference between "minding" and calling it "theft". I think that would be an example of plagiarism and a violation of copyright, but I would never categorise that as "theft".

Having said that, I have nowhere said that the author does not deserve to profit first from the author's own work. If I wrote a book, and it never sold, I would never expect a penny. If I wrote a book, and someone else sold it for a million dollars and did not pay me a cent, I would be angry. If I wrote a book and millions of people shared it and no money was exchanged, I would not care.

The point is simple: If, and only if, money is exchanged, the creator should be the first to benefit. By adding the idea that you would sell my program, you included the only thing I would object to. Copyright should control monetary transactions and not information transactions.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[niteshifter]

Let's try this instead:

wget http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/1984.pdf

or 2 page layout:

wget http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/1984-2.pdf

wget http://www.msxnet.org/orwell/print/animal_farm.pdf

I have mod points. Happily sacificed. Now on the count of three - everybody wget 'em ;)

"License to read" == bullshit.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[RaymondKurzweil]

Why We Suck at Predicting the Future [wired.com].

Just because "We" do, doesn't mean I don't.

I predicted that by 2009, there would be many portable electronic devices. I have of course been proven right.

I predicted that by 2009, we will have sent a man to the moon. That turned out to be true, in fact it was accomplished 40 years prior!

I predicted that by 2009, you would be able to purchase a nutritional shake that doesn't taste like shit.

Due to the Law of Accelerating Returns some of these predictions actually occur SO FAST, that they are realized BEFORE I PREDICT THEM. But I'm still fucking amazing.

You're just some punk ass bitch. You're all punk ass bitches.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Dan541]

No they were NOT stolen their users paid for them legally.

which would have been confiscated and returned to the rightful owner.

Even if the books had been stolen property, explain how a book seller would go about confiscating someone's books?

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Ant P.]

nu-Slashdot has FUBARed the CSS. It looks fine in the "old" layout.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[janwedekind]

ANNND, any signficiant edits work of 1984 would have created a new derivitive work, with a whole new copyright.

I am looking forward to Amazon's digitally remastered edition of that book.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[mdwh2]

Nope, the Berne Convention just specifies at least 50 years after death. So that only requires it be kept in copyright until 2000, and could now be public domain. The problem is that the US and many other countries have extended the term even longer.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[mdwh2]

The point is that if you did that, he wouldn't be claiming the right to wipe the files off of the recipients' hard drives. The correct response would be to sue you.

In this case, no one would care if Amazon were being sued. And indeed, there's a good question - if 24 mp3s are worth $1.92 million in fines, why aren't Amazon being sued millions or even billions for distributing a large number of files without permission, for profit? The fact that they've later deleted the files from people's devices doesn't make it okay, they've still broken the law.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[dr.newton]

This may not even be worth replying to, but in the example you give, you are depriving the store of that pack of gum.

There is a difference between taking something from someone (i.e. you have one more of that thing, and the person from whom you took it has one less) and copying something under copyright without authorization (i.e. you have one more of that thing).

Neither of these are legal, but the distinction is still important, as is that between murder and man slaughter.

One could argue that in the latter case, the author has been deprived of a sale, much like the RIAA and the BSA argue that every pirated piece of music or software is a lost sale; however, this reasoning is flawed, as has been discussed at great length elsewhere on Slashdot. Often if the person who pirated it had had to buy it to get it, they would not have.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[ToddlerArmyofOne]

I think you might be right about the Berne Convention, but after that there have been new treaties concerning copyright, partly by UN. I guess that one of them contain the 70 year after death clause. Sweden has 70 years after death and that is EU standard I think.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[torkus]

It seems you don't understand what anyone is talking about.

Taking a pack of gum without paying is stealing. You most certainly DID deprive someone of their gum. To be specific - the store. It was their gum that was manufactured from physical, limited-resource goods, shipped to the store, stocked for sale and taken by you. Thus the store no longer has possession of that pack of gum and they can not complete a sale for it.

However, intangible goods such as MP3s or eBooks are different, and the method of 'taking' is different. In fact, it's not taking, it's copying. It leaves the original entirely intact and no different than before the copy was made. If you were selling a painting and I cam and took a picture of it...you can still sell that painting for the exact same price as before I took the picture. It's not lessened, broken, or worn out in any way.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[torkus]

You must be new here. lol

I'm glad you can parrot the claimed reasons behind the origin of copyright law. However they have little to do with the current realities. In addition, you make lots of claims with no supporting arguments.

Making an intangible copy of an intangible thing that leaves the original entirely unaltered does not deprive anyone of anything. They still have *exactly* what they had before. Your implied argument of 'lost sales' is the same farce the MAFIAA keeps throwing around hoping it will stick. There are so many counter-arguments to it i'll let you do your own homework if you care enough.

You also are confusing copyright law with patent law. Both are horrible broken and abused but are otherwise entirely different things. Money most certainly CAN be made without the protection of copyright laws. However, the methods are different and so are the amounts. The MAFIAA feel they are entitled to keep their current, outdated business models and the retarded amounts of profits they essentially steal from everyone else (see hollywood accounting) and lobby other corrupt politicians to get laws passed to ensure it.

Funny how the majority of the population finds fault with copyright laws yet somehow they still exist and keep getting made stronger. The laws no longer function to serve the people, they function to serve special interest, lobby groups, and big business.

it's not -1 disagree, it's -1 wrong

Re:Whatever The Party says

[LuYu]

So, let me get this straight: You, Andrew Welch or "malice", claim that all people who defend the Constitution of the United States of America and its ideals are "hippies speaking in tongues"? According to you, are George Washington and Benjamin Franklin hippies?

It sounds to me like you are a monarchist and should go back to the lands of the sovereign who owns you.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[INowRegretThesePosts]

You are taking the right to copy an original work from the artist who created it. You are depriving him or her of the right bestowed to him by law, just as freedom of speech is bestowed unto him or her by law.

What? So there is no morality outside of law? You seem to implicate that if freedom of speech wasn't codified in law it wouldn't be a right.

Private property is a right. Physical items can *belong* to a person. A government that doesn't respect people's right of property is an unacceptable government. A government must not violate this right even if it thinks that it would benefit society as a whole. Some people accept exception in rare situations such as eminent domain (as long as the government compensates the owner *and* there is a pressing need for the act), some do not accept these exceptions.
Private property is a right, not something that is enforced by law just because it is useful. If the law does not recognize the right to private property the law is wrong. It is similar to the right to live. No one can kill a person, even if doing so is a net benefit to society (like killing a person with a serious contagious disease). There are strict exceptions such as self defense (widely recognized) and capital punishment (more polemic).

But ideas do not belong to anyone. No one has a *right* to "own" an idea. What the lobbyists call "intellectual property" is an artificial restriction created by the government on the dissemination of ideas. Far from being a right, it violates people's right to disseminate ideas. It may be acceptable if
1) It creates an overall society benefit.
2) It doesn't overly limit the citizens' freedom.

The lobbyist idea of "intellectual property", that is "stolen" when someones copies an electronic file, leads to effectively unlimited copyright terms, the patentability of mathematical ideas, bigger and bigger penalties for copyright infringers, lower and lower standars of proof...

Trademarks, copyrights and specially patents, when correctly implemented and limited, can be a necessary evil. The way they are currently implemented, they are just evil.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Aqualung812]

It's not lessened, broken, or worn out in any way.

Many (not myself) would argue that it is lessened. A unique painting that has been copied a million times and sold to many other people is no longer unique. The price someone would pay for a painting that had never been copied is higher, in theory, than one that has been copied.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fine with thoughts that are long, boring, and not peppered with bold and FREE. But I'd like them to be coherent, well expressed, and to actually say something. Fuck you.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Anonymous Coward]

Electrons are involved in either case, dimwit!

Re:Whatever The Party says

[kelnos]

That still doesn't make it actual property, and that still doesn't equate copyright infringement with physical theft.

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Mister_Stoopid]

My copy of 1984 is constructed entirely out of neutron star matter, you insensitive clod!

Re:Whatever The Party says

[Kalriath]

Here's the catch though - they're entitled to it. If they do not explicitly request it, then the copyright lapses (that's actually explained in the fact sheet, by the way). And according to the copyright office records (searchable from their website), the work 1984 by George Orwell does not have a current copyright registration.

haha

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck kindle. buy real books and support real trees

Re:haha

[TheRon6]

buy real books and support real trees

If by "support" you mean "dismember and ground up," then yes.

Re:haha

[snowraver1]

If by "dismember and ground up", you mean "carbon capture". It's not rain forest trees going into your books. It's farm trees + natural trees with strict replanting laws.

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! Woo hooo! Ground up! Dismembered! Pulp!

At least I can be relatively sure Barnes & Noble won't break into my house and steal my copy of 1984 simply because their agreements have changed.

Yes, even if they leave money on the nightstand I still consider it stealing.

Re:haha

[kheldan]

Hear, hear! Didn't like it in the first place! I too will stick to my nice, PRINTED books, thank you very much!

Re:haha

[Naturalis Philosopho]

Buy "FSC", "SFI", "PEFC" or "Green Edition" books. It guarantees that the forests were managed correctly and that the corrugated was recycled humanely.

Re:haha

[snowraver1]

-- Old growth forests don't really "grow". New forests grow much faster and create more oxygen.

-- Trees are farmed for paper. Magic clicky text here.

-- Also when you cut trees for lumber, you get chips and waste, which is made into paper, so that argument doesn't stand either.

Re:haha

[Hadlock]

Ahhh, actually, no.

It's old growth forests that go into books. No matter how much you replant, these trees aren't coming back in a hurry.

[citation needed]

Re:haha

[thrawn_aj]

No, it doesn't work like that. You don't get to sit there being a smug little shit demanding that someone prove themselves without actually doing shit to prove YOUR point.

If your so goddamn certain of your factual correctness why dont YOU bring something to the table contradicting him?

Misplaced indignation. He was neither smug nor demanding that GP prove himself. When someone (GP in this instance) makes such a blanket claim that is clearly simplistic if not entirely wrong ("It's old growth forests that go into books") asking politely (linking to XKCD is not the mortal insult some may think it is *sigh*) for a citation is hardly something to get so worked up over.

Being snippy for no reason is rather bad form and goes a long way toward lowering your credibility.

To GP: I would mod rainforests as -1 overrated (good source for exotic diseases though - keeps the biologists on their toes).

Re:haha

[Attila Dimedici]

Only 9% of the wood used to make books comes from old growth forests ( http://ecology.com/features/paperchase/ ), so there is some merit to his theory.

Re:haha

[Sj0]

They're trees. What's your hurry?

From a carbon capture standpoint, cutting down trees (made mostly of carbon) and turning them into something that'll stick around for a while and using that area to grow more new trees seems to me like a way to get MORE carbon out of the atmosphere.

Re:haha

[fireheadca]

Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way, including but not limited to caching.
</quote>

Joking and such aside... would this stand? Legally?

Re:haha

[LuYu]

Mod the parent up. Amazon is the thief here.

Re:haha

[Tordre]

I guess you are about to find out because the signature is part of the comment and you reproduced it in someway. Good luck hope fully you wont get the pirate bay judge.

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck kindle. buy real books and support real trees

Ageist. The coal power providing energy to my Kindle was a real tree once too!

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a huge misconception. To make pulp out of old growth timber is to waste money.

No lumber company in the world would make paper out of old growth lumber as the strength, straightness, density, and resistance to warping, and the low percentage of waste products from old growth timber far exceeds that of the genetically engineered trees that have been planted in the last few decades. These newer trees are engineered to grow fast, and that reduces quality of the grain and makes the cellular structure much coarser thus making the lumber much more liable to warping and have much less strength.

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Carbon capture sure, but all those cheap trashy novels that are read once only, well they're not really effective carbon capture, not like my personal copy of the Art of Programming...

Re:haha

[Repossessed]

um what?

Why would I use old growth wood (which is expensive due to demand for good quality wood) when I can use cheap young growth wood (either from farms or recent growth in forests).

It makes no economic sense at all to use anything but scrap for paper.

Re:haha

[Planesdragon]

Joking and such aside... would this stand? Legally?

Technically? That doesn't change the relationship Copyright gives ANYWAY.

Go look at the bottom of /. IIRC, it still has something about "all comments copyright whomever posts them." Which means that, say, if you posted his exact comment somewhere else to either gain money or avoid paying money, then he could sue you to recover or stop you from doing that.

But, really, if you find a way to post a comment for more than $250 (filling fee to sue someone), let me know.

(Oh, and no. You can't post text on the web and then say "you can't cache this." Copyright law (fair use?) expressly allows for such copying as may be required to use an object. Which is why even in places where EULAs are tossed out on their ears as invalid, you still can only install one copy of that game.)

(IANAL, if you are seriously considering something like this in a real venture, GO HIRE ONE AND DON'T GET YOUR LEGAL ADVICE FROM STANGERS ON THE INTERNET!.)

Re:haha

[Brickwall]

Um, you should tell that to the thousands of unemployed lumbermen in New Brunswick, Quebec, and British Columbia. Between the use of recycled newsprint, the decline in newspaper readership, and people not buying as many books, the revenues of the Canadian pulp and paper industry have decreased from about $10 billion in 2000 to just over $5 billion last year.

Ironically, in our last election the moonbat leader of the Canadian Green Party actually campaigned on more logging. Cynics would suggest that's because of lot of those unemployed lumbermen were in her riding, and she was simply pandering for votes, but of course, I would never say that.

Re:haha

[Dan541]

No your thinking of furniture.

Re:haha

[dontmakemethink]

If by "carbon capture" you mean "sulfur release", then yes, we've all smelled paper mills...

Re:haha

[MrMr]

And more importantly: As long as you don't burn your books and they're sitting on a shelf (also wood) they are net carbon sinks.

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck kindle. buy real books and support real trees

But.. isn't Amazon a forest then?

Re:haha

[Ginger Unicorn]

Being snippy for no reason is rather bad form

you must be really new here.

Re:haha

[QuoteMstr]

Seems like you could make a killing, then, by taking a tree farm and letting conventional varieties of tree grow longer. If a tree takes twice as long to grow, but the wood sells for four times the price, you come out comfortably ahead.

So why aren't there more tree farms that focus on quality lumber?

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, I don't think it was the "It's old growth forests that go into books" part that he wanted a citation for or he could have truncated the quote right there.

It's more likely he doesn't think primeval forest won't grow back, which is a fact due the ground quality where it grows.

Re:haha

[Briareos]

support real trees

If by "support" you mean "dismember and ground up," then yes.

It's all fun and games until the trees start to retaliate... :D

np: Tosca - Honey (Massi Dub) (Different Tastes of Honey)

Re:haha

[Dravik]

So I guess those giant tree farms in Alabama with Georgia Pacific signs on the fences have nothing at all to do with the Georgia Pacific paper plants right next to the tree farms?

For your convenience

[rlp]

The Kindle is now equipped with a memory hole.

With DRM

[Shikaku]

You always lose. This is just another example.

Re:With DRM

[Dyinobal]

I was actually thinking about buying a kindle but after reading this story I 100% against buying one. Way to go amazon.

Re:With DRM

[linzeal]

Why would you buy something that you can't back up your books on? With even other DRM-laden readers out there this can't happen because they all have memory slots that would allow you to have multiple places where you keep anything you buy. My Sony Ebook reader has 32 gigs of books ( mostly pirated ) that is 16x the amount you can get on the Kindle.

Re:With DRM

[Fuzi719]

I was actually thinking about buying a kindle but after reading this story I 100% against buying one. Way to go amazon.

My feeling exactly. The Kindle2 was finally capturing my attention and I was seriously considering it. However, I just lost all interest. I'll continue to read my ebooks that I download from the net on my Zodiac1 using eReader or Mobipocket.

Re:With DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

32 gigs... of BOOKS?!? I'm a fairly avid reader (Battlefield Earth was a good size, but Tale of Genji was a bit too long)... but wow..... 32 GIGS?!? Are they all poorly compressed PDF's? Or do you just have WAY more on there then you ever intend to read? If it's all just text... that's over 2000 books! I'm honestly curious about other peoples habits. I tend to only keep 50 or 60 megabytes worth of books on my SD card at any given time for my reader. Do you just keep every book you've ever read or intend to read? Sorry if this comes off as offensive, it's not intended to be. Your number just shocked me. :)

Re:With DRM

[rbanffy]

Seems a good reason to make a couple Kindle-size "deffective by design" stickers.

Re:With DRM

[Dan541]

By paying for information you always lose.

I only buy tangible items for information piracy is always the best path.

Re:With DRM

[linzeal]

Try mechanical and electrical engineering reference material. The encyclopedias/handbooks are about 250 megs a piece. Before I would have to lug around my laptop everywhere I went now I can carry my pocket sized Sony e-book reader with an omnibus of engineering material with me everywhere I go. My entire library has over 200k volumes and is encroaching over 1.5 terrabytes currently. I have an ardent belief that the Library of Alexandria must never be allowed to happen again, and the only way I know that can happen is if we decentralize our electronic libraries as thoroughly as we have paper ones.

Re:With DRM

[Brandee07]

You can back up your Kindle books to your computer hard drive. In two clicks, from a web browser. So, the amount of Kindle books you can back up is limited to your hard drive space + removable media.

Re:With DRM

[linzeal]

What stops them from deleting the books the moment it connects to the internet?

Legally, how?

[SkankinMonkey]

This seems extremely shady legally. You bought and paid for something. Electronic or not, how do they have the right to take it away from you? I could MAYBE understand if it was a subscription-based service in which you had access to a collection, but for them to take this away from someone who specifically bought the book seems legally dubious at best.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

its like a product recall -- they just recalled the product. perfectly legal, since its included in the kindle license contract that all kindle reader owners agreed to. they might even give a refund if you ask nicely.

Re:Legally, how?

[calmofthestorm]

This happens all the time (the Major Leage Baseball deletions, Microsoft's older DRM, etc). The difference here is that Amazon was generous enough to refund the price; usually the company just keeps it because "all sales are final".

Personally I think they should be banned from using the word sale; indefinite rental is more accurate.

Re:Legally, how?

[bmo]

No, all product recalls are strictly voluntary.

You're dumb if you don't participate in a recall, though, because you /are/ compensated or given a safer/better-working/improved product in return.

This is not a recall.

--
BMO

Re:Legally, how?

[plopez]

If they got a refund then it is probably OK. Besides it's probably in the EULA. You *did* read the EULA, didn't you?

Re:Legally, how?

[larry bagina]

they did get a refund.

Re:Legally, how?

[whterbt]

It's because you paid money for access to DRM-protected content. You didn't buy shit. It's their device (you paid money for the use of it), their content (you pay a fee to get to view it). At no time did they actually give you anything.

It's just like a DVD. What are you paying $20 for? Is it for the right to view the content? If it were, then you should be able to get a cheap replacement when the disc fails, right? Well if it's not that, then you paid for the copy of the movie, I suppose? But then, why can't you make a copy?

Pay money for DRM'd content and you'll get exactly what they want to give you - smoke and mirrors.

Re:Legally, how?

[blincoln]

You're dumb if you don't participate in a recall, though, because you /are/ compensated or given a safer/better-working/improved product in return.

I would say it depends on the recall. If it's for e.g. a Battlestar Galactica toy that shoots rubber darts but which can fire nails equally well, you're probably better off keeping the toy (out of reach of small children) as a collector's item.

Re:Legally, how?

[Kenshin]

It's just like a DVD.

No, it's not.

The studio can't send out a kill-signal disabling all copies of a DVD. They can't even do that to Blu-ray. Not even DRM'd stuff from iTunes can be remotely deleted or disabled, just prevented from being downloaded again.

Re:Legally, how?

[Punto]

When they bought the kindle, there was probably a clause on the EULA that said this (and more!) was possible.

I buy that more than "they got a refund so it's ok". In the "real world", if you buy, for example, a first edition of a rare book, they can't just say "we want it back, here's your money", because it's possible that its value will have increased since the time you purchased it (imagine it's an important book, first edition is rare, etc). I wonder how that argument would translate to this case tho..

Re:Legally, how?

[djmurdoch]

Not even DRM'd stuff from iTunes can be remotely deleted or disabled, just prevented from being downloaded again.

Didn't you just get that iTunes update? It fixed this problem. (Not really, of course. It'll be the next update that does.)

Re:Legally, how?

[nine-times]

This seems extremely shady legally. You bought and paid for something

Well probably technically you didn't buy it. Generally when you "buy" online content, you're not really buying anything. You're paying a licensing fee, and the terms of the license include "we can pull the content and rescind your license whenever we want without an explanation."

Re:Legally, how?

[Punto]

Stop calling them toys -- they're my friends!

Re:Legally, how?

[Bluecobra]

If the policy is the same as Amazon's MP3 store, you are paying for the "license" to read a book and therefore you don't own the book. Likewise, I don't own any of my MP3's from Amazon--I just have a license to listen to it. And I'm sure Amazon holds the right to terminate a license anytime for any reason. It's just now they have the technical ability to do this on every Kindle device out there.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

You bought and paid for something.

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
The word you are looking for is LICENSED.

Though Amazon's terms of use are kind of ambiguous (suprised?)

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.

Re:Legally, how?

[lymond01]

The relevant part:

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.

They contradict themselves with the use of "permanent copy" and "will be deemed licensed to you". If you read that last line, it doesn't even make sense. "It will be deemed licensed to you unless otherwise provided by Amazon"? That's poor grammar at best. I think what they mean to say is, "You get the license unless we take it back," but that's not what they've written.

Regardless, whether to force someone to sell you something is legal under their "terms of service", it's bad business. As this story grows, I can see e-bay piling up with Kindles.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

"All sales are final" makes me think that they couldn't do this. If the sale is final, then how can the negate it!?

Re:Legally, how?

[RichardJenkins]

Well I've never read the fine print on a kindle....then again I doubt many Kindle owners have either.

Re:Legally, how?

[StikyPad]

Except it's NOT in the license. Quoted here in case it mysteriously changes:

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.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530&#content

Re:Legally, how?

[lucif3r]

As this story grows, I can see e-bay piling up with Kindles.

I think you greatly overestimate the overlap between 1984 fans and Kindle users. Most (if not all) people unaffected will ignore this in a "...and then they came for me" type of ignorance.

Re:Legally, how?

[nicolas.kassis]

so? it's bad ethically. My wife, non techie, now doesn't like the kindle after I told her this. It's bad publicity for them. She loves the Sony reader I bought, she's got tons of book from the Gutenberg project (and now google is helping make it easier for her through the sony ebook store).

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

"All sales are final" wouldn't exactly fly in court when this whole issue is about that Kindle sales quite obviously aren't.

Re:Legally, how?

[StikyPad]

I think the last sentence means that all content falls under that license unless a specific title expressly says otherwise.

Re:Legally, how?

[TaggartAleslayer]

I can't stress this enough to friends, coworkers, online buddies, and everyone I meet in airports toting Kindles.

When you download a book from Amazon on the Kindle, you are not purchasing the contents of the book. You are purchasing a license that allows you to view the contents of that book. Those contents may change due to online interaction, to put it in gamer terms for the local crowd here.

Does this put me off the Kindle? No. I think they are extremely nifty. Would I be pissed were I halfway through Animal Farm when it got yanked? Yes. Quite.

This is a Brave New World, friends. How we react is what defines the future of the medium. Marches? Protests? Griping on a message board? Refusing to purchase it? Calling your Senator? All very valid responses.

I do wonder how many Kindle owners will throw them away after reading this. I also wonder how many of the loudest voices here in this forum actually own a Kindle and will cast it aside due to this startling turn of events...

My guess is that nothing changed today, and nothing will.

People speak loudest when they are least willing to act. Welcome to the farm.

Re:Legally, how?

[Tony Hoyle]

Not always. In the UK they recalled perfectly working Pace Satellite boxes (only think wrong was there was a nonzero chance of the cables getting trapped, so they needed cable ties adding) and replaced them with secondhand Thomsons (3 year old plus) with dodgy power supplies, or if you were *really* lucky Amstrads that were, well, Amstrad.

Smart people told Sky to F Off and kept their nice boxes.

Re:Legally, how?

[mysidia]

However, they don't want the refund, they want the product, which they already purchased.

It may actually be worth more to them then the cash they are offered as a refund.

For one thing... since it's not for sale anymore, one can't say the "amount of the refund" is the market value of the digital asset.

Re:Legally, how?

[LordVader717]

Not everything in the "license" needs to be legal. Sale of goods is strictly regulated by law, and although we don't yet have specific legislation for digital downloads, this practice seems to cross the boarder.

Re:Legally, how?

[mysidia]

I can assure you, that anyone I know who talks about or asks about buying a kindle, will learn of this issue, about how Amazon sometimes steals your books after you bought them.

And it will be a credible statement, as I will have links to point them to, including this article.

If the news spreads far enough, Amazon loses a lot of people who would otherwise be potential kindle product buyers.

Re:Legally, how?

[Ioldanach]

Not a contradiction at all, it is deemed licensed to you as opposed to somebody else. That part means the license is non-transferrable. Looks to me like they violated their own license.

Re:Legally, how?

[StikyPad]

Well if nothing else, they've potentially devalued your first edition Kindle, as it has one less book on it. That said, kindles are retarded. And I say that mainly because there are no google search results for "kindles are retarded" as of yet, despite the fact that they are highly retarded. At least the business model is. Digital copies should cost pennies -- certainly no more than $2 ea. -- and they should be included at no cost with the purchase of a physical book, especially in light of the fact that things like this can happen, intentionally or otherwise.

Re:Legally, how?

[bertoelcon]

It's written like that to give major leeway into its interpretation. Basically they have created an indefinite loophole for allowing anything they damn well please.

Re:Legally, how?

[SomeJoel]

Stop calling them toys -- they're my friends!

Well played.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I think they should be banned from using the word sale; indefinite rental is more accurate.

Actually I prefer 'sale'. This means what they did was theft (refund or not is irrelevant)

While I would prefer a copyright violation so i could get $150k for each book stolen, I'll settle for the standard 9 days in jail sentence that petty theft gets.

Re:Legally, how?

[DJRumpy]

Actually I think they can revoke a players right to play a blu-ray disk by revoking the decryption keys, in effect making the movie useless if they revoked the keys that a player uses. Eventually a player would stop functioning all together for any new disks, making it essentially useless.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/tech/news/article_1289226.php/AACS_revokes_released_HD-DVD_and_Blu-ray_keys

Re:Legally, how?

[frosty_tsm]

Cylon lover...

Re:Legally, how?

[William Ager]

No. When I buy something on my Kindle, I am buying a "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". That is what they gave me. The device is my property, and while the copy does not belong to me under certain definitions of ownership, I have a licence to use it in perpetuity. As far as I can tell from a cursory glance, what they did here is not permitted by their own licence.

Re:Legally, how?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

Well, heck, if one song is worth $80,000 if distributed without proper licensing, then Amazon should owe each person well in excess of that as market value of the book they deleted from the Kindle.

Re:Legally, how?

[squiggleslash]

Well, I can think of one set of circumstances where they could, conceivably, demand back that first edition and compel you to cooperate: if the first edition was stolen.

And, if I understand the story here correctly, that's not far off what's happened. Amazon "sold" digital copies of a book it didn't have a license to make those copies of. Thus the copies that were deposited on people's Kindles were there in violation of copyright law.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is called THEFT... call the police or at least contact the EFF for some class action. Maybe even conspiracy to steal!

Re:Legally, how?

[fishbowl]

>However, they don't want the refund, they want the product, which they already purchased.

You can probably use that argument obstinately enough to make yourself an accessory to Amazon's copyright infringement, if that's what you want.

Re:Legally, how?

[Hadlock]

As this story grows, I can see e-bay piling up with Kindles.

Hard to sell items deemed to have no value. I guess you could still use it as a PDF viewer, but who's to say Amazon will decide that's against your EULA at some later point and do daily wipes of your PDF folder? I guess you could manually disable the antenna with some wire cutters, or convert it into a Very Expensive SD Reader. I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in this turn of events.

I was looking (rather seriously looking) at using my bonus to get one of these (to read the newspaper, mostly) but my wallet is staying shut until Amazon resolves this in an appropriate manner. Not in moral opposition to what they did to others, but because the idea that Amazon can selectively delete stuff off MY $500 device without my permission just infuriates me to no end.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Changing topics a tad - To me, this superficially resembles the threat of eminent domain that we landowners face in the US. The consumer paid for something, and another entity is legally entitled to force the consumer to sell it back.

I guess, then, that what is at the heart of the issue is what you actually purchased from Amazon.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, App Store apps do indeed cower in fear of the Apple Killswitch. Also, didn't that HDCP key prompt people to have that remotely reprogrammable in players?

Re:Legally, how?

[Ilgaz]

Doesn't accepting an EULA to read a book sound strange to you too?

Imagine Vatican had capability to remotely burn or change content of books back in medieval ages. :)

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

(a) That is not the same as revoking the ability of all players to play a specific blu-ray movie.

(b) It is not at all comparable. Even if you buy a blu-ray player and a bunch of movies, and your blu-ray player's decryption key is revoked, you can still use said player to watch all of the movies released before your player's key was revoked. In other words, you can't have something you already purchased taken away from you as has happened in this article.

I'm not saying I'm a fan of blu-ray's security measures, but comparing them to a brand of DRM which can actively take away content you have purchased with no warning and no possibility for intervention is simply absurd.

Re:Legally, how?

[Ilgaz]

If people including you suggest a device made by Sony on Slashdot instead of Amazon's DRM scheme, Bezos should think about it.

BTW I consider a Sony too in case they woke up and decided to support OS X in some way. At least it is an internationally supported device without always on network scheme.

Re:Legally, how?

[DinDaddy]

Yes please. The blond one.

Re:Legally, how?

[Culture20]

SUE SUE SUE!

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't the Kindle use Linux? And I believe a lot of the required source code has been released. Couldn't someone put together a truly open system to run on the Kindle?

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've seen what Amazon can do. Posting text from the license here won't stop them. Your post will disappear, mark my words.

P.S. I first released Amazon can yank a book from the Kindle a while ago - I purchased a book and downloaded it directly on the Kindle, then shut the wireless off to conserve battery life. Unbeknownst to me, my CC on my Amazon account had expired. I was 1/3rd of the way through the book next time I turned the wireless on, and bam, they yanked it back within seconds of connecting!

Re:Legally, how?

[wvmarle]

In case the terms of service are against the law, they can be invalidated. Or at least the part that is against the law. Often a ToS/contract will contain a line like if a part is deemed invalid under applicable law, the rest of the agreement will remain standing.

So even stating in the sales contract that they sell you something but may take it back later at their own discretion doesn't mean that it is legal to do so, no matter whether they pay a refund or not.

Now reading the quoted part of your message they say they give you a permanent copy of the book, with some restrictions on how to view it. It does seem now that they are breaking their own sales contract. Messy, no matter what. Pulling back the book is certainly bad for their image, though I do give them credit for refunding their customers. That makes it less bad at least.

Re:Legally, how?

[dissy]

Regardless, whether to force someone to sell you something is legal under their "terms of service", it's bad business. As this story grows, I can see e-bay piling up with Kindles.

It sounds to me more illegal than just bad business.
Or I don't know, maybe it is OK to do...

Does that mean if I steal Jeff Bezos car, it isn't theft as long as I leave a pile of money in its place equal to what he paid for it?

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amendment. Amazon reserves the right to amend any of the terms of this Agreement at its sole discretion by posting the revised terms on the Kindle Store or the Amazon.com website. Your continued use of the Device and Software after the effective date of any such amendment shall be deemed your agreement to be bound by such amendment.

It is a bit like all the 'privacy policies' - we promise to respect your privacy until we decide not to.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You bought and paid for something. Electronic or not, how do they have the right to take it away from you?"

you bought and paid for a *license* to the text. That license includes the ability for the owner of the original work to revoke said license.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

indefinite rental is more accurate.

Define "indefinite"

Re:Legally, how?

[nicolas.kassis]

It functions as a usb disk on OSX and Linux. The only disadvatage is you don't get the pretty interface. I can at least put personal files on this device, unlike the kindle (originally)

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many states have 'RENTAL' Tax on top of state tax, sales tax or gst.
Clearly this is TAX EVASION and the heavies should be called in to collect a proportion of all pre-esisting sales.
In CA, 10% of all kindle sales would probably help out bankrupt state. Plus penalties and fines etc.

Re:Legally, how?

[AK Marc]

As far as I can tell from a cursory glance, what they did here is not permitted by their own licence.

Yes. They broke the law and their own license. However, they refunded the entire amount of the "harm" done by their actions, so there is no cause to sue and they are immune to any legal action because of their illegal action. Ain't the law grand?

Re:Legally, how?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."

Try as i may there's only one way I can successfully parse that sentence:
"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless [said content is] otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."

The content is certainly expressly provided by Amazon. Whether the qualifier "otherwise" applies or not is anybody's guess. They might well have been trying to say "unless [some other condition is] expressly provided by Amazon" but they don't say that; and the sentence is surely ambiguous enough for such meaning not to be taken as read.
IAABAL (...anything but a...), but I imagine that when it comes to enforcing a contract, if a sentence is complete gibberish it is simply ignored.

Re:Legally, how?

[dkf]

This happens all the time (the Major Leage Baseball deletions, Microsoft's older DRM, etc). The difference here is that Amazon was generous enough to refund the price; usually the company just keeps it because "all sales are final".

Personally I think they should be banned from using the word sale; indefinite rental is more accurate.

Either it's a sale or it's a rental. The law doesn't recognize anything else (or at least nothing else that's remotely relevant given that a consideration is changing hands). Given that Amazon are retrospectively trying to change what the contract terms are under which they offered the works, it is exactly right that at the same time they compensate those materially affected. Without that, they'd have been inviting a lawsuit (and no, I don't think that a click-through "binding" boilerplate would have got them off the hook given the overwhelming disparity in power of the parties to the contract).

Re:Legally, how?

[sjames]

No matter, they still violated the agreement. Obviously, the copy of 1984 was not permanent. Licensed or not, they just revoked it without consent. They didn't even have the decency to ask if you were done reading it yet.

As this story grows, I can see e-bay piling up with Kindles.

Unless there's a hack to install Linux on them, they probably won't sell very well.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."

It's not remotely poor grammar. You missed out the word "expressly" and took away the meaning. All it says is "Everything we provide is merely licensed unless you have something us explicitly agreeing that it's provided on other terms".

Re:Legally, how?

[Ilgaz]

I actually need DRM content from Sony. Buying books for 20 dollars and giving 30 dollars to DHL for safe shipping to this place is really absurd. I hate piracy too so, I could end up buying a Windows for Virtual Machine and buy books from Sony.

It is amazing that Sony and others miss the fact that iTunes Music store actually took off on OS X/Mac. Mac users were the ones who paid for legitimate content enough to keep iTunes/iPod afloat in first years.

Re:Legally, how?

[Brandee07]

A) The wireless access has to be turned on by you before they can do anything. It is NOT always online.

B) This is a case of selling content they didn't have a licence to sell. This "recall" of sorts was legally covering their ass, since they were selling a pirated copy of the book.

Re:Legally, how?

[LuYu]

I totally agree. Purchasing one physical copy of the book should allow the purchaser to have the same book in any or all desired digital formats for free (as in beer), and books purchased in only digital formats should be cheaper because they contain no expensive physical materials and cost practically nothing to produce.

[redherring]
What are publishers but printers, anyway? If they do not print things, what are they doing? Editing? I have recently read that Kindle books have similar error rates to Project Gutenberg texts. If this is true, what is Amazon doing to earn more than a dollar per book? [/redherring]

Re:Legally, how?

[LuYu]

Thus the copies that were deposited on people's Kindles were there in violation of copyright law.

But the copies were not "stolen", and therefore, no one was deprived of anything. Amazon deleting purchased books from people's devices without their permission is more practically theft.

Re:Legally, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just like a DVD. What are you paying $20 for?

You are paying $20 for a copy of someone's content. Copyright is quite simply the right to control the creation of copies. If you break your copy, you're screwed. And if you make a further copy, you are violating copyright.

Yes, if the average consumer stopped to think about it, they are not getting as good a deal as they'd expect. But they do not stop to think about it, so $20 is what the market will bear.

Re:Legally, how?

[bhiestand]

A) The wireless access has to be turned on by you before they can do anything. It is NOT always online.

B) This is a case of selling content they didn't have a licence to sell. This "recall" of sorts was legally covering their ass, since they were selling a pirated copy of the book.

This "recall" of sorts was indeed an attempt to cover their asses, but I don't see any language in the EULA to allow for it nor have I ever heard of any case law or precedent that would allow for a post-sale, non-optional reneg on the sale where the product was involuntary "stolen" by the seller and refunded.

If somebody infringed on the copyright, that is "their bad". That doesn't given them the right (or legal justification) to repossess the property. Additionally, repossessing or destroying the copies does not negate their liability for the infringement. Somebody still infringed the copyright, and may still be liable for that, regardless of Amazon's actions to destroy those copies.

And yes, I understand this isn't a physical property sale but a granting of a permanent license to use a product. I'd be amazed if a court didn't treat it the same way, though.

The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Snaller]

How can there still be a copyright on this?

No wait - politicans of course.

But more to the point SHOULD there be a copyright on something from that long ago?

And if someone says it is public domain, how can they not only sell it but also deny people right to use it?

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[darkmeridian]

In the US, you can thank Disney for copyrights being extended to death of author plus seventy years. Orwell died in 1950. For corporate authorship, it is 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[bitrex]

In the case of music copyrights, one can also thank the Gershwin estate among others for lobbying on behalf of copyright extension - Gershwin's music is big business and the copyright holders would like to make sure that American Airlines (as one past example) would have to keep paying large sums of money for the rights to use "An American in Paris" for as long as possible.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Threni]

What, this?:

http://www.george-orwellrg/1984/index.html

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[RichardJenkins]

At most, copyright should last for until original authors death + ZERO years. For commissioned work where the creator was never the rights holder, it should last for average life expectancy minus the average age of a country's workforce - retested regularly (though not frequently). Anything else is ridiculous.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Threni]

Uh... I meant this:

http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/index.html

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Minwee]

In the USA Copyright lengths are very simple. Anything older than Mickey Mouse is public domain and everything else is still copyrighted.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[N!k0N]

good deal... it's available FREE online, and yet ppl are still getting raped by corporate America... too bad it's not in PDF format though

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Chabo]

I think that's going a bit too far the other way. What about works that are released after the author's death, for instance? I think the estate (in most cases, read: family) should be able to benefit from the proceeds of a work for at least 5 or 10 years after the creator's death, or after the date of release, whichever comes later.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright will cause the author to create more new works! He'll rise from the dead and type up a new novel.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

no, I think a fixed length from creation or publication would be fair enough. You do _NOT_ want a situation where the way someone can get immediate legal access to a work is for that artist to have an "accident".

Anything else is ridiculous.

Actually, your proposal is ridiculous, it's needlessly complicated.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[rudy_wayne]

What about works that are released after the author's death, for instance? I think the estate (in most cases, read: family) should be able to benefit from the proceeds of a work for at least 5 or 10 years after the creator's death

Why does an author need copyright protecttion after he's dead? For the benefit of his family? Sorry, I don't remember seeing anything that says copyright is supposed to be a welfare system for author's families.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Kaboom13]

That's not true. Legends and myths hundreds of years older then Mickey Mouse are also copyrighted, if Disney made an animated movie based on them. Try making a movie about Beauty and the Beast, or Cinderella, and see how long before Disney's lawyers start knocking.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on the age of the maker. Why should someones family benefit from something a guy makes when he is 20 dies at 80 but then tack on another 5-10 years? The family already got its benefit by the original maker being paid exclusively for the time he was alive and kicking.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[maxfresh]

That would be going way too far the other way, for a couple of reasons.

First, it would deprive the author's heirs of their rightful claim to the income generated from the late author's work. As a society, we don't say that a person's physical property becomes "public property" as soon as they die, so why should their financial interest in intangible property end when they die? I think that the rights of the author need to be respected, and balanced against the rights of the public.

Second, it would give unscrupulous parties the incentive to kill a person who holds a copyright in a commercially valuable work, so that they could get their hands on his or her work, and profit from it for free.

One possible solution to balance the various interests could be to grant individual members of the public an automatic royalty free license to make copies of a deceased author's works for personal, non-commercial use, within a short period after the author's death, maybe 15 years, while maintaining the full death+75 year copyright for commercial use, copying, or making derivative works.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[hondo77]

Wow. It's really amazing how you know absolutely nothing of what you're writing about.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[blueg3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella#Adaptations

Who's been sued by Disney?

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[shaymon]

They may have used "An American in Paris" once or twice, but their use of "Rhapsody in Blue" was much more widespread. It was, I believe, their official theme song for some time.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Shikaku]

Copy, Paste in Openoffice, save as PDF. Is that really so hard?

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Copy, Paste in Openoffice, save as PDF. Is that really so hard?

You must be new here.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[DinDaddy]

Unfortunately, your post will probably be factually correct without any changes for the next 100 years.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Fizzol]

Thanks to the Sonny Bono's "Public Domain Theft Act", aka. "Keep Mickey From Falling Into the Public Domain Act."

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[SpecBear]

Try searching IMDB for "Beauty and the Beast" or "Cinderella", and see how effective these hypothetical lawyers have been.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why copyright law will always be so mickey mouse.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[bitrex]

You're right, "Rhapsody in Blue" was the song I was thinking of.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[NormalVisual]

Go fuck yourself sideways. Copyright (in the US anyway) exists for ONE reason - to enrich society by giving authors an incentive to create by means of giving them a means to profit from their work via an artificial monopoly. Once the author is dead, he can't create, and that social contract becomes null and void. Copyright is a fucking GIFT from the government, not some inherent right people have just because they committed something to paper. The ultimate aim of copyright is NOT to enrich the author's family that often has a pronounced entitlement mentality - let them go create their own works instead of riding on Daddy's coattails.

It's pretty rich calling someone else "freeloading" when that's EXACTLY what the author's family is doing in your example.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[iphinome]

So the author isn't mirdered in order to avoid having to pay him or her royalties

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[blivit42]

I thought that was United Airlines using "Rhapsody in Blue" in their commercials.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[AK Marc]

As a society, we don't say that a person's physical property becomes "public property" as soon as they die, so why should their financial interest in intangible property end when they die?

Because the intangible property is granted by the government for one reason only, to encourage more creation. And if someone is dead, they can't create. So it is not an incentive to create if you are dead. Extending the copyright past the death of the author is unconstitutional.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[jez9999]

First, it would deprive the author's heirs of their rightful claim to the income generated from the late author's work.

I strongly disagree with your use of the word 'rightful'. Copyright should only be able to be held as long as the author is alive, and either by the author, or by someone the author transfers it to.

As a society, we don't say that a person's physical property becomes "public property" as soon as they die, so why should their financial interest in intangible property end when they die?

Because a financial interest in intangible property is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from physical property. It's not inherently held by anybody, once it is 'out there' and copyable; its distribution being very much artificially restricted by government as it is, and I see absolutely no inherent reason to consider it to be like physical property.

I could just as easily say that a house a builder builds no longer belongs to him once he's sold it. Why doesn't he and his family get to keep profiting from it for years and years? Because it's a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT thing from the physical property he owns, so stop drawing silly analogies.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[jc42]

Why does an author need copyright protecttion after he's dead?

Perhaps to delay the author's death?

For example, there are probably a number of publishers and movie studios who would consider the price of a hit man just a minor business expense, if the death of J.K.Rowling would put all the Harry Potter stories in the Public Domain.

(If you think this is facetious or a troll, do a bit of reading on how the "free market" in non-Soviet Russian has worked for the past couple of decades. Businessmen there routinely surround themselves with bodyguards when out in public.)

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[bornagainpenguin]

you can thank Disney for copyrights being extended

Fuck Disney.

--bornagainpenguin

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[the pickle]

Uh, no, that would be United, not American.

I miss those ads, though. Those ads were great. When's the last time you saw an airline ad that wasn't for Southwest?

p

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[maxfresh]

I strongly disagree that my analogy is silly. Your analogy, regarding a builder who *sells* the house he builds, does not address the case that I was discussing. Your analogy corresponds to an author who sells the copyright to his work. The present law fully recognizes the right of an author to sell his copyright, at his discretion, at which time his interest in the work will end, and pass to the new owner. But that is not the case that I was addressing. I was commenting on the case of an author who does not sell his copyright.

So, let's take your analogy of a house builder, and apply it to the situation that I was addressing.

Let's take the case of a house builder who works very hard, and builds a strong house of solid stone. The builder spends years designing the house, and lifting the stones and carefully putting them in position. And when he is done, he decides *NOT* to sell his creation. Instead, he decides to live in it, and raise his family in it, maybe he even decides to rent it out to summer tourists. Whatever he does, it is his house, and his to keep and enjoy, for as long as he lives. When he eventually dies, that house that he built will pass to his heirs, and rightfully so, because who has a stronger claim to the fruits of the builder's labor, his heirs, or the general public? So his heirs will rightfully inherit the house, and then they will be able to live in it and enjoy it, or rent it out, or whatever they see fit to do with it, but that house, that the builder created by the sweat of his brow, will most certainly not become public property.

I think that this is a much better analogy for the facts on the table.

But you will notice immediately, that as a society, we already treat the author more poorly than the builder, because we say that the author's creation enters the public domain after only 75 years following his death, in contrast with the creation of the builder, which can remain in his family in perpetuity. So we already discriminate, and terminate copyright after the passage of an arbitrary amount of time. I don't think that we need to treat authors any worse than we already do now. We already afford less protection for the product of intellectual effort, than for the product of physical effort. I don't think that the public should be eroding author's rights even more.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Big Bill the Conjure]

It was United, not AA

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[popo]

Mod Parent up ... to 11.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything older than Mickey Mouse is public domain

Not true! The tune to "Happy Birthday" comes from the 19th century (published in 1893), but that is still copyrighted in the USA (and elsewhere). According to wikipedia the lyrics were in print in 1912, but were claimed by a corporation some decades later and Warner Music Group claims the royalties until 2030.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Your statement, "solution to balance the various interests", is in itself flawed. There are no intrinsic rights to IP, merely a social experiment that hopes that by giving away some of our Public Rights, the Public will be purchasing something of equal or greater value. Only insofar as the public benefits does any "balance" come in to play.

Does (Public - some of their Rights) => (content authors + Public Rights ) result in more benefit to the public? If so, the purchase was a bargain. If not, the experiment needs to be revoked or reformulated.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Boogaroo]

It's United Airlines and "Rhapsody in Blue." :P

(Don't mind me, I have a CD with that piece within reach...)

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Perky_Goth]

True, but people in the west actually go to jail when they kill someone. We all know the MAFIAA is evil, but that's a bit much.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Asic Eng]

I don't think that's a good argument. If I die I still want my family to be provided for. I imagine authors want the same. Why should the family of author A receive income from author A's works, just because he wrote it at 20 and lived to be 90 - while author B's family doesn't get shit because he wrote it at 55 and died of cancer at 56? Theoretically author B might want to publish another book - knowing he is likely to die - precisely because he'd like to provide for his 5 underage children.

Someone like Terry Pratchett might want to write a book and leave the rights to some Alzheimer research fund. (Don't know if that applies to him, but it could be a motivation for some writers.)

70 years after the author's death is completely unreasonable, but 28 years after publication is fair - no matter if the author dies or not.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Chabo]

70 years after the author's death is completely unreasonable, but 28 years after publication is fair - no matter if the author dies or not.

I don't know about you, but if I wrote a book, I'd want to be dead before someone does something that makes me spin in my grave. ;)

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[Asic Eng]

Maybe I would too, but a fair exchange between the creator and his audience does not mean that the creator gets whatever he wants.

Re:The author has been dead for 60 years!

[bitrex]

It's hard to be wrong twice in the same post, but somehow I manage :)

Class Action Lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, oh, please, Kindle owners sue! This would make for an interesting case. If the property in question were concrete like a lawn mower that I purchased at Home Depot, HD decides they want it back so they pull it from my back yard but credit my account isn't that still theft? I'm dying to see what is made of this.

I can see Amazon no longer allowing it to be purchased for download but actively pulling content that has already been purchased and downloaded sounds criminal.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[brusk]

If the property in question were concrete like a lawn mower that I purchased at Home Depot, HD decides they want it back so they pull it from my back yard but credit my account isn't that still theft?

In this case it seems that Amazon didn't actually have the rights they needed to sell it to you in the first place. A better analogy would be if you bought a used car, then the dealership came back to you and said, "it turns out the car we sold you was stolen, and we had no right to sell it to you in the first place. Here's your money back." Yeah, that would suck, but I don't see any alternative (under the current legal regime).

If Amazon sold the product without having had the rights to it in the first place, and they don't recall it in this way, they're liable to be sued by the copyright owners. It's not (apparently) a matter of them arbitrarily deciding that the value had gone up and changing their minds.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[Aladrin]

I think it's important to note that in your analogy, the alternative to giving back the money for the stolen car is to just take the car and not give you the money. That could actually happen.

In this case, could that happen as well? Yes, I think it could.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[whoever57]

Please, oh, please, Kindle owners sue!

Disclaimer: IANAL.
Reading the license agreement, it looks like Amazon has no right to do this, which implies that buyers should be compensated for the loss of their purchase -- the question is, what is compensation? A refund? Or replacement (hardcopy)?
The biggest problem, though is that the license agreement specifies arbitration for any disputes (unless Amazon decides otherwise).

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[Chyeld]

As mentioned in a few comments prior to yours, it really depends on if Amazon had the right to 'grant' you anything. If somehow they illegitimately sold you the book, then it doesn't matter what the EULA says.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[The MAZZTer]

Your analogy falls apart shortly after you ended it. With the car, there's a real person who had his car stolen who wants it back, so you have to give it back. Digital material can be replicated infinitely for almost no cost, and "returning" it removes it from existence entirely. A better analogy would be "Sorry, Ford gave us these cars by accident and we weren't supposed to sell them; they want them back." Can they really force you to give it back?

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[mysidia]

I think a more accurate analogy would be for the dealership to come back and tell you "It turns out, that the car we sold you, contains an engine in violation of Patent #X,XXX,XXX"

Since we sold you that car, our company would be liable for patent infringement, so we have to forcefully take it back.

The key here is the book isn't stolen. It was legitimately purchased from Amazon, a good that they produced.

Imagine if it was a printed book, and it turns out the publisher who ran that print wasn't authorized to do so...

In terms of real world objects, there's no case where the manufacturer or bookseller can take the book you bought from you against your will, just to ease their own liability.

Stolen physical property is an exceptional situation, and doesn't occur due to 'copyright infringement'; the buyer has the right to keep what they bought legitimately, and has no duty to return the infringing work.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[brusk]

In that case I think what would happen is that the rightful owner of the car could take back his/her vehicle, and you could turn around and sue the dealer who wrongly sold it to you. You'd have a pretty good case, too.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[jra]

Well, that's pretty much Amazon's problem, now isn't it.

Look up First Sale Doctrine, but more importantly, Holder In Due Course. If you had no reason to believe the transaction was encumbered, then you're not liable for anything the seller did.

And a Reasonable Man wouldn't expect bad behaviour from Amazon...

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[brusk]

No, maybe Ford couldn't force you to give the car back, but they might be able to sue you for having an unauthorized car. Specifically, if it was a knockoff car, with a Ford label but not authorized by Ford, you would be violating their trademarks and patents (this actually does happen in China: joint venture factories produce "extras" of products they make--including things like motorcycles--for foreign companies and sell them on the domestic market).

So in this case, what I suspect could theoretically happen if Amazon didn't carry out this recall is that whoever owns the rights to these books could sue everyone who had an illegitimate copy on their Kindle for a copyright violation.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[brusk]

But the copyright owner could sue you for having the illegitimate copy, even if you purchased it in good faith.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine, if you will, if every single person annoyed by such actions were to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

If Amazon.com wanted to do good on this travesty, they'd not only credit people's accounts, but give them a gift certificate for the trouble they have suffered.

But, Amazon.com being in Washington state, one idea might be to contact the state attorney general, since this seems wrong on some many levels.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If you had no reason to believe the transaction was encumbered, then you're not liable for anything the seller did.

If you had no reason to believe the goods were stolen, you won't wind up in jail either, but you'll still have to give the goods back. The legitimate holder's rights come first. This principle is particularly important when it comes to copyright, because otherwise a single infringing copier could effectively negate an entire copyright, while not having anything close to the resources to fairly compensate the legitimate copyright holder for the resulting damage.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[fajoli]

Under what legal theory?

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[brusk]

IANAL, but it seems straightforward. By ordering a copy from Amazon, the Kindle user made a copy. That copying infringed the copyright.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[mysidia]

Buying a book from a retailer like Amazon is a legal means to obtain a copy of a work. Amazon actually made the copy. The Kindle user received access to a copy from Amazon, after ordering the book.

In other words, the buyer legally possesses a copy, even if Amazon exceeded the permissions granted to them or had no authorization to make that copy: in which case Amazon would have violated the rightholder's exclusive rights.

But the buyer didn't conduct any infringement.

Unless the buyer distributed it further,they at most made additional copies for personal use after receiving from Amazon.

There's an affirmative defense for that: Fair Use.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's important to note that in your analogy, the alternative to giving back the money for the stolen car is to just take the car and not give you the money. That could actually happen.

Well no. You can't sell a stolen product, and get away with it when it is taken back by the original owner. I'm pretty sure you will have to reimburse the objet, you may owe an additionnal compensation, you will be investigated/face jail for the act of selling a stolen product and for being possibly complicit.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[spyowl]

A better analogy would be if you bought a used car, then the dealership came back to you and said, "it turns out the car we sold you was stolen, and we had no right to sell it to you in the first place. Here's your money back." Yeah, that would suck, but I don't see any alternative (under the current legal regime).

Under UCC, which almost all (or all?) states have adopted, you can keep the car as long as you conducted the transaction in "good faith" - for example, you had no knowledge or couldn't have possibly known the merchandise was stolen.

Relevant quote from Article 2, 2-403

A person with voidable title has power to transfer a good title to a good faith purchaser for value.

Read that link for more legalese if you wish.

Come on, do I get some love for quoting the law?

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[whoever57]

As mentioned in a few comments prior to yours, it really depends on if Amazon had the right to 'grant' you anything. If somehow they illegitimately sold you the book, then it doesn't matter what the EULA says.

I don't think it is so simple. My point is that Amazon sold people the book. People bought it in good faith and now they don't have the book any more. They are clearly owed compensation -- so the question is: "is a refund sufficient compensation"? The fact that Amazon did not have the rights to sell the book in the first place doesn't alter the buyers' expectation of compensation.

Even taking your own argument -- the EULA for the most part limits the buyers' rights, not Amazon's. Without the EULA, any buyer has a copy of the ebook with the same rights as a physical copy -- deleting it could be viewed as theft by Amazon.

If the EULA doesn't apply any more, then, presumably the arbitration clause doesn't apply also. I suspect that Amazon would prefer to keep the arbitration clause in play!

It appears that the source of the problem is someone other than Amazon, so Amazon may have to sue that person for its losses.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I thought the copyright owner could only sue you if you tried to distribute the work? What right does copyright give you in terms, not of distribution, but the act of "having"?

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

What becomes interesting, however, is if I purchase the work legally, in a country where copyright has expired on the work. The distribution was totally legal in that case. I have the book. What is the status of that book if I return to my native country, where copyright hasn't expired yet? I obviously couldn't distribute the book there, I'd have to return to where I purchased it (or other location where no copyright infringement would take place) in order to distribute the work. But can I put it on my bookshelf? Does it matter if the bookshelf is in the living room? Or does it need to go on a bookshelf in a locked room? This is to me the crucial question.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[brusk]

The original contract under which the user received the copy may be null and void, if Amazon had no right to sell it in the first place.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[WizADSL]

What if Amazon had sold a paper book that turned out to have been printed illegally, could they compel you to return the book if they had already sold it to you? If I had to guess, I'd still have my book.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's more like you bought a used toaster from Goodwill, they found out it was stolen, so they wandered into your house (without permission), took the toaster and left you the 5 bucks you paid for it.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[bhiestand]

You're confusing trademark and copyright law. There's a ton of law around trademarks, and in many places customs agents can confiscate personal property that is obviously counterfeit.

Copyright wouldn't really apply the same way. In copyright infringement, the person infringing on the copyright is immediately liable/guilty, and the intermediaries may be liable/guilty if they should have known they were trafficking in pirated goods. Occasionally, in some jurisdictions, the recipient of the copied goods may be liable if they know they're engaging in illicit activity.

In this case, a reasonable person would have expected the copy to be legally produced (Amazon is an enormous, widely known bookseller and they have contracts with most publishers). If this was a physical product, they could not be compelled to return or exchange it by the party who sold it to them.

There are a lot of implications here, throughout copyright and contract law, but what it boils down to is that Amazon possibly infringed somebody's copyright, probably because they had a contract with someone else that told them they could sell/license copies. If that contract was wrong, there should be a legal dispute between Amazon, the other party, and the party that holds the copyrights.

In no way does this make the recipient liable for anything, unless the Kindle user goes about making additional copies that were outside of his contract with Amazon.

TL;DR: This could get interesting, but in no way, shape, or form does current law imply any responsibility on the part of Kindle owners.*

*Unless it does. If it does, I'll emigrate from the US.

Re:Class Action Lawsuit?

[bhiestand]

Well, that's pretty much Amazon's problem, now isn't it.

Look up First Sale Doctrine, but more importantly, Holder In Due Course. If you had no reason to believe the transaction was encumbered, then you're not liable for anything the seller did.

And a Reasonable Man wouldn't expect bad behaviour from Amazon...

Sadly, no mod points to mod this up. It's a shame how few people are familiar with some of the basic principles...

Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free?

[basementman]

Who would buy a book from a publisher and sales person who think it's okay to sell you DRM crap and then take it away on a whim when you can get those exact same books legally, and for free?

Animal Farm: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011.txt

1984: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

What it says is

[microbee]

Your data is not safe with us -- Kindle.

Imagine Bush were going to read the novel from his Kindle at an elementary school..I wonder what his facial reaction would be when he couldn't find the book. Must be very confused. :-)

Re:What it says is

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine Bush were going to read the novel from his Kindle at an elementary school

Newsflash for microbee, who, while apparently now having access to the Internet in general, and Slashdot in particular, has managed to miss the fact that the US has had a new President for quite awhile: His name is Barack Obama.

Bush bashing is, like, *so* last year.

If there's anything else that may have happened during your hibernation/jail term in solitary/sojourn with aliens with which we can assist you, please don't hesitate to ask.

HTH. HAND.

Think of the possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the censorship possibilities this presents.

Stick with dead tree editions..

[Dr_Ken]

For stuff you really want to have access to permanently.

Re:Stick with dead tree editions..

[assertation]

Saying that is not enough.

This isn't just about Kindle or a single issue about law. It is going to get to the point where paper books are phased out except on a token basis and people with all sorts of motivations are going to pull shit like this but on a much more serious basis.

Re:Stick with dead tree editions..

[shutdown -p now]

Or download the plain text version from Project Gutenberg, and read it on your Kindle (or anything else, really)...

Re:Stick with dead tree editions..

[weicco]

And it's also a nice way to remove carbon dioxide from the air ;)

MobileReference

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like MobileReference is the publisher. I think they deserve their fair share of the blame for this as well.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Chris Burke]

when you can get those exact same books legally

That's great if you're kicking it in the Outback or somewhere else sane, but here in the States 1984 it is still under copyright (I assume using the simple heuristic that it was created after Steam Boat Willie) and so probably not actually legal.

Not Big Brother.

[goombah99]

Big Amazon.
for those of you old enough to have seen the schlock sci-fi "rollerball" it's central theme was that big brotherism actually is more likely to be durable under corporate control rather than government control. A kind of facism where the role of the state is secondary.

I think it was big oil in rollerball. but it could have been big amazon.

plus the idea of a big Amazon woman is somewhat scarier than a big brother.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[TaggartAleslayer]

Rollerball. One of the best most terrible movies ever. It is right up there with Omega Man and Capricorn One.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[dgatwood]

plus the idea of a big Amazon woman is somewhat scarier than a big brother.

Obligatory Futurama reference: "Death by snoo snoo."

Re:Not Big Brother.

[John Meacham]

Ah. the age old argument. The Future Will Be A Totalitarian Government Dystopia vs. The Future Will Be A Privatized Corporate Dystopia

Re:Not Big Brother.

[sortius_nod]

"A little lower and a lot softer" - Zapp Brannigan

Re:Not Big Brother.

[camperdave]

Give Killer Klowns From Outer Space a watch some time.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Minwee]

I heard a rumour once that there was a remake of Rollerball, but fortunately I was mistaken.

Along with other classic films like The Manchurian Candidate, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Ocean's Eleven, Psycho, The Shining, Death Race 2000 and even the Thunderbirds, I am happy to say that there was never a remake of Rollerball.

La la la la la...

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Stormwatch]

Indeed. I'm also glad that there were no sequels to The Matrix... too much potential to fuck it up entirely.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[dimeglio]

Waitaminute here. If they were that powerful, they could have simply said "screw you" to the publishers. I think you want a more Big Amazon.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[rogerdr]

Do not read the above comment. It has been reviewed by upper party members and found to be subversive lies. The writer will be reeducated. Big Brother loves you!

Re:Not Big Brother.

[VGPowerlord]

Obligatory xkcd link

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Futurama reference: "Death by snoo snoo."

Obligatory Futurama response to the previous refernce: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy, and bruised."

Re:Not Big Brother.

[bill_mcgonigle]

La la la la la...

When I took my daughter to see Iron Man, we got there early and they were playing those stupid slide shows. One was a still from the remake of The Producers and Emma said, "what show is that? that looks funny," and I said to her quietly, "it's The Producers, but if you want to see it that one isn't very good, we'll get the original from Netflix." The guy behind me overheard, and leaned over and said, "oh, my god, you're so right, the original was so much better." There was a mini-cascade of anti-remake sentiment across the theatre.

Fortunately we weren't there for Batman that time.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[SirGeek]

Oh no.. Watch the movie "Naked Space" With Leslie Nielsen, Patrick MacNee, and Cinty Williams.

The highlight of the movie is an alien singing "I'm going to eat your face."

Re:Not Big Brother.

[hairyfeet]

Sadly I think it is because nobody in Hollywood has had an original idea in ages. I mean, with the exception of the Batman reset can you think of any remakes that didn't suck the big wet titty? And now I hear they are remaking the A-Team, now that is just sad.

As for the above poster who said that Rollerball and Omega Man were horrible? Dude, watch the movies while remembering the context. It was the 1970s and just about every movie that wasn't The Godfather (good thing they never made a third one la la la) went a little too ham handed with their metaphors, because that is what the audiences wanted. While I agree they went too heavy with the Jesus references in Omega Man at the end, I have yet to see a movie that captures sheer loneliness like that scene where he picks out the Mustang while talking to the corpse of the used car salesman like he is a customer. And how much more defiant can you get than the end scene of Rollerball, where Johnathan E limps across the burning wreckage of the Arena, stares right into Houseman's face, and puts the winning ball into the goal. That has to rank right up there in all time "fuck you" moments in cinema.

So while I will admit they were a little heavy on the metaphor, dude it was the 70s, that was just the way movies were done then. Just like nearly all 80s flicks tried too hard to be "hip", and we ended up with the movie equivalent of hair metal with half the movies trying to be the next John Hughes flick. It was just the way things were done at the time. I mean we all drove cars the looked like they were covered in paneling, how damned sophisticated do you think we were? Hell everything I owned at the time was wood grained! What did you expect, Hamlet?

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Clock Nova]

There was.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rollerball/

Re:Not Big Brother.

[ikono]

You seemed to have missed the context of the comment. (And no one better dare try to say he were being funny as well. I'm sure wasn't.)

Re:Not Big Brother.

[WinterSolstice]

LOTR.

Seriously - when Ralph Bakshi did that first version in the 70's, it SUCKED.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Kennon]

I think it was big oil in rollerball. but it could have been big amazon. plus the idea of a big Amazon woman is somewhat scarier than a big brother.

Rollerball2 - DEATH BY SNU SNU!!!

Re:Not Big Brother.

[ObitMan]

Is that you Goldberg?

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Dan541]

The fact that it was possible for Amazon to delete the book is a clear flaw in the design of the kindle.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Seriousity]

Nowhere near as bad as The Dollman vs. the Demonic Toys. A one-foot-tall man fighting against demon-possessed toys at a childrens toystore - at one point you can see the hand up the evil puppet. The best part is when he finds a one-foot-tall woman and makes love to her on a slice of bread.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[bogjobber]

Sadly I think it is because nobody in Hollywood has had an original idea in ages. I mean, with the exception of the Batman reset can you think of any remakes that didn't suck the big wet titty?

Many of the greatest movies of all time have been remakes. The Magnificent Seven, The Maltese Falcon, Gone With the Wind, and The Thin Red Line all come to mind but I'm sure there are others. The Thing is one of the greatest horror movies of all time and it's a remake. Most horror and sci-fi movies of any quality are at least "influenced" by older movies, and are usually blatant knockoffs.

Some recent remakes have been pretty good but unspectacular: 3:10 to Yuma, Dawn of the Dead, Ocean's Eleven, Disturbia, The Ring, Sweeney Todd.

And then there are movies based on books. The Godfather, All Quiet on the Western Front, Schindler's List, Wizard of Oz, Psycho, Blade Runner, etc. are all based on novels. Movies like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, or Once Upon a Time in the West are technically original, but are more or less the chopped up and reassembled forms of dozens of different movies.

Basically, Hollywood has always done this, and it's always been a mixed bag. Do I wish they would have put more effort and made something better than My Bloody Valentine 3D or Bewitched? Sure, but it's not like they would make another Citizen Kane with that money instead.

Originality is overrated. Quality movies are quality movies, no matter where the idea comes from.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[hairyfeet]

The problem is all of Hollywood has gone "high concept" where you actually have to describe the movie in one short sentence, like "killer robot from future tries to destroy future world leader"(terminator) or "cop is turned into a cyborg and fights evil corp to regain humanity"(Robocop). Now the movies you listed span the course of several decades and how many total stinkbombs were released in that same period? 10 to 1? 50 to 1?

The point I and many others have taken is that Hollywood, in parts thanks to the few success stories like the Batman reboot (which I would say is more about going back to the original darkness of the source material than just rehashing what has come before) the signal to noise ratio of stinkbombs of "porta party in August at a chili cook-off" proportion to actually watchable cinema has been going down with the sudden infatuation of Hollywood with mining old crap. Bewitched, Dukes of Hazzard, Land of the Lost, and now the A-Team (I pity the fool that watches that movie! I pity tha man!) the stench just keeps getting worse.

At least with an original movie, even if it is a total bomb there is room for original thought, even if it is a lousy thought. These 'remakes" are simply trying to throw lame ass "hipness" onto recycled humor with results so predictable you don't even have to walk into the theater before the stench of fail hits you. What's next? A remake of "The Six Million Dollar Man" with Ben Stiller as Steve Austin? /shudders/

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Stray7Xi]

Ah. the age old argument. The Future Will Be A Totalitarian Government Dystopia vs. The Future Will Be A Privatized Corporate Dystopia

I prefer a third alternative, the Wasteland Scarcity Barbarism Dystopia.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[HiThere]

I think you're referring to "Wizards!". If so, it only sucked if you thought of it as LOTR, which it definitely wasn't, though it was inspired by it, of course.

"Wizards" was a technical tour-de-force, and was excellent animation, at a time when computer animation didn't really exist. (Yeah, it could probably be done a lot better now...probably. But it hasn't been.)

OTOH, this is largely a matter of expectation. "Wizards" had a rather incoherent story-line. Well, so did Fantasia. And that's a more reasonable thing to compare it to...or at least as reasonable a thing. It was the first long animation that didn't come out of Disney.

And, yeah, some reviewers said it was LOTR in animated form. They were wrong. Sorry if that kept you from enjoying it.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[HiThere]

If the Kindle didn't have DRM, I *MIGHT* consider it. But not if it could do this.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Oligonicella]

No. Wizards was an ungodly piece of crap rip off of other artists, but mostly Bode. Necron 99? Dead-ringer ripoff of Bode's Cobalt64 as well as most of the style used. Massive reuse of short clips to feign length and simply bad, bad, bad. Glad you liked it though, I sure didn't.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[WinterSolstice]

No, I was referring to this piece of crap: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077869/

Wizards was totally different.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Minwee]

You have clearly been the victim of an elaborate hoax.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[RaymondKurzweil]

can you think of any remakes that didn't suck the big wet titty?

While I don't expect people to reveal their sexual orientation, how can you expect such an analogy to not be unambiguous?

Re:Not Big Brother.

[bogjobber]

At least with an original movie, even if it is a total bomb there is room for original thought, even if it is a lousy thought.

I disagree with you here. There are plenty of original movies that don't have a single original thought, and many remakes are more creative and interesting than the source material. I find it ironic that you claim the Batman reboot is successful because it goes back to the darkness of the source material, because that source material was itself a reboot. Batman before Frank Miller and Alan Moore in the 80's was not very dark or even "serious" material.

Certainly the history of a movie/comic/whatever series dictates a lot of what can be done with a remake (i.e. the Fantastic Four could never be made into a dark movie) but there is still plenty of room to be creative.

What really matters is if there are talented people involved trying to make a movie interesting and thoughtful. Whether you have an original idea or an existing idea is mostly irrelevant. Year One was as thoroughly mediocre and half-assed as Land of the Lost, so what does it matter that one was based on an old TV show?

Re:Not Big Brother.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, batman WAS very dark before Miller and Moore, just not immediately before them. Look at the ORIGINAL source material, the old detective comics. Batman was VERY dark, batman became camp in the 60's and took 20+ years to even begin to recover. The Batman of the golden age was as dark as the new batman, perhaps more so in many ways. That was what set him apart from the characters he is based on like Doc Savage (comparisons there could take all day).

While we are talking about remake and original ideas, however, other than the "secret identity" part of it, most of batman is stolen from Doc Savage.

The rich boy who fights crime
Gets into the gig because his dad is killed.
All the technological gear (including a utility belt/vest)
Super good fighter, trained to the point of near perfection, but still human with no real super powers.
His subbasement beneath the office building where he keeps his vehicles that no one knows about (batcave)
The special souped up car(s)/plane(s)/copter(s)[or as they are called in Savage, autogyros)
Savage might not wear a mask, but he refuses to tell the press anything about himself, and even misdirects them to keep them from even seeing him half the time
The Police chief who thinks he might be a crook (there were a few of those in Savage over the years) and the reformed police view where they come to respect his ability and even have a direct hotline to him.

Re:Not Big Brother.

[hairyfeet]

Thank you. Yes I was talking about the original 1940s detective comics. Funny how so many think Batman started with that awful Adam West 60s camp. Although I disagree about Doc Savage. With Doc Savage it always seemed to have this "pursuit of perfection" feel going on underneath, probably due to the whole eugenics debate going on at the time. With the original Batman you got the feeling that if it weren't for the money he would have just been a vigilante.

Where Savage was about making the world a better place, Batman of the early days was more about revenge and hatred. You really got the feeling he was "getting even" with every bad guy being a representation of the ones that murdered his parents. Savage had a lot more of an upbeat view of the world around him, and to me that made all the difference. It is a shame though that nobody has done a Savage reboot as the original Savage stories were pretty damned good adventure tales. But to me he always felt a little more Allan Quatermain and Indiana Jones than Batman, who felt like he was using Gotham in those early comics as his own personal hunting ground, with criminals as his prey. The old Batman was really somebody you didn't want to meet, he just wasn't a nice guy.

Forced to download edits to books

[digitalderbs]

I was quite surprised when an automatic update for a copy of the Stand (Stephen King) was pushed onto me, without my consent and without notification as to what had changed. Backup copies aren't hard to make. But who owns the copy? Does Amazon own my Kindle? Do I not have a right to refuse an update?

Re:Forced to download edits to books

[Spy Handler]

Yes you do have a right to refuse an update. Even Microsoft gives you this right.

Just now Windows Update ran by itself, downloaded updates and popped up an alert saying "New updates are now ready to install." Underneath was a "CANCEL" button that you can press to refuse the update.

Re:Forced to download edits to books

[JobyOne]

Well, they just want to keep you safe.

I'm sure it was a critical security update.

Re:Forced to download edits to books

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wants a book with "errors" in it anyways. The author or someone acting on the author's behalf will be able to silently correct these mistakes without having to stop by your house or local library to collect and burn these old out of date editions.

Re:Forced to download edits to books

[hannson]

Better yet, imagine this:

The year is 1984 in a dystopian future, in a repressive, totalitarian state. Historical facts and documents have been rewritten and revised so many times that even the correct year is uncertain. Posters of the ruling Party's leader, "Amazon", bearing the caption AMAZON IS WATCHING YOU, dominate the city landscapes, while two-way Kindles (the e-book reader) which dominate the "private" and public spaces of the populace are being re-written at Amazon's will to change facts, censor illegal words or to delete/burn ebooks that get in the way of its propaganda...

Re:Forced to download edits to books

[CAIMLAS]

While I would agree you've got a reason for contention for this, something like The Stand isn't like 1984 or Animal Farm. While The Stand is certainly a noteworthy work of fiction, it is not even in the same category of works that Orwell's are by the simple fact of their political discourse/criticism and the impact they've had on society. They are not solely a work of fiction, they are historical and political commentary - making this act akin to the very acts spoken of in the books ("book burning" if you will).

Re:Forced to download edits to books

[digitalderbs]

let me know when you figure out how to do this on a Kindle without remaining offline indefinitely. That's the point.

Stay away from the Kindle!

[YA_Python_dev]

For "$DEITY" sake, don't use, buy or recommend to anyone the Kindle!

It was designed from day one to be enable Amazon to fuck you and this is exactly what happened. I'm not surprised.

An alternative ereader with better hardware, open architecture and NOT defective by design is the iLiad by iRex. Yes, it runs Linux and you can install third-part programs. And, yes, it costs a little more, but if you value your freedom (and your books) it's more than worth it.

Disclaimer: I don't work for iRex, I'm only an happy customer.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[ArsonSmith]

Error $DEITY undefined.

I'm atheist you insensitive clod.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[dgatwood]

Maybe I'm confused, but I thought the atheists defined it as an empty string, while the agnostics leave it in an undefined state.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[TaggartAleslayer]

Not to nitpick, but 1984 and Animal Farm aren't available for the iRex at all. Not legally anyway. And if they are, I will certainly mod you up for linking me to them.

This isn't a karma hunt, just looking for legitimate copies of the books on an e-reader.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[maxume]

You can just ignore the fact that the Kindle supports azw format books and use it for reading pretty much the same stuff as the iLiad (well, Kindle doesn't support .mobi drm, but you can use the Kindle to access Wikipedia from anywhere it has service, and you have to use USB for file transfers to the Kindle).

Also, the Kindle is available in the United States without jumping through hoops.

The key to dealing with DRM is to make sure you are aware that the media is encumbered before you decide to buy and to factor the DRM into the purchase (for instance, most people that know about and understand the DRM used on DVDs purchase them anyway), not to avoid any and all hardware that supports playing that media.

The Whispernet support is similar, I doubt Amazon will keep it turned on until 2020, so think about the fact that it may get turned off before purchasing a Kindle for that feature.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

Works for me. \o/

root@matrix:~# echo For "$DEITY" sake
For Charles Darwin sake
root@matrix:~#

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Chyeld]

George Orwell's works do seem to be on mobipocket, which iRex supports.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hurricane78]

$DEITY = $joePesci; // There. Fixed it for ya!

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[YA_Python_dev]

Not to nitpick, but 1984 and Animal Farm aren't available for the iRex at all. Not legally anyway. And if they are, I will certainly mod you up for linking me to them.

They are legally published by Project Gutenberg Australia (see: George Orwell). Depending on how sane is copyright law in the country where you live it may be illegal for you to read them, and/or you may be legally allowed to buy a DRMed copy and convert it to a non-DRMed format.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[genner]

Error $DEITY undefined.

I'm atheist you insensitive clod.

I thought atheists defined $DEITY as localhost.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[YA_Python_dev]

The key to dealing with DRM is to make sure you are aware that the media is encumbered before you decide to buy and to factor the DRM into the purchase (for instance, most people that know about and understand the DRM used on DVDs purchase them anyway), not to avoid any and all hardware that supports playing that media.

I see two problems here: first, most people don't know that Amazon can remotely delete or change their books at any time (yes, they can even change the contents of your books after you have purchased them; the Kindle it's a censor wet dream).

Second I don't have any problem with hardware or software that allows me to read/listen/watch DRMed formats (e.g.: mplayer allows me to watch DVDs, that ok). What I don't like is when my computers/devices obey someone not me (e.g.: my hardware DVD player don't allow me to skip that stupid FBI bullshit).

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[schon]

Not in this case .. when used as an expletive, it's defined as "fuck" or "fsck" (depending on the user) to make the sentence grammatically correct. :)

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[bazald]

I agree that people need to get this right.

The strong atheist says "There is no god / There are no gods."
The weak atheist says "I don't believe in any god(s)."
The strong agnostic says "It is impossible to know anything about the existence of god(s)."
The weak agnostic says "I am uncertain about what to believe."

Strong and weak agnosticism are both compatible with weak atheism and incompatible with strong atheism.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[jellomizer]

Yea giving people back full refunds after a period of use is an excellent business plan.

Amazon didn't want this to happen it is the publishers fault. If anything you can blame Amazon for not being tough on these publishers, and make contracts that stick. But the evil was in the publisher not the technology provider.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah. and not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

no, you're thikning of rock stars.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[dunkelfalke]

You confuse atheists with solipsists.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Chyeld]

And amuzingly, I notice from reading the linked Amazon comments, it seems to be the Amazon 'distributed' version of the pocketmobi books that were yanked.

You could have been unintentionally 'right' that they aren't avalaible in the sense that the items I linked may be also 'illegal'.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Smurf]

Not to nitpick, but 1984 and Animal Farm aren't available for the iRex at all. Not legally anyway. And if they are, I will certainly mod you up for linking me to them.

Hmmmm.... and how exactly are you going to do that? You know, you can't moderate in this discussion because you commented on it... Doh?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Insanity Defense]

Error $DEITY undefined. I'm atheist you insensitive clod.

#define $DEITY NULL

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

He posted from the account that doesn't have modpoints.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's defined as a null pointer.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

They are legally published by Project Gutenberg Australia (see: George Orwell). Depending on how sane is copyright law in the country where you live it may be illegal for you to read them, and/or you may be legally allowed to buy a DRMed copy and convert it to a non-DRMed format.

And so, if you could get it for iRex, you could get it for Kindle from the same source!! No one forces you to buy DRM books. I have a kindle, and to date I refuse to purchase DRM-encrusted crap. That doesn't make Kindle any less of an ebook reader.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[FiveDozenWhales]

Then they're legally available for the Kindle through the same route (albeit with the extra, easy step of file conversion).

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Chyeld]

The keyword being legal, Kemo Sabe. It's in the PD in Australia but considered still under copyright in the remainder of the 'copyright loving' world. If we wanted a pirated version, I'm sure there are better formatted copies out on the tubes.

And given it seems the reason the books were pulled was because the mobibook versions might have been 'unauthorized' versions mistakenly sold by someone who thought they were in the PD, the GP may be correct in the statement that they aren't avalaible legally for most of us in electronic format.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[SanityInAnarchy]

Incorrect. Ask any atheist today, or examine the wording, and you'll find it's a lack of affirmation.

The positive affirmation you want it to be would be called antitheism, not atheism.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[SanityInAnarchy]

In other words, strong atheist: $DEITY is undefined.

Agnostic: if($DEITY) will throw an exception, even if it is defined.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot apatheist. "I don't care whether god exists or about subtle distinctions between degrees of agnosticism and atheism." :)

ok, who am I kidding, this is /. I care a lot about subtle distinctions. :D I say there is 0 probability that the god described in the torah/bible/koran exists but that there is a non-zero probability that the universe could have a creator. Based on your chart, I think that makes me a weak agnostic and an average atheist?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Quothz]

For "$DEITY" sake, don't use, buy or recommend to anyone the Kindle!

It was designed from day one to be enable Amazon to fuck you and this is exactly what happened.

I strongly considered one, but this pushed me back from the brink. The guy whose Kindle account got arbitrarily canceled a while back made me wary, but Amazon at least repented quickly and made it right. This demonstrates that they still truly consider our purchases to be their property. Unless they drastically revise their terms, or someone with reasonable terms starts selling a good reader, I'm'a stick with stupid dead trees.

It's sad that Amazon fucked this up: Ebooks have the potential to be a huge boon to the environment while simultaneously making books cheaper and more convenient to buy.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Kneo24]

This would be correct. It's a lack of affirmation simply because there's no evidence that we're denying anything.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Ilgaz]

To add to your comment for the real brain dead not understanding what this means:

Amazon can make NY Times (on Kindle) NOT having this story tomorrow. Yes, a NY Times not having this story and you don't have any right to bitch about it.

Books were confiscated, books (and theis authors) burned but nobody could remotely change a book until now.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[bitt3n]

yes, they can even change the contents of your books after you have purchased them; the Kindle it's a censor wet dream).

that leads to some interesting profit models, such as: "For a $5 charge, Dumbledore will live through the next chapter. Otherwise HE WILL DIE. Make your choice."

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[sharkey]

Well, at least they both agree on something: grammar, spelling, diction and punctuation can go fuck themselves! Or is that just sanosuke001's personal life quest?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[rbanffy]

Actually, for an Atheist, it should evaluate to null. Agnostics leave it undefined.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[skeeto]

I am an atheist too, but I thought we worshiped the Goddess Athe. I've been doing it all wrong.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[DavidD_CA]

So then for polytheists, would that be an array?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Fizzol]

It wasn't arbitrary. We might not agree with the reasons for the cancellation, but it certainly wasn't random as you're implying. Amazon did the right thing in this situation, it was their only choice really.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[jayspec462]

I'm with you. I have a good friend who loves his Kindle. He let me try it out, and it just felt awesome. But after this, I've gone from 90% certain that I'd purchase it when I had the money to spare, to 100% absolutely, positively certain that I will not purchase this, or any similar device, ever. Congratulations, Amazon!

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Itninja]

designed from day one to be enable Amazon to fuck you

Bring a whole new meaning to the 'Look Inside!' icon. /shiver/

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

supreme being?

That's the one with green peppers, onions, olives, mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage, and extra cheese, right?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hatta]

why can't anyone get this right? they are mutually exclusive opinions

They are not. A person who believes there is no god may also believe that there is no way to prove it. In fact, that describes most atheists. No atheist will tell you he can prove definitively that there is no god.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hatta]

Second I don't have any problem with hardware or software that allows me to read/listen/watch DRMed formats (e.g.: mplayer allows me to watch DVDs, that ok).

Sure, no one minds DRM when it's cracked.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[thejynxed]

Mine doesn't either, but I consider it a fair trade-off for having DivX and Xvid compatibility, VCD/SVCD capability, DVD-R/DVD+R/DVD-ROM booktype support, and being region-free. It even plays music files, but I haven't bothered with that feature.

Toshiba SD-6100 btw. One of the few players left that supports four different ways (HDMI up to 1080i/1080p, S-Video, Co-Axial Component, and Analog) to connect to a tv, as well as offering digital audio out (co-axial), analog-out and Dolby 5.1.

It's nice to have a light-weight player that is compatible with most televisions on the market. Makes it easy to take a binder full of movies along to my brother's house while on vacation.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Quothz]

It wasn't arbitrary. We might not agree with the reasons for the cancellation, but it certainly wasn't random as you're implying.

I was referring to this story. And for what it's worth, "arbitrary" does not mean "random".

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Fizzol]

Yes, I knew what story your were referring to and it still wasn't arbitrary, of which on definition is... "Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice." Close enough to random for me.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Miseph]

They aren't mutually exclusive at all: you can simultaneously believe that there is no god and that you have no way of actually proving it. It is also possible to believe that there is no god and that you CAN prove it, or to believe that there is a god but you cannot prove it.

Agnosticism is a measure of how confident you are in your ability to accurately determine the potential existence of a deity, something which has no direct bearing on that determination.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be the solipsists.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[adolf]

How will you mod someone up, once you've already commented on the article?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[shutdown -p now]

No, it would be a set.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Tom]

Actually, the difference is mostly semantic.

agnostic: "I don't know if $DEITY exists."
atheist: "$DEITY does not exist (with a probability approaching certainty)"
antitheist: "There's no $DEITY, period."

Depending on mood of day or the exact question you ask, most of us move freely between these variants. There's also the strict agnostic who really ponders the question deeply and leaves both options entirely open with no preference for either, but he's so rare that he probably deserves to be on the endangered species list.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

thats Satanists.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Dan541]

It was Amazon who did it, therefore 100% of the blame rests with them. I doubt Amazon gave the publisher access to every kindle to delete the book themselves.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Dan541]

It's sad that Amazon fucked this up: Ebooks have the potential to be a huge boon to the environment while simultaneously making books cheaper and more convenient to buy.

Ebooks will never take off so long as flaws like this exist.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Kaell Meynn]

Wouldn't that be Ignostics that leave it in an undefined state? While Agnostics would never examine/use/make-assertions-about the contents.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hognoxious]

Apathyist: I don't care if $DEITY exists.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hognoxious]

Does a set have an implied order? Romans were polytheists, but IIRC individuals had a specific patron or favourite.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hognoxious]

Ask twitter, any one of him.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hognoxious]

A chair is close enough to a table if you don't mind sitting uncomfortably.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[xigxag]

Your failure to link to your source implies that you're well aware it contains an alternate definition of "arbitrary" that proves you wrong: "Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference." So, in point of fact, when the previous poster was using "arbitrary" to mean based on Amazon's individual judgment, he was not using the word incorrectly. Yes, arbitrary can mean "random," but it can also mean something rather like "dictatorial" and it is in that sense that Amazon was being arbitrary.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[dkf]

No, it would be a set.

Depending on the theological model used, it might be a directed graph. Polytheistic religious models were often rather complex...

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is worse, ignorance or apathy ? Who knows ? Who cares ?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[PatrickThomson]

Just out of interest, what if the $deity coincidentally happens to fit all the details of the torah/bible/koran? It's the same probability of being a flying spaghetti monster ;)

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[PatrickThomson]

Too right, I modded you insightful for this.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Alcoholist]

What if someone hacks their way into the Kindle system and deletes all the e-books just for laughs? Gonna be a lot of pissed off customers...

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[fulldecent]

Call Amazon and give them the opportunity to come pick up your defective product for full refund. If they don't pick up, keep the device.

Then call VISA, and chargeback "product not as described."

This is the solution.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[sjames]

I think his error message was a bit confusing. Atheists prefer to work with the set of all reals, but that will overflow in many languages.

In some circumstances, they might consider $DEITY to be a set in the imaginary plane, but that can get complex fast.

There is some justification for considering it to be just NaN, but not all math libraries handle that with grace.

The real difficulty is for those pantheists who define it as the universal set. Practically no math package handles that well.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[nkh]

So strong atheism is some kind of GPL, and weak atheism BSD? But what is agnosticism then? Microsoft C# Community License?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[anaesthetica]

I thought atheists defined $DEITY as localhost.

No, that's nihilists.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

—Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Fizzol]

I didn't get it from answers.com. And it does not prove me wrong, the definition I pointed to is just as valid as the one you're claiming.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Pajaro]

I agree that people need to get this right.

"Strong" and "Weak" should only be applied to RELATIVE values, not to whole concepts.

An atheist is the one that does not believe in THEISM; theism being beliefs in supernatural beings. "Atheism, in its basic form, is not a belief; it is the absence of belief." Either you do, or you don't, no relative things here.

"An agnostic is a person who believes that something is inherently unknowable by the human mind. When applied to the sphere of theistic belief, an agnostic is one who maintains that some aspect of the supernatural is forever closed to knowledge." Either you think it is knowable or you don't.

"Properly considered, agnosticism is not a third alternative to theism and atheism because it is concerned with a different aspect of religious belief. Theism and atheism refer to the presence or absence of belief in a god; agnosticism refers to the IMPOSSIBILITY OF KNOWLEDGE with regard to a god or supernatural being."

"Agnosticism can be either theistic or atheistic"

"The agnostic THEIST believes in the existance of god, but maintains that the NATURE of god is unknowable."
"The agnostic ATHEIST maintains that any supernatural realm is inherently unknowable by the human mind, but this agnostic suspends his judgment one step further back. Not only is the nature of any supernatural being unknowable, but the EXISTANCE of any supernatural being is unknowable as well."

I refer to you the book "Atheism, the Case against God", by George H. Smith, where he does an extensive and well thought out analysis, from where I take the previous quoted sentences. I guess you could find an actual book or reference for the other terms, but the extensive analysis given in this book properly cements his reasoning.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[bazald]

I encourage you to read additional sources and to expand your knowledge of the many nuances of these "absolute" positions. These classifications are well established, though perhaps not universally accepted. There are variations other than those which I mentioned that are also worth learning about.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Estragib]

examine the wording

atheist
"noun: one who believes that there is no deity" (Merriam-Webster)

atheism "can be either the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist." (Wikipedia)

atheist
"1571, from Fr. atheiste (16c.), from Gk. atheos "to deny the gods, godless," from a- "without" + theos "a god" (see Thea)." (Online Etymology Dictionary)

atheism
"derived from the Greek word atheos, using the Greek prefix a- (an- not, without) ... derived from the Greek word theos (a deity...)" (MyEtymology)

etc.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW. That may have been a joke but if I pretend for a moment that I am a capitalist, then that is not only a good idea, it is a GREAT idea. Of course I am not a capitalist so whatever...

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[SanityInAnarchy]

Your last two support my definition.

The second, from Wikipedia, supports the concept of "weak" and "strong" atheism.

Only the first supports yours...

But examine the word itself. The a- prefix negates -- an atheist is a non-theist. To say that theism is definitely wrong, and that we believe there is no god, is to be an anti-theist -- against theism.

Agnostic doesn't fit particularly well to the position of lack of affirmation, as it actually implies something more -- that the question itself is un-answerable, unknowable. It is compatible with both atheism and theism -- that is, I could be a theist who believes we can't really know if a god exists, and must accept it on faith, or I could be an atheist who disbelieves precisely because most gods are unfalsifiable claims.

If we say atheism is a positive affirmation that there is no god, and agnosticism is "not sure", that would leave us without a precise word for what agnostic is supposed to mean.

It's also worth mentioning: It's hard to find someone who both calls themselves and atheist, and agrees that it is a positive affirmation. I suspect the reason theists like to define it that way is that it's much easier to then attack their affirmation -- "Prove to me there's no god" -- whereas if atheism is a lack of belief, the burden of proof is right back on the theist, where it belongs -- "Prove to me there is a god."

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I've often enjoyed upsetting both men of faith and atheists by stating, "It takes as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a Christian because both are taking a stand in an area where nothing can be proven." It seems to me that agnosticism is the only intellectually honest perspective.

You seem to want to side step this criticism by redefining terms. However, if what you say is true, "it's a lack of affirmation", then what that really means it that most "atheists" today have abandoned atheism for (at least half of ) agnosticism. A lack of affirmation doesn't deny or disbelieve. Lacking an affirmation that God exists, all you need do is lack an affirmation that God doesn't exist.

atheist (noun)
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

compare this to

agnostic (noun)
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

Words are interesting, and fun. They have definitions. However, just because a group of people who've labeled themselves with a word (which means "denies or disbelieves" in God) have come to change their views ("lack of affirmation" rather than deny or disbelieve), doesn't mean the word's meaning changes also. Rather, the group's label is no longer appropriate.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I thought solipsists would define reality in terms of localhost.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[SanityInAnarchy]

I think the primary difference is that people who label themselves agnostic are at the point where they can't rationally justify a belief in a god, but they don't want to let go entirely, nor do they want to make a stand that could possibly be proven wrong. They tend to give equal weight to both sides.

An atheist would tend to say, "The default position, given a lack of evidence, should be disbelief." Fun examples like the FSM help establish this -- no one in their right mind actually believes in the flying spaghetti monster, yet there is, if anything, more reason to believe in that than in Yahweh, as it attempts (satirically, of course) to actually explain why there is so much contradictory evidence, rather than simply pretending it doesn't exist.

If you apply "agnostic" to the atheist community, you lose the meaning of the word -- what you've bolded there, that the essential nature of things is unknown and unknowable, is a belief that both theists and atheists could hold. Agnosticism is a statement of how certain we can be about whether there's a god or not -- it says nothing about whether there actually is one, and it is certainly not the "not sure" position.

Many atheists might also be agnostic. Many might not -- why would you assume the question of a god's existence could never be answered, even if we don't know now?

Of course, if you really want to make your "it takes as much faith" statement, there are a few logically inconsistent definitions of God, to which I would say it takes as much "faith" to disbelieve those as to disbelieve that 2+2=5.

Example: There really hasn't ever been a good answer to the problem of evil. In order to get around that, you must either redefine "evil" in such a way that things like child rape are actually "good" somehow, or you must redefine "god" to remove one of the three omni's.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Hurricane78]

What? No George Carlin fans here? :(

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Quothz]

And it does not prove me wrong, the definition I pointed to is just as valid as the one you're claiming.

Since "just" means "perhaps or possibly", I assume that post is an acknowledgment that you could be mistaken.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[sjdude]

But the evil was in the publisher not the technology provider.

Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on this. The Right Thing for Amazon to do was to tell Penguin they would be willing pull the book from future sales. If Penguin have a legal issue with having published something they shouldn't have, then Penguin should go settle with the injured party and not ask Amazon for help by reneging on sales that had already been made. In this case, it is Amazon who are evil. Penguin, if they erred, should pay the price, not Kindle owners.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[sjdude]

Amazon did the right thing in this situation, it was their only choice really.

If you have the details to back up what you say, put them in print here. Otherwise, I call bullshit. Amazon acted as the evil whipping boy for Penguin. If Penguin screwed up, Penguin should pay the injured party. Kindle owners should not have to pay for mistakes made by the publisher. Amazon could have pulled the title from future sales and told Penguin to go settle their own problems. Instead of Penguin losing, Kindle owners lost. Sadly, eBooks in general lost, too. Amazon is insanely stupid for having done this.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

careful, that's a bashism

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Eil]

I thought atheists defined $DEITY as localhost.

You're thinking of BOFHs.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[RaymondKurzweil]

Strong and weak agnosticism are both compatible with weak atheism and incompatible with strong atheism.

Yes, maybe. But which ones are GPL compatible?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

For @Deities sake!

What would a pantheist choose?

(CAPTCHA was "Singed" - probably got the wrong deity!)

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"For a $5 charge, Dumbledore will live through the next chapter. Otherwise HE WILL DIE. Make your choice."

Now we know it! Not only piracy kills music and other arts, it has already killed Dumbledore!

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[vigour]

Error $DEITY undefined.
I'm atheist you insensitive clod.

I thought atheists defined $DEITY as localhost.

Nah, that's just the solipsists

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Buddhist there exists within no strong feeling one way or another, though perhaps it would amuse to see it changed to $ALLONE . That being said, all designations are exactly equal in value; hench why this I wouldn't be very useful as a coder.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[janwedekind]

If you get your phone from a telecommunication provider it comes with SIMlock. If you get your E-Book reader from Amazon it comes with DRM. If you get your music player from Apple ....

There's plenty of good E-Book readers to choose from (unless you want one with Windows on it). Most of them support both DRM as well as DRM-free formats.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for Tribune (newspapers) and I sat in meetings with a representative from Amazon and discussed altering news stories if a corporation complained or threatened to file suit on the basis of the content of the new story (e.g., their product is unsafe... etc). Tribune and any other news company can change to content of your electronic paper on the kindle just like this story illustrates.

Welcome to the corporate mind - you will know what we want you to know.

As an aside I mentioned that we cannot redact stories from the print edition so why are we spending all this time in meeting to hedge against corporate lawsuits - silence. None of the other people said a thing, probably scared that they won't get raise next year.

So if the kindle runs linux why aren't we developing a replacement?

http://igorsk.blogspot.com/2007/12/hacking-kindle-part-3-root-shell-and.html

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

no, that's satanists. (no really!)

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Philosinfinity]

Quite incorrect. Atheism falls into two interpretations. Strong atheism is the affirmative belief that there is no god. Weak atheism is the lack of belief in God. Citation: Atheism: The Case Against God, Smith.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

Error $DEITY undefined.

I'm atheist you insensitive clod.

I thought atheists defined $DEITY as localhost.

No, that would be the solipsists.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[fluxrad]

Strong agnosticism is incompatible with atheism. Do you see why?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[bazald]

Your statement is equivalent to "all strong agnostics are theists." Do you see the contradiction in this statement?

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Asic Eng]

The iLiad is available on Amazon, btw.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Many atheists might also be agnostic." So then, at the same time that they declare "the question is unanswerable", they also declare , "the answer is 'not A'?"

Don't you sense a contradiction?

Even wave-particle duality doesn't suggest that a particle is a wave and a particle simultaneously, but rather that it can exhibit either property, wave-property or particle-property, depending on measurement context. If they firmly believe that the existence question can't be answered, then arrival at a preference involves faith, not any sort of proof-based belief, and hence my statement: "atheists require faith".

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[Anonymous Coward]

then you can always praise and worship science you reactive fool! which we should all do.

Re:Stay away from the Kindle!

[bhiestand]

Actually, the difference is mostly semantic.

agnostic: "I don't know if $DEITY exists."
atheist: "$DEITY does not exist (with a probability approaching certainty)"
antitheist: "There's no $DEITY, period."

Atheism in its modern usage means "I don't believe in $DEITY".

Strong Atheist: "$DEITY does not exist."
Weak Atheist: "I don't believe $DEITY exists."

The semantics are constantly being argued, but atheists and agnostics are just as divided between labels as everyone else. Many now feel, though, that theism/atheism is a good distinction, and this would make agnostics (and Buddhists) fall under the atheist category.

Time to avoid the Kindle?

[codeonezero]

More importantly for me, this incident highlights the problem with Kindle. I guess you don't really own anything you buy, and you're subject to the whims of the publisher. At least with a paper book or even say a PDF, you have the copy (eletronic or physical) in a means you can control.

I was contemplating about buying a Kindle but this incident, puts it on the backburner for me. Instead I'm going to wait for a device that I can control, and avoid an e-Book store like Kindle has.

I really hope all electronic content stores aren't headed in this direction. I understand publisher/content owners rights but if a vendor can control what is removed from my device how soon until a book, music, video, electronic format, appears and it upsets a lot of people to the point where a government or company caves in and gets it censored. At that point, imagine people who aren't offended by the content having a device like Kindle that removes the censored content that wasn't offensive to these people. Maybe an alarmist thought, but a scary one.

Re:Time to avoid the Kindle?

[1mck]

As soon as I get some cash together, I'm probably going to buy an ESlick as it doesn't have any of that DRM crap! Oh, and it's at a pretty reasonable price too. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/

If I own it, I want it with me.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I like to have my own copies of the PDF's on my own LOCAL storage period. I do NOT trust any global corporation to hold on to my stuff for me with free access to my files. Screw that.

The largest flaw with the kindle is that I can't just put my own files on it without going through some type of service.

Free at Project Gutenberg

[bfmorgan]

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011.txt

We called it the "Library of Alexandria" problem.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Back on the Xanadu project we called the single-server model for content the "Library of Alexandria" problem: A disaster wiping out the server (and its backups), like the burning of the Library of Alexandria when, for many works, it contained the only (or or one of very few) copies, permanently removes the documents served by that repository from the literature. (The solution is the "multiple record" - mass printing of dead-tree books prior to automation, broad distribution of the immutable content and versioning information in the case of an "electronic literature".)

Of course centralized and mutable serving of content also enables, and greatly simplifies, the "rewriting of history" described by Orwell in the two books in question. So it is particularly ironic that these are the ones that were pulled.

Well, suspicion confirmed

[corran__horn]

Well, this at least confirms that Amazon does have absolute power over the Kindle and relegates it to the land of Zune for me. That, and that iRiver's mp3 player has a text reader as well.

The Prime Reason Why

[kilodelta]

I'll never buy a Kindle. When Amazon pulls this shit they're depriving a customer of their license to view the book. The customer now has a grievance against Amazon.

Re:The Prime Reason Why

[Anonymous Coward]

News flash: Licenses are revocable by the person granting the license.

Re:The Prime Reason Why

[Cacadril]

No! If you sell a license, you cannot just revoke it. That is breaking the contract implied by the sale. You received money for the license.

Everyone here repeats that stolen goods can be taken back, but that is also not so simple. You have to go through the courts for that.

The issue almost everyone here fail to mention is that people have a right to control their own lives. No-one can sell you a house and then a few years down the road change his mind and reverse the transaction, refund or not. That would mean people could never know what they can count with. This taking back of a book is a less severe intrusion, but still an intrusion into the lives of the buyers. In a state of law, everyone has a right to contradict statements. You may not agree that you have to give the book back. When there is a dispute, the courts, not raw power should decide.

There are also contradicting informations here as to the basis for the "reversal". Some say Amazon did not have the right to sell the book in the first place, others say they had but caved to demands from the publisher, who allegedly changed their mind. No-one has given any source, that I have seen.

But even if the book was sold in violation of copyright law, the normal result would be that the publisher sued Amazon and Amazon had to compensate the publisher, not that Amazon could reverse the sales.

Lastly, people are repeating that since the work is licensed, not sold, they can terminate the license. But the eula that has been posted here does not have any provisions for termination. Rather, it says explicitly right to keep a "permanent copy" on the device. While people find the language hard to understand and assume that the ambiguity must work to the benefit of Amazon, there is no basis for that assumption. A license is a permission. Permission to what? To keep a permanent copy. The final statement, "licensed to you by Amazon unless expressly provided otherwise" or similar, specifies who are the parties to the deal, not that the deal is retractable. It may be an attempt to prohibit you from transferring your rights to somebody else, in contravention of the first-sale doctrine. This attempt may or may not stand in court, as similar provisions have been struck down before, but not consistently.

IANAL.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Vectronic]

True...

Copyright status

Nineteen Eighty-Four will not enter the public domain in the United States until 2044 and in the European Union until 2020, although it is public domain in countries such as Canada, Russia, and Australia.

95 Fucking Years?

I'm sure this is contractually okay

[erroneus]

The fine print in the EULA probably allows for this, but this is certainly not in the spirit of good and normal commerce and is probably actionable under several state laws and possibly even federal laws.

I have to wonder if this "retraction" of books isn't merely an irony, but an action taken to call attention to certain issues?

Re:I'm sure this is contractually okay

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to wonder if this "retraction" of books isn't merely an irony, but an action taken to call attention to certain issues?

If it were anyone else but Jeff Bozos and Amazon I might agree, but that outfit is questionable in many other areas already.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it was 75 years but got extended in 1998 to 95 years (Copyright Term Extension Act/Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

Kindle has a remote kill feature?

[Spy Handler]

I had no idea that Kindle had such a feature where Amazon can wipe stuff off your device without your permission.

I was seriously considering buying one for myself, and one for my brother's birthday (pre-loaded with all his favorite SF novels). No way in hell i'm gonna buy one now. I guess he's getting a set of ShamWow this year.

BTW do iPods have a similar feature, wherein Apple can delete shit off your ipod that you purchased from iTunes? I've been wanting to buy an iPod Touch and access the App store for a while now, but the things that kept me from it are 1) battery not user-replaceable and 2) concerns about hidden powers Apple might have to mess with my device without me knowing.

Re:Kindle has a remote kill feature?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) battery not user-replaceable

You, sir, are a tool. The battery in most modern devices will last longer than anyone will want it. Do you complain about how the brake pads on your car aren't "user-replaceable" as well?

Re:Kindle has a remote kill feature?

[Locklin]

The iPod doesn't have a permanent Internet connection like the kindle -so no. iTunes, on the other hand, is entirely proprietary, links with their web service, and uses their own proprietary DRM technology on (some of?) their music, so it's a foregone conclusion that *eventually* you will not be able to play those songs -it's just a matter of time. The mp3 downloads, on the other hand, can be backed up out of reach of iTunes.

Re:Kindle has a remote kill feature?

[Concerned Onlooker]

"The iPod doesn't have a permanent Internet connection like the kindle -so no"

Neither does the Kindle. There are two switches on the back (at least in the first model) and you can independently turn off both the Kindle reader power and the "cellphone" power that allows wireless purchases, etc. I have my wireless powered off about 99.5% of the time so a battery charge lasts for over a week.

Re:Kindle has a remote kill feature?

[Amnenth]

iTunes music is no longer DRM'ed, but each file downloaded still bears the name and email address of the person that purchased it.

Video files and apps are still under DRM though, as far as I know. (They have FairPlay markers when inspected in iTunes)

Re:Kindle has a remote kill feature?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are a tool. The battery in most modern devices will last longer than anyone will want it. Do you complain about how the brake pads on your car aren't "user-replaceable" as well?

Maybe you're the kind of tool that has to hand over a bunch of money to Apple everytime they shit out a new product, but most people expect things to last longer. And besides, what car is designed with non-removable brake pads?

Amazon's new product

[AdmiralXyz]

Your books are now 'unbooks'. They don't exist. They never existed.

Re:Amazon's new product

[Mesa MIke]

That's ungood.

Re:Amazon's new product

[Nimey]

Double plus ungood.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[spacefight]

Yeah, others might think "fucking 95 years?"

So that cuts it. I'll not buy a Kindle.

[Vellmont]

I thought about buying one on and off. But now that I've learned Amazon doesn't respect its customers purchased property, forget about it.

This kind of thing will Doom the Kindle out of the mainstream. Who wants to buy something that could at any moment, and without warning disappear? Nobody likes things they thought were tangible suddenly becoming intangible. It's the same reason the original Circuit-City DIVX scheme never took off.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Qzukk]

created after Steam Boat Willie

This will only work for "company" copyrights (works for hire, etc), since they are strictly based on years from creation.

For anything copyrighted by a real person, you have to factor in the date that person died.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they charging $10 for a book that anyone can legally download for free?

suckers

[Un pobre guey]

Oh dead tree books are so obsolete, even though they are cheap, last longer than I ever will, can't be altered from a distance, and don't need electricity! Same with CDs, DVDs, and other durable backup media that can't be taken from me and don't depend on some here-today-gone-tomorrow license server! And land lines! Who needs them when we have such fickle and expensive cell phone service with far less coverage!

You know, it's one thing to be a Luddite, and quite another to stay with reliable, cheap, and fully functional technologies until the newer alternatives truly surpass them.

Re:suckers

[drinkypoo]

You could always just download an "illicit" copy, and read it for free... IMO (but YMMV) you have a moral right to do so if you have purchased the dead tree edition in readable condition.

Re:suckers

[CAIMLAS]

What? I'd agree with you that books aren't obsolete, but it certainly isn't true that they're cheap. A longer hardcover novel will run a person $30ish and the paper version probably $20+ these days. I know there's inflation and all to account for, but that isn't "cheap".

Re:suckers

[Mesa MIke]

> You know, it's one thing to be a Luddite,
> and quite another to stay with reliable,
> cheap, and fully functional technologies
> until the newer alternatives truly surpass them.

Good point. That's why we need to keep oil, coal and natural gas around for a while.

Re:suckers

[Daemonax]

I myself have just become a member of the Folio Society, which produces high quality books. There are quite a few good ones in there, including some good science books, such as those by Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker. They certainly cost more than the cheap paperback versions you can easily find, but one day I would like to have a bookshelf full of high quality (both in content and construction) books that I've read. http://www.foliosociety.com/

Re:suckers

[noidentity]

And land lines! Who needs them when we have such fickle and expensive cell phone service with far less coverage!

Depends on how long a phone extension cable you have for your land line. I've never found more than a few hundred feet...

Re:suckers

[shutdown -p now]

You know that there are plenty of alternatives to Kindle that don't have an always-on network connections, and thus you don't need to worry about that kind of crap, right? iRex Iliad (and whatever their new reader is called) and Sony PRS are two good ones, but there are more. And you can stuff them with text files from Project Gutenberg, and be sure there's no DRM anywhere near; and still get all convenience of an eInk e-book reader (and yes, it is convenient).

Re:suckers

[jipn4]

Oh dead tree books are so obsolete, even though they are cheap

They're a lot more expensive than electronic distribution, even taking into account electricity.

last longer than I ever will, and don't need electricity!

Well, actually, to last longer than you will, they need to be kept in reasonable surroundings, which costs money and electricity to maintain.

can't be altered from a distance,

They can, however, be altered by police breaking down your door and getting physical with them. Electronic books, on the other hand, can be easily hidden and securely encrypted.

Re:suckers

[Godwin O'Hitler]

You're right. Ludditism doesn't even come into it, even if one day electronic books beat the shit out of real physical books on every count.
Books are something you can collect and appreciate for their simple presence on your bookshelf.
It's not just Luddites who'd rather have Botticelli's Venus hanging in their room than a downloadable photograph they can look at on their laptops.

All Geeks Unite

[duerra]

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.

Re:All Geeks Unite

[wickerprints]

Have you read "Animal Farm?" If you have, you would know that the power of the people to unite against the power of corporations has long been extinct.

You know what's going to happen? A small but vocal minority will heavily protest and boycott Amazon and the Kindle, while the vast majority of mindless consumers will continue to purchase their goods. Amazon could not possibly care less about this. As a large corporate entity they make money hand over fist. Eventually, if the Kindle becomes sufficiently popular and achieves critical mass, people will simply accept the ability to remotely revoke your ownership rights as part of the normal terms of usage of the device.

ï

The exact same thing happens in Animal Farm. The government, which in actuality is ruled by a privileged elite, leverages the power of propaganda to exploit the worker class under the guise of improving the collective good. Dissent is not tolerated and mercilessly suppressed until the people simply accept the injustice as the reality of life. What the American public has largely failed to grasp is that Orwell's allegory of the dangers of communism is not a specific condemnation of this particular political ideology, but rather, of the dangers of an imbalanced power structure and a malleable, uneducated society. The modern-day corporation has supplanted the role of the communist elite. They are the true puppet masters in today's Western capitalist systems. We have quite vividly observed this phenomenon in the US government's reaction to the past year's economic debacle.

What many people do not realize is that the game is already lost. Americans do not live in a democratic society founded upon the principles of liberty and justice, but an illusion of one, much in the same way that the proletariat class lived under Communism. The average American consumer is as much brainwashed as your typical North Korean.

Re:All Geeks Unite

[Anonymous Coward]

When I read George Orwell the first time I didn't see an allegory of Communism, but that of Fascism.
But I knew it is an allegory that warns against any despotic government, no matter what the is the ideological facade.
I guess you Americans got screwed up from the start if you thought (or were taught) it was about communism ...

Re:All Geeks Unite

[Anonymous Coward]

the vast majority of mindless consumers will continue to purchase their goods

I suspect that the vast majority wouldn't ever buy a kindle.

Its a product looking for a market. Want to read a book? Read a book. The interface is perfect and it'll still work if you drop it in the bath.

Have to dry it out first, though....

Re:All Geeks Unite

[sjames]

As a case in point. Go all the way back to the early '70s and suggest to any adult you find that in just a little over a decade their insurance company will have the authority to tell them to change doctors at will and that people will accept that. Just listen to them laugh at you and call the loony bin (on a conveniently located payphone).

Re:All Geeks Unite

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful, I suppose the privileged ruling elite in America are the secret shadow lord owners of the Federal Reserve Bank. Who push their agenda onto and buy off elected politicians with the interest they earn from the money they create out of thin air which gets paid by taxing the American people. The difference between North Korea and America is that in America, all this information is published and people shout it out and even people running for president (Ron Paul) try to tell Americans to wake up. Is there any hope?

Re:All Geeks Unite

[Un pobre guey]

Hear, hear. I'm truly saddened that I can only agree with you.

Welcome, Comrades!

Welcome to the Union of Soviet Capitalist Republics!

Re:Not irony in the literay sense...

[KTheorem]

Nineteen Eighty-Four has a very noticeable anti-censorship/information destroying bent to it. This is ironic because it's a coincidence that Nineteen Eighty-Four is the book being removed and it is contradictory in that one of the messages of the book is that information should not be removed which is humerus because it is so obviously going to attract bad publicity when it could have been avoided (yay for schadenfreude).

Amazon also breached their own EULA

[snitty]

They actually breached their license agreements with their users who downloaded the book:

http://www.technicallylegal.org/amazon-breaches-kindle-user-contracts/

The EULA does say that you can't collect damages, and have to arbitrate confidentially in Seattle.

Makes you wonder if people who had this are free to breach the other parts of the contract now that Amazon has breached their duty? Could they reverse engineer now?

Re:Amazon also breached their own EULA

[mysidia]

If they failed to uphold their terms of the agreement, do you have to uphold yours, and is the EULA even binding on you?

Re:Amazon also breached their own EULA

[snitty]

It's a tough question. We're hoping to cover it more over the weekend (or possibly on our weekly podcast).

Sorry I don't have more for you right now, I'm running out the door.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but I think(from what I have seen discussed before) that if you were to do some formatting issues (ie fix spellings, rearrange bits and pieces, add chapter marks, index, glossary, etc) you could claim copyright on that new edition(or at least the parts added to it), but not on the original work.

So you would end up with 2 versions, one that someone has a copyright on(because they added stuff to it, and really I think only has copyright on the new stuff but it might be in such a way as to make it inseparable), and one that is in the public domain.

Public domain in Australia

[caseih]

Australians are probably wondering why anyone would buy an e-book that's already in the public domain. These books probably would be here in the US too but for all the copyright extensions we've had purchased over the years by certain organizations like Disney.

All Amazon.com customers and publishers are equal.

[MajikJon]

But some of them are more equal than others.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? You can't sell public domain works for profit? When's the last time you read a dead-tree book version of Shakespeare?

oblig

[ipX]

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Please

[SoVeryTired]

Vote with your wallets. *Do not buy kindles*.
If you own one and are sickened by this, sell it second-hand for 4/5 of the price. This, more than anything, will hurt Amazon. Let them know why you're reselling/refusing to buy, too.

Re:Please

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, how does selling it second hand scare Amazon? You're replacing one customer with another one, who, if he is buying a Kindle now, is not offended by Amazon's actions. Obviously this is a better deal for Amazon as that new customer will start buying books.

If you already own one, keep using it, but don't buy any new books from Amazon.

Stupid stupid stupid

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'm amazed at this. Not that some company wanted them to do it; but that Amazon did it. All comments about "big, evil corporations" aside - are they trying to kill the Kindle? Don't they see what a PR nightmare this could be?

Why on earth should I buy an expensive electronic book reader from them, EVER, when they've just demonstrated that I might have my legally-purchased books deleted at any time?

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[kpang]

I'm not sure why you're so surprised. Have you seen the legal costs associated with copyright infringement issues? If an ordinary person someone can get fined $80,000 per song shared from their computer, what kind of fines do you think Amazon would be up against?

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[bill_mcgonigle]

what kind of fines do you think Amazon would be up against?

Wait, you have some information that Amazon was distributing the Orwell works illegally?

How about telling the publisher, "I'm sorry, that would break our contract with our customers and be illegal. We can cease further sales."?

Has AmazonKindleOrwellClassAction.com been registered yet? There's blood in the water.

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[vikstar]

The mob is fickle, this will be forgotten in about a week by everyone who isn't a nerd, and then it's business as usual.

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[CAIMLAS]

Yeah, no kidding. Of all the books, from all the publishers in the world, Animal Farm and 1984 are the two books that would be the most disastrous to pull in such a fashion.

This is what happens when the general populous (and thus, your average corporate officer or businessman) is illiterate. They pull stupid shit like this and don't even realize they're a part of Orwellian behavior.

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[Smallpond]

No. I think Fahrenheit 451 would have been worse.

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[AK Marc]

Has AmazonKindleOrwellClassAction.com been registered yet? There's blood in the water.

What action can you take against them? You lost a book. They refunded the price. You have no loss. You can't sue with no loss.

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[jez9999]

You lost a book. They refunded the price. You have no loss.

I don't think giving people Amazon.com credit is the same as refunding the price. What if I changed my mind and don't want to buy anything from Amazon now after the shit they pulled? What if I want to save the refund in the bank? Bank refund, or it's not a proper refund.

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[vikstar]

lol at flaimbait mod, looks like mod troll just had to use up his last point.

Isn't this stealing?

[blitz487]

If someone takes something you bought, without permission, stealing? Even if they leave you a check for it?

Re:Isn't this stealing?

[Pitr]

Taking something virtual is only stealing if you take it from a big company, if they take it from you it's ok.

could be worse

[shentino]

At least they issued refunds... Many other uses of DRM don't even go that far when the auth server goes down.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

I recognizing you are stating facts and I am not disputing them.

Consider I purchased a ebook on survival skills and just left for the Yukon, or on identifying poisonous snake for my trip across Africa, or on STDs and I'm dating Paris Hilton. I act in good faith and NEED that source material. Amazon is at fault, yet I bear the cost of their error. Whatever the appropriate remedy, that pain should fall directly on Amazon and NOT on the consumer!

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Tony Hoyle]

It's a safe bet that they'll extend copyright again just as Mickey Mouse is looking like public domain.

You guys in the US won't have a public domain to speak of in a few years.. it'll all be owned by the great grandchildren of once famous authors - the new ruling elite.

The only time I'll ever recommend a Sony product.

[Orbijx]

I don't have this problem with my ebook reading.

Then again, I also spent less than $200, even with buying the necessary kit to modify two used Sony PSPs (PSP-1001, PSP-2000) so I can run eBook reading software on them.
Combined with content available via the Gutenberg Project, I'm left scratching my head, wondering what's with people spending money on the Kindle.

The Kindle has all of... one? advantage: Whispernet. I have to be near a wireless router to fire up a browser and get a new book or two on said PSP.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[blahplusplus]

Yet the problem is it is free legally online, seems lime more american corporate bullshit to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#The_War

Contract Law?

[Roger W Moore]

I seem to remember a similar discussion on the BBC a while back regarding incorrectly priced merchandise. In the UK at least the comment was that unless the price was so ludicrous that no reasonable person could possibly believe that it was right (e.g. a Rolls Royce for 10p), once they have charged your credit card there is a contract between you and the company for them to supply the goods and they have to supply them or pay damages for breaking the contract.

Hence if Amazon accepted the contract by charging the cards they have implicitly accepted the contract and must now deliver the goods as promised. If it turns out that they can no longer do so that would make them liable for any damages caused by their inability to fulfil the contract. Of course this may be rather limited in this case but you might be able to go for time wasted reading the book that you can no longer finish.

Re:Contract Law?

[brusk]

You could probably bring a lawsuit, and Amazon could say, okay, here's a paperback copy of 1984, enjoy.

Re:Contract Law?

[genner]

You could probably bring a lawsuit, and Amazon could say, okay, here's a paperback copy of 1984, enjoy.

Your forgetting all the pain and suffering money.
I lost my copy of 1984 and therefore didn't finish my book report. Now I'll never get into medical school.
I demmand the 10 millions dollars I would have made if I had found a cure for cancer.

Re:Contract Law?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

Uh, that sounds like a pretty good idea if you get your money back too and agree in advance to those terms. It compensates you for the product you bought and it gives you a readable copy of the material to compensate for the lost ability to read the book. But taking the e-book away without asking if the deal is acceptable? No. At best what Amazon is doing is like a friend who's been given a key to your house coming in, taking books, and leaving what they think the book is worth on the table. Unless they're reaaaaally good friends, you'd probably call the cops, or at least not be friends anymore. I don't care if Amazon didn't have the right to sell you the license. They did, so they distributed without a license, and we can even prove distribution in this case as there're credit card records. Amazon should have to pay the publisher at least $80,000 per copy. Then they should have to foot the publisher's bill to sue each individual who bought a license from Amazon to make them all relinquish their copies. That's what the courts have determined is fair, so apply it equally thank you very much.

Re:Contract Law?

[Roger W Moore]

Not the same. I use ebooks (not Kindle!) because they are far easier and lighter to carry around. A paper replacement is not as good and might would not be acceptable - in this case I just wasted several hours reading the start of the book. There is also the loss of use while they get me a replacement (if I did agree to it), the time I wasted calling them up to find out what had happened etc. etc. I'm sure a lawyer could probably find more but obviously it would be O($1k) not O($1M).

Re:Contract Law?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

If they didn't have the right to sell the book, surely the morally correct action from Amazon would be to take full responsibility for their error and come to an agreement with the copyright owners for the right to allow people to keep the book. At Amazon's expense of course.

I think Amazon is great, but I'd never dream of using it (or any other supplier for that matter) for stuff I wasn't sure of being able to keep.

Re:Contract Law?

[jc42]

At best what Amazon is doing is like a friend who's been given a key to your house coming in, taking books, and leaving what they think the book is worth on the table.

Interesting analogy. But it's actually more like you bought a house, and didn't realize that the broker kept a copy of the keys. The broker then went into your house, took things, and left money in their place. It'd be especially fun if the broker took things that "belong" with the house, such as the refrigerator or furnace or water heater or bathroom fixtures; that would give a better parallel than if the goods were purchased from a different seller.

If this sort of things is upheld by the courts, it could make for an interesting legal precedent.

Re:Contract Law?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Interesting that you say $80,000/copy. Isn't that what P2P "pirates" are supposed to pay? Why not Amazon? Its not like $80,000/copy sold would really hurt them, and it would be fair.

Re:Contract Law?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

Yup, that's where the $ amount comes from. What's good for the goose...

Re:Contract Law?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

You're right, I like your analogy better. I do hope that this comes before a judge to find out what the legal system does with this.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody mod this bozo down, and quick! He gets several issues very wrong here. First, the company did have the legal right to sell the Orwell works. However, they chose to stop selling ebooks through Amazon. For whatever reason, Amazon caved into their request that all copies be pulled. Second, you are allowed to sell versions of Public Domain works, much in the same way you are allowed to sell copies of open source software. There's nothing inherently illegal about that.

Never!

[Charan]

What are you talking about? Amazon has never sold copies of 1984 or Animal Farm in digital format, and to suggest otherwise is treasonous.

only pirates win

[Khashishi]

If I were one of the customers who had my book deleted, then I would feel entitled--even compelled--to download a DRM-free copy from the internet.

Re:only pirates win

[Maudib]

We should all feel compelled to download content from any entity directly associated with the thieves that pushed through copyright extension act. It is a moral imperative to make them suffer as much as possible until they undo the harm they have caused (ie, billions in reparations to the commons) or go out of business. "Artists" have no business complaining as long as they are in league with the relevant publishers. Burn them down.

Re:only pirates win

[skeeto]

That's what I would do in the first place anyway.

Re:only pirates win

[mark-t]

An even better long-term solution is to discard the device that gives companies the ability to do this to you, and use one that utilizes drm-free formats. And by discard, I mean to chuck, get rid of, recycle, or throw away... I don't mean sell it to some other sap who will only end up supporting companies that pull this sort of crap.

Re:only pirates win

[Idiomatick]

You do realize the author has been dead 60years right? That fact alone compels me to 'pirate' a copy.... No need for any extra reasons. Who exactly do you think you are supporting by giving amazon money?

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Just Some Guy]

Once it was discovered, Amazon should refund the end customers (which it has done in this case) and then take up action against me.

Amazon should offer refunds to the end customers, but I'd take up arms if they tried to sneak in at night.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead tree editions of Shakespeare are actually an interesting case, because unless the publisher is utter crap, they all have extensive footnotes and probably some amount introductory content, analysis, etc. Otherwise you'd miss all the dirty jokes! All that is covered under copyright; it's valuable original work.

Mark Twain is probably a better example.

When they pull Fahrenheit 451...

[Anonymous Coward]

... will all Kindles go up in flames?

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[synthesizerpatel]

FYI, if something is in the public domain, anyone can sell it, show it, remake it, etc. This is why you see 'It's a wonderful life' on every channel during Christmas. So it's not that they don't have the right, it's that anyone could/can.

Bad precedent

[gmuslera]

They have a gun, and they have the will to use it.

Next time because you got a problem with a credit card, your grand father comes from Iran, or your name starts with S some of your library will vanish.

Its time to realize who is really the owner of the Kindle you bought.

Re:Not irony in the literay sense...

[CorporateSuit]

That's the literary definition of the word "ironic", which for all intents and purposes of all discussion, besides English doctorate dissertations, is incorrect.

Ironic means contrary to plan or expectation. Atilla the Hun dying of a nosebleed is ironic (you would expect a warrior to die in battle). King Arthur and his knights being attacked and overwhelmed by a rabbit is ironic. Two books (designed to mock and illuminate the dangers of corrupting laws) being stolen from people in the name of the author almost 60 years after his death by citing a growingly corrupted law is ironic.

Simple solution: new Kindle "accessory"

[lumenistan]

Hi, Billy Mays here!
Are you tired of content being taken from or added to your Kindle arbitrarily?
Are you sick to your stomach at the thought of losing control?
Are you afraid to come to terms with not owning stuff you bought?

Well do I have a product for you!

Announcing the ReadingRoom 5000!

Now you can store and enjoy your Kindle without fear of having it messed with by THE MAN! And, as a bonus, you'll also be safe from rabid telemarketers, alien abduction, and bolts of lightning. But we're not done yet! If you act now, we'll throw in another one at no additional cost! (just pay shipping and handling - it's reasonable, I promise)

...or is that too soon?

I'm a militant agnostic

[jra]

I don't know, and *you don't either*.

Re:I'm a militant agnostic

[Bryan K. Feir]

Ahh, so a follower of Slag-Blah, then?

Re:I'm a militant agnostic

[4D6963]

Yes I do. When you'll learn to use logic you'll realise that you can know something doesn't exist when you can explain why people think it exists to begin with.

Re:Not irony in the literay sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

...The quality or state of an event being both coincidental and contradictory in a humorous [fashion]

That sounds like it fits this to me:
event -- Amazon deletes customers' copies of 1984
1984 -- one plot device is the rewriting of history by censoring (deleting) news of events so that they appear to have never happened to the larger world. This is understood by the reader to be a bad thing.
coincidence -- Amazon has deleted "history" of the purchase of a book which deals in a contraindicative fashion with the deleting of history.

Oddly, that first definition -- A statement that, when taken in context, may actually mean the opposite of what is written literally -- sounds to me more like sarcasm than irony.

But in any case, I don't have a problem distinguishing the irony in Amazon's choice of books to delete (not that they themselves chose, strictly speaking, but the situation is still the same). Much different than the list of unfortunate events given by Alanis Morissette, with hardly a bit of irony. :P

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Pitr]

Um... NO!

If I buy something, and it's recalled (obviously we're not talking about food or other perishables) it's mine. It's been sold. Except where it's stolen or other specific cases, it can't be reposessed from me. A book that was printed without permission? Cops aren't coming to my door to get it back. It's mine. The problem, and why it's absolutely NOT ok is that with DRM and remote kill options you can take it back, which by some views is or should be completely illegal.

There are so many vague laws surrounding virtual items that the waters are cloudy on a good day. If you take a CD it's stealing, if you copy an MP3 it's copyright infringement (because you can't "take" it, only "copy" it). Same w/ books, but when you *buy* something you have ownership of it. Media companies want to maintain ownership and only sell you "licences" which can be revoked at any time. This is where it becomes a slippery slope. Take a page (real or virtual) from one of the books from the article. Want to suppress info? You don't need to "burn books" anymore, just a system wide revoke and delete. Done!

It seems like a paranoid point of view, and that the slippery slope is still on the other side of the field, and you might say, "oh, well I understand their reasoning", fine, but they still shouldn't have the *ability* to have done it. That's the issue.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[LordVader717]

It's not any different than if I took a public-domain work and tried to sell a Kindle version on Amazon. Once it was discovered, Amazon should refund the end customers (which it has done in this case) and then take up action against me.

That would be perfectly legal. No-one will stop you selling public domain content for profit.

If indeed the "seller" didn't have rights to the book, it still isn't a simple matter of just deleting the copies. The infringement has already taken place. It doesn't give Amazon the right to delete content they sold.

It seems like only 2 months ago

[kent_eh]

when we discussed this, and so many people said that Amazon would never be crazy enough to try and pull a stunt like this...

Of course,others among us were a bit more cynical about what Amazon would or wouldn't do.

In a story just dripping with irony...

[Thad Zurich]

... netbook owners awoke this morning to discover that Chrome OS had mysteriously disappeared from their netbooks. These were netbooks that they had bought and paid for, and thought they owned. Apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an operating system, and Google, whose business lives and dies by advertiser happiness, electronically deleted all instances of Chrome from people's netbooks and credited their accounts for the price ($0). Microsoft immediately raised the price of netbook client licenses...

Re:Not irony in the literay sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd have been better still if it'd been Fahrenheit 451.

Damn it, Mark Pilgrim!

[Grendel Drago]

I remember thinking that "The Future of Reading" was a silly, over-the-top bit of polemic. Well, here's hoping that those folks paid attention to Randall Munroe... or, I suppose, infringe local copyright law by downloading a copy from a jurisdiction where it's in the public domain.

Harmony

[PhotoGuy]

I have bought copies of both books in my (distant) past.

Recently, I "found" electronic copies of them, and re-read them, enjoying them very much, more so than when I first purchased them. I read them on a free reader on two different handheld devices (one Windows CE; ugh, but it's my phone, too, so meh), and one Linux based (cooler, but blah, it's not my phone).

Nobody revoked anything on me. Nobody took away my right to read. Nobody took away my license to read these books that I purchased awhile back. Nobody could, because it was through "unauthorized" channels. But I bought the damn book. And here in Canada, even borrowing the book/record/game gives you permission to copy it for yourself for personal use.

Most consumers wouldn't know how to do what I did, and that's sad.

I'll never buy into DRM.

Also, I've gotten HDTV through less than legit means, while simultaneously paying for full subscription. (If I used that subscription purely, I'd be forced to do the D-to-A-to-D route, blah). But I get my HDTV, for personal use, recordable, copyable, save-able, pure. Through unauthorized means. I'm supposedly legally allowed to, but not permitted to actually do so, as a non-informed consumer.

In general, the producers need to know that their content isn't *that* valuable or *that* essential to people's lives. It's not freakin' oxygen. But if the masses want to toss you a few bucks each for unrestricted access to it (which I would), you should accept it, and you'll be rich. Richer than astronauts (as Homer would say).

But you keep trying to deny me something I bought, and you wont't survive. I can guarantee that...

I own a Kindle and my copy of 1984 is still there.

[thesandtiger]

Because I didn't buy it from Amazon.

And more and more I'm looking at alternative sources for any ebooks I buy, because Amazon keeps doing this kind of shit.

Winston, welcome to 2009

[rogerdr]

DRM, otherwise known as the Master Control Program, is a nifty tool for corporate kings (and their shills), but not the last one. What these companies are aiming for is eternal pay-for-play, when every view, listen, or use of media must be paid for instantly. It's not a conspiracy if they don't have to conspire. They all want it that way, so they don't even have to cooperate in secret. Hail Pirate Bay!

UPDATE: They're sorry, and they promise not ...

[jra]

...to do it again:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218501227

Re:UPDATE: They're sorry, and they promise not ...

[znerk]

How freakin' hard is it to make a url into a link? I mean, really...

This is why eBooks keep failing

[Frightened_Turtle]

This is why eBook readers and books keep failing. Every eBook reader company to date has failed at some point because they so lock up the books that consumers have no confidence in the product.

Perhaps Amazon is merely using this as a marketing scheme to drive people away from ebooks and sticking with killing trees.

What happened to the annotations?

[Obispus]

I'm not familiar with the concrete capabilities of the Kindles, but I seem to recall that it's possible to annotate the ebooks. If Amazon deletes the ebook, do all its annotations get deleted as well? Annotations are the property of the person who wrote them (presumably, the device owner), so Amazon can't pissibly have a right to delete them.

Re:What happened to the annotations?

[Brandee07]

They're stored in a text file on the Kindle itself, in addition to appearing in the book where the annotation is made. It's called MyClippings.txt

At least they got their money back...

[Lucky75]

Hey, at least they gave them their money back, unlike the DRM music stores that closed down. But let this be a(nother) lesson to everyone, don't pay for media that you don't phyiscally (or electronically) own and have full control over.

What the...

[Anonymous Struct]

They Fahrenheit 451'd Animal Farm and 1984!

could this type of thing happen on an ipod?

[Satanboy]

This is a pretty hypothetical question, so bear with me.

What would happen if an Itunes song was released accidentally by a performer's company before it was actually supposed to be released? Let's say The Jonas Brothers ,(just for an example since we all know the song would be mass distributed very quickly), made a song and put it on Itunes. Well, let's say that the song was not properly licensed for whatever legal mumbo jumbo and the record company wanted to withhold the sales until this was done.

What would happen if they pulled the use of that one song from everyone's ipod?

And one other question: What would happen if there was a legal dispute over a song that was released on Itunes and the winner decided nobody had the right to have that DRM copy and needed to buy a copy from their version instead? Could they just pull the song, refund the money and make all the users redownload the file with the new DRM?

Re:could this type of thing happen on an ipod?

[Anonymous Coward]

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: it has happened before, Apple has remotely deleted iPhone applications after customers downloaded/bought them. Given that they have this ability, there's no reason they couldn't apply it to a song as well. I've got a question though, how many of you who are suggesting a boycot of Kindle, own an iPhone and still buy song/applications from Apple? If you do, then you're a hypocrite.

Wat

[artemus prime]

Wait. This is something you already paid for and downloaded. How can they "pull" it from your own device? Is this more of that DRM bullshit where a company dictates how long a piece of code stays on your device with constant monitoring? If so, please, by all means, boycott the hell out of it.

Re:Wat

[Anonymous Coward]

They got their money back as well. Yeah it sucks but for a license to use something, I'd say getting your money back and them taking the book back seems fair in this situation? Its not like you bought a physical product that you could have resold or something worth more now than it was when you bought and they are ripping you off and taking it back. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll view other sides if I see some decent ones presented. No DRM is evil arguments though, I already know that. The people buying these books should have known the license of what they were buying so that is not the point.

Re:Wat

[znerk]

Yeah it sucks but for a license to use something, I'd say getting your money back and them taking the book back seems fair in this situation? Its not like you bought a physical product that you could have resold or something worth more now than it was when you bought and they are ripping you off and taking it back.

... people buying these books should have known the license of what they were buying...

Actually, it is exactly like you bought a physical product...

From the Kindle Licensing Agreement (relevant phrase emphasised):

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.

As far as I can tell (mind you, I'm no lawyer), Amazon just left itself wide-open for violation-of-contract lawsuits, as well as the possibility of criminal charges for petty theft. Another poster said there would be lots of Kindles on ebay - I'd rather see Amazon buying them all back (as well as the ebooks that were purchased for them), as part of the reparations in a breach-of-contract civil (class action?) suit.

I am extremely interested in the outcome of any cases this generates... either Amazon is guilty of theft and/or fraud, or digital media isn't actual property... either way, looks like the Kindle just got a well-deserved smackdown, and there's all kinds of potential for piracy advocates to fire up the war-wagons. I hope this gets a decent amount of publicity.

On an only semi-related note... at what point do we simply allow copyright to slip quietly away? No one appears to be giving it anything but lip service, any more...

Re:Wat

[Hognoxious]

As far as I can tell (mind you, I'm no lawyer), Amazon just left itself wide-open for violation-of-contract lawsuits

You'd be entitled to be restored to the position before the purchase, i.e. you don't have the book, you do have the money.

Since they already gave a refund, you'd be suing to make the situation exactly as it is.

as well as the possibility of criminal charges for petty theft.

Wrong, for reasons given above.

Re:Wat

[Brandee07]

They're between a rock and a hard place: Either they violate their EULA with customers, or they violate US copyright law and get sued by Orwell's estate.

Re:Wat

[znerk]

You'd be entitled to be restored to the position before the purchase, i.e. you don't have the book, you do have the money.
Since they already gave a refund, you'd be suing to make the situation exactly as it is.

Not quite, young grasshopper... you seem to be jumping to a false conclusion. The situation before the purchase would be me without several hundred ebooks, and also not having a Kindle (not to mention the several hundred US dollars that were in my pocket beforehand). The legal situation, as I understand it, is that they violated the contract that I had to agree to when I purchased the blasted thing, so I can (legally) make them compensate me for the entirety of my lost value.

They have control of device (including plain txt)

[Ilgaz]

Not if Amazon remotely turns off non-drm files reading. Man, they can actually erase books remotely, they can't turn off a feature?

IMHO, device vendor and software vendor along with content provider should always be separate with lots of options. It is just like buying iPhone and whining on slashdot about how evil Apple is for not allowing this or that.

Kindle is really something like "amazon owns you, your device, your reading habits, your location".

Erasing 1984 alone is amazing. Perhaps someone really wanted to show what Kindle is and released it illegally on purpose. If it is the case, I am really impressed. It doesn't have to be a "freedom fighter", it could be some amazon rival proxying etc.

download the audiobook.

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks to our friends...

http://www.archive.org/details/George-Orwell-1984-Audio-book

live by the publishers?

[CAIMLAS]

Nay, they do not entirely live by the will of the publishers. The customers are the other half of the equation. Bow out like this to enough publishers and they will end up killing the digital book market for themselves (as well as Kindle sales).

New fourth one

[Weaselmancer]

Ignorance is strength
War is peace
Freedom is slavery

And the new fourth one:

OWNERSHIP IS DISCRETIONARY

Re:New fourth one

[Ziest]

Amen, brother!

Re:New fourth one

[Anonymous Coward]

OWNERSHIP IS DISCRETIONARY

More accurately: "Licensing is Ownership"

This is bad for Amazon, too

[Geckoman]

I don't condone what Amazon did, and I think they should've gone to bat for their customers, but don't lose sight of what a problem this presents for Amazon's bottom line.

This could render them effectively unable to use any of the Kindle ebook revenue for non-public domain works, since they could conceivably be required to refund all of those funds at the demand of the publishers. They could be forced to collect the money, then just stuff it into an interest-bearing account in case they have to give it back.

So, in effect, we're not even renting the ebooks, we're just giving Amazon an interest-free loan in exchange for getting to borrow the books for a while.

A little more, he says.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. But you can optimize that clause away and after linking you'll discover that the iLiad costs approximately E700 which is a bit steep considering that you can get a small laptop for around E250.

Re:The only time I'll ever recommend a Sony produc

[CAIMLAS]

The Kindle has another concrete advantage over hacked PSPs (well, several, but they're due to one cause): the lack of LCD and the presence of the 'e-ink' screen technology. It results in surface which is easier to read (and more like paper) as well as very significant battery life increases. IE, you can just pick it up and read it, throw it in a bag or your closet, and forget about it for a while without worrying about your "book" losing its charge.

Here is what I know...

[krbvroc1]

From reading the various comments, it appears that someone illegally sold the books in question using the
Amazon 'self-publishing' feature. In other words, Amazon had no right to sell the book in the first place.

Amazon certainly failed in its responsibility to ensure it was only selling things it was entitled too. And Amazon has yet to clearly state that this is what actually happened.

But I think the respresentations in the media so far is that the publisher of Orwells books changed their mind, which does not appear to be the case. If that happened, people who had purchased the book already would still have their purchase. Rather, in this case, Amazon sold 'stolen merchandise', and the technology behind the Kindle allows recourse unlike a physical book.

How does this shit get modded up? Uh, You're Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital content *is* owned. The âoefirst-sale doctrineâ of U.S. Copyright Law protects owners of digital content with EULAs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

Re:They have control of device (including plain tx

[Ortega-Starfire]

>Not if Amazon remotely turns off non-drm files reading. Man, they can actually erase books remotely, they can't turn off a feature?

They have. Read up on when they deactivated the text to speech feature.

Score 1 to Stallman

[BlackSabbath]

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Rollerball

[tepples]

I heard a rumour once that there was a remake of Rollerball

You mean that multi-screen pinball game for the NES developed by HAL? It doesn't have a direct remake, but there are spiritual sequels: Kirby's Pinball Land (Game Boy) and Monster Pinball (iPod Touch).

Any more powerful symbols to muck up with?

[smchris]

_Now_ how many people at Amazon's marketing wish they could stick the faces of some lawyers in a rat cage?

Feedbooks

[jdwoods]

Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm are freely available from Project Gutenburg and from FeedBooks.

FeedBooks even has them nicely formatted for the Kindle and a very convenient catalog useable from the Kindle to download them at will. For more information, see: http://www.feedbooks.com/help/kindle

This is theft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon and the publishers have just stolen from the customers. I'm not saying the customers didn't ask for it, because they were the ones dumb enough to buy a device that allows "take-back-zies on the part of the seller.

I would be stupid to buy a car that can drive its self back to the dealer at their (remote) command, and I would be stupid to buy a digital product that can be remotely deactivated.

Somebody really needs to sue them for this, but people in this country typically let corporations walk all over them.

Ironically the Russians have Orwell's works online

[Orion Blastar]

Over here are the Russian's versions of George Orwell's works translated into English and as far as I know the Russians licensed the texts from various estates in 2004 and set up this web site.

The books can be download in RTF, HTML, and Text formats, no PDFs that I know of.

In Russia the copyrights are different because it is a different set of laws. This is the web page on the copyright etc and this page says for educational and non-commercial use only. So I guess you cannot republish the works, but you can read them from the web site as long as it is educational and for non-commercial use only.

Once again Slashdot posts stupid headlines.

[Domini]

I think Amazon did the right thing and according to their official response:

Amazon Kindle Customer Service says:
"These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future, books will not be removed from customers' devices in these circumstances."

Re:Once again Slashdot posts stupid headlines.

[jipn4]

Yeah, right. And they're going to stick with that policy... as long as it's convenient for them.

The book actually never has been removed! It never existed!

Re:Once again Slashdot posts stupid headlines.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand that last sentence. What exactly are they going to do? Remove their own ability to do this? If there is a way for customers to keep the books in these circumstances, why didn't they apply it to this situation as well?

Maybe they mean they are implementing measures to ensure this situation doesn't occur again, but that isn't what they are actually saying.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[tgd]

No, its not free legally online in the US, and the Kindle is US only.

As others have said a hundred times in this thread, Amazon took back something they could not legally sell. The way people can self-publish on the Kindle store, and the VAST number of books that people have ripped off from Project Gutenberg and are trying to sell on there, its just a matter of time until a book that is legal in places other than the US gets on there. That's what happened. It'll probably happen again.

I don't actually know anyone with a Kindle who is particularly upset about it beyond the initial knee-jerk reaction.

If you buy stolen property, you don't get to keep it.

Digital Smoke Screen

[chicago_scott]

This is a pretty amazing story. In the Digital Age a distributor fells that they are allowed to invade an electronic device that you own, steal a copy of digital media that you own and force you to accept a refund for something that YOU own.

Let's imagine this happened thirty years ago, or even ten years ago for that matter. A book store sells a book to you and for whatever the publisher decides they don't want to sell the book to you and must have it back. The publisher must now trespass onto your property, break into your house, steal your book, leave a cash refund on your table and then leave your property without any one noticing just to get the book back. A crime has now been committed; namely trespassing, breaking and entering and theft.

Both of these scenarios are exactly the same, except that in today's scenario the book is in a DIGITAL format, which for some magical reason means that a publisher can trespass onto your property and steal something that you own.

In what other context, except the digital context, would behavior like this be tolerated or acceptable, and not to mention legal?

Re:Digital Smoke Screen

[turkeyfish]

Perhaps the idea is to get users to go off and get DRM'd materials illegally, then set up a second income stream by suing them.

It may not be 1984 or an Animal Farm, but it is certainly a Brave New World.

Re:Digital Smoke Screen

[haifastudent]

Except that it's not your property. Amazon _rents_ the kindle and _licenses_ the content. They call it "buying" as a marketing gimmick, but the terms of service are clear that it is a rental and a license. The frustration should be levied at the regulators who should stop them from using terms like "buying" or "purchasing".

Re:Digital Smoke Screen

[oreaq]

Amazon's terms state that they are selling you are permanent license.

Re:Digital Smoke Screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's imagine this happened thirty years ago, or even ten years ago for that matter. A book store sells a book to you and for whatever the publisher decides they don't want to sell the book to you and must have it back. The publisher must now trespass onto your property, break into your house, steal your book, leave a cash refund on your table and then leave your property without any one noticing just to get the book back.

They don't need to break in, you have given them copies of your keys. They don't trespass because you have given them an open invitation.

Re:Digital Smoke Screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially interesting if you buy a book which then increases in value. Say, if the author dies. Can they recall that book, and force you to re-buy it at a higher price if you want to keep it?

Re:Digital Smoke Screen

[haifastudent]

The same terms state that they can change the terms whenever they want, when they see fit.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Fizzol]

It wasn't on a "whim." Stop spreading FUD.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

A book that was printed without permission? Cops aren't coming to my door to get it back. It's mine.

Actually you're dead wrong. Same as buying stolen property. It can be taken back. In the case of a book it's kind of unlikely just because it's not worth anyone's time but technically the "cops" could take it back if they wanted.

Additionally, you're not "buying" books on the Kindle. You're paying money for a license to view the DRM'd material. You do not own it in any way.

Re:Whatever The Feature Creeper says

[nanospook]

What?

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Anonymous Coward]

If an American were to visit Australia and obtain a copy of 1984 (possibly storing it on their Kindle), then return to the US, have they broken copyright law? Are they still legally entitled to keep the copy?

Could this be the start of IP tourism?

In light of the current presidential Obamination..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to put a casual spin on this.

If I were amazon, I would have chopped a few different books first, before doing Orwell's stuff. Let the fervor die down before you axe them so nobody cries conspiracy like they should be. Personally, I think the Obamination camp screwed up on this one.

Folks, if you haven't read either 1984 or Animal Farm (used to be required reading in college and some high schools) you're unaware that they correlate directly to the B.S. going on in the U.S. Govt right now.

Obama? Where is your actual birth certificate? Not the certificate of live birth but the actual hospital birth certificate? (the newspaper clipping about the Obama's having a son born to them was written because of the certificate of live birth, not because the newspaper saw a birth certificate!)

A government big enough to give you what you want is a govt big enough to take away everything you own. Thomas Jefferson
Obama is NOT a friend of the Constitution and is NOT in favor of America remaining a Democratic-Republic.

     

Learn English

[Anonymous Coward]

this practice seems to cross the boarder.

So this annoyed the person renting your spare room?

In the car dealer situation

[Anonymous Coward]

the car dealer sends you a notification and you still have possession of the car while considering your options how to respond to the unproven allegations that the car was stolen (if they weren't unproven allegations, it would be the police rather than the dealer who contacted you).

The dealer doesn't come out to your house in the middle of the night and take the car, so that it is already gone before you find out what happened.

451

[Mongoose Disciple]

I too will stick to my nice, PRINTED books, thank you very much!

Sure you will... until the firemen show up to BURN them!

Er... we're still on the dystopian fiction kick from the article summary, right?

Re:451

[kheldan]

Oh yah? Let's see them burn the copy I have memorized! Hah! XD

Re:451

[nightgeometry]

Oh yah? Let's see them burn the copy I have memorized!

That shouldn't be too hard to cover, as Heinrich Heine said: "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."

Re:451

[Alcoholist]

Well, the thing is called a 'kindle'.

WTF???

[lotho brandybuck]

You mean I could've been in the middle of reading one of these books, go to bed one night, go to work the next day, then the next nite when I've got horrible, crippling insomnia, have completely deprived of book I was mentally engaged in with absolutely no notice? I'd be really, really pissed.

not a fair spin on the story

[Anonymous Coward]

"business lives and dies by publisher happiness"

More like we didn't want publishers to sue us for violating their copyright. It is cheaper to give customers a bunch of goodies when they call and complain than to settle on a copyright infringement lawsuit or on terms of a business contract.

Many publishers generally do what we say because we point at the numbers and say "look here, see how you're making a ton of money. well we're the reason why." But publishers are a fickle bunch and can be very paranoid about disrupting their business, they are so risk adverse as to create risk by not adapting to the new marketplace.

I feel a class action lawsuit coming...

[flyingfsck]

I hope one of the annoyed readers is a lawyer.

Am I the only one?

[SupremoMan]

Am I the only one who finds the books in question ironic?

*DUCKS FOR COVER*

in newspeak

[Ralph Spoilsport]

On 17 07 2009, 12:57 PM, NYT column "Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others" thoughtcrime describes doubleplusgood Amazon goodthink protection of rightsholders interests in thoughtcrime prolefeed "1984" and "Animal Farm" by online rectify of Kindle Minitrue prolefeed device. Rightsholders have pubclear for said prolefeed, Amazon has noclear for publication. Amazon goodthink heroes send online rectify to all Kindle infected by thoughtcrime revs of 1984 and Animal Farm. Commendation from Minitrue to Amazon for goodthink online rectify. Increased chocolate supply and Victory Gin for all Amazon inner party execs and commendations to involved Amazon employees in online rectify solution.

All hail Big Brother.

RS

Kindle is for burning

[Anonymous Coward]

save the books! let them not burn! go pdf/netbook! he kindle Blows and should be tossed to the fires...wait, isn't amazon abandoning it?

Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday someone in some corporate office decides that you should not read or think a certain way. So the book or newspaper article just disappears from your reader. It doesn't exist, it never existed. Or better yet, you are reading a book and find that it is not the same book you read twenty years ago because the story has been changed in some subtle way. Turns out you don't have to take away people's rights at the point of a gun. Just give them some easy and convenient technology that's "really cool" and they'll surrender their rights without a whimper.

next step: modification

[Tom]

Deletion is bad enough, I don't think I need to chime in with the other posters on that.

But think a little further. This also allows patching, just delete the old version and replace it with a new one, right? So 1984 has in fact become possible. Your books can not only vanish at any time, they can also change at any time.

Wait until we get our newspapers through electronic readers, and you'll see it happen. I bet.

Perfectly legal

[aepervius]

They did not BUY the book, they PAID for a CONTRACT for a SERVICE. This Service ioncluded them being able to read Animal Farms and 1984, and could be revoked any time. In other word, they rented something, and the contract said they could stop being offered that something at ANY time. THIS is the future eBook want to offer. And people says I am crazy to think this is not the future I want. I loan my book , I buy my book, I don't *RENT* them to lose them at the fucking free will of some corporate drone on the other side of the earth. The only eBook I would ever want are the one without DRM. (creative content?).

Question for Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote to Amazon, using my account, and asked if the same policy applies to hard copies of books purchased. Do they reserve the right to break into my house and take them back if they decide I shouldn't have them? Perhaps some of you have related questions to ask Amazon. Here is the contact page, to save you some work:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=&type=email&skip=true#csTop

Old Growth Forests

[turkeyfish]

Of remaining forests probably fewer than 9% are old growth. Old growth forests (typically uncut for 200+ years) are few and far between, nowadays. Sadly, so is most of the fauna associated with old growth forests.

I was thinking about buying one, but now

[turkeyfish]

Forget It. I'll buy books and plant trees instead. Besides, hundreds of thousands of Kindles downloading (uploading?) ebooks comes at a non-insignificant energy cost (CO2 production) It would be a good question, what is the annual CO2 production either per gibabyte or per person per year per.

Available online, for free, and without DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in case it hasn't been mentioned here, the complete works of Orwell are available online for free in html, pdf, ms word, and txt files. Just google for it.

My fears justified?

[xx01dk]

Not that I had any real fears, mind you, but the main reason that I don't own a Kindle or an account on itunes is precisely because of this shit--you don't physically own what you buy. Yeah I could hack an ipod or kindle to do what I want, but out of the box these objects are unacceptable to me. Digital medium still has a long way to go before the masses accept it on a level on par with existing analogue tech.

Should not have trusted Amazon.

[krischik]

How good that my Sony PRS 505 has no wireless connection. no one deletes anything of that one except me. All my books are backupted also Mac and from the to my Time TimeCapsule.

And no, I don't trust Sony either - I use Calibre for Library management.

DRM free eBook shops

[krischik]

There is still hope - the first eBooks stores which sell DRM free have appeared. And most readers display DRM free content as just fine. So my hope is that DRM and vendor lock in will fail.

Of all books

[giorgist]

Of all books erasing 1984 is such a great choice :-)

Very funny....

[Anonymous Coward]

The book which warned us about this situation erased...

Fahrenheit 451

[Anonymous Coward]

> Stick with dead tree editions..
> For stuff you really want to have access to permanently.

Well, at least until they start imitating Fahrenheit 451...

Be careful what you say

[cstacy]

Be careful what you say,
or they'll take you
to room 404

US copyright law is at fault, not Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I don't get the big deal. Obviously I'm no fan of DRM but with the Kindle you are paying for convenience and wireless service. If you are in the middle of reading the book then keep your wireless off and they can't remove anything. But I frankly welcome publishers making Amazon take back my purchases and give me a full refund. It's like a free library. How often can you take books you've already read to a used book store and sell them back for the full cover price? If there was no full refund then obviously it would be totally unacceptable. But now with all the indignation Amazon has said they'll never do it again. Thanks a lot.

This Does Not Bode Well

[Gerhardius]

When I was given a Kindle I found it interesting but not truly captivating. I found myself far more concerned with what electronic book distribution means long term and it was not a cheery vision. Governments will find it far easier to control the acquisition and distribution of knowledge in a society where print is inherently subversive. When books can be pulled at will we are in serious danger.

by the great grandchildren of once famous authors

[Anonymous Coward]

and british museums!

In my day

[commandlinegamer]

We didn't have electronic deletion, let alone memory holes. We had to burn our books with flint and tinder.

Rights Mess

[cjb110]

The core of the problem highlighted by this fiasco is not that a company can take away what you paid for in good faith. It's that a company that has a business model around distributing copyrighted works can't even work out who owns the copyrights!

I mean wtf?
How the hell can the media/entertainment companies go after the public for copyright infringement when they themselves don't have a clue who owns what.

This is issue that the governments need to sort, simplify the ownership of copyright and force any owners to keep acurate records (available to all) about what copyrights they own. Ideally also scrap one piece of work being under multiple copyrights for stupid things like geographic region, and the practise of altering/remarketting a public domain work just so you can claim copyright on the 'new' version.

Eastasia*

[dragisha]

War is waged against Eurasia.

In other news, my wait for Kindle DX cloned/hacked continues.

Bad,bad,bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate forced recalls. Companies should not be able to reach into our computers and do things.

it was a stupid idea to begin with

[Anonymous Coward]

all i have to say is who didn't see this coming?
I mean, com'n you want to replace a hard copy paper book with something that can be arbitrarily edited or deleted by the powers that be? and for what? so that you can look cool because you have some fancy electronic device instead of a few hundred pages bound together?

there's no need to go reinventing the book. especially the way we reinvent things today.

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[mark-t]

This isn't an issue of it being recalled, it is more of an issue that the entity who sold it to you was never supposed to....

Consider that if you buy a car from a used car lot, and then after you buy it, it turns out that it was stolen.... you can say goodbye to your car... there is squat-all you can do to keep it... and any money you are out of will have to be taken up directly with the place where you bought it. If they are nice, they may even refund your money before you even asked, and would undoubtedly attempt to sue who they purchased it from. Differences between physical property theft and copyright infringement notwithstanding, I imagine that Amazon's lawyers are busy doing something like this as we speak, since the entity that made these ebooks available to Amazon appears to never have actually had the authority to have done so.

In their words...

[theendlessnow]

When asked about the pull of the books, they replied, "Pulling the titles seemed double-plus-good."

This makes me sad.

[seekret]

That is just plain wrong. To think... I loved you Amazon. At least I feel better in my decision to stick with good old paper for non public domain books and to just use my PMP/computer for reading the classics.

I'm sure this is NOT a contract, okay!

[bornagainpenguin]

A contract is binding on two parties--not one party gets to do whatever the hell they want while the other is obligated to put up with it.

--bornagainpenguin

Better question--How is this not hacking?

[bornagainpenguin]

Seriously. Going exactly by the comparison you have just made this is a classic textbook example of the kind of stuff the po-po sent hundreds of hackers to prison on by claiming this was breaking and entering.
 
--bornagainpenguin

Steal this book

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Download the full text for free and put it on your Kindle. And stop whining.

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Anonymous Coward]

You are all serfs. You deserve to be treated this way for weakly giving away your power. Sheep.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have no public domain. It's all shit from the 1800s and up to the 20s.

Our culture is defined by the music we listen to and the movies we see, and all of that is firmly in the hands of the douchbags

Yeah, until they change their mind

[PotatoHead]

the core of the issue is that they have the control over YOUR stuff. Kindle users are just on a rental program.

Leave the Wireless OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the way to go for Kindle users is to leave the wireless off at all times and upload your content with USB when needed. AFAIK the can't do shit to your Kindle with the wireless off. Am I wrong?

Re:Not irony in the literay sense...

[sjs132]

There is no irony... Amazon did NOT censor the book. Had the book been censored, then parts of the book would have been removed and nobody would of ever known. OR censorship could of happened if the book was completely removed from ALL of the Amazon book list, but 1984 is readily purchased on Amazon.com website.

Yes, a publisher changed its mind, and I'm sure in the fine print of some click through licensing, Amazon has preserved the right to remove books that fall into this catagory and refund the purchased price. But it is not censorship. More akin to a peanut butter recall.

Censorship is when a document about the enviorment is published in the EPA and the person who wrote it is threatend to keep it quiet, and the existance of the document is hidden. That IS censorship and it happened just a few months ago in our own government.

So I restate my claim that NO IRONY EXISTS as it was stated because the censorship does not exist in this case!

Feedbooks

[Epsillon]

Seems they (1984 and Animal Farm) have both disappeared from Feedbooks, too. Strangely, they haven't disappeared from my Tungsten's SD card. Looks like I control my devices, not some faceless waste of oxygen in an office. What a very odd, possibly seditious idea...

Why Kindle when there is Hanlin and others?

[Artemis3]

Why people buy Kindles when there is a myriad of asian counterparts that can do the same much better, without DRM or remote control whatsoever, and able to render .pdf, graphic formats and other ebook formats?. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlin_eReader http://www.jinke.com.cn/Compagesql/English/embedpro/index.asp

Re:Why Kindle when there is Hanlin and others?

[Artemis3]

http://freshtech.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/kindle-vs-hanlin-ereader-v3-comparison/
Did i mention this chinese eReader uses Linux? Just so you knew...

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[lessthan]

...the new ruling elite.

meh, i doubt that. Beside other geeks, how many people do you know who actually read books? (Harry Potter and Twilight doesn't count.) I think that, rather than enobling these families, these copyright measures will ensure that these books will be forgotten.

Your Rations

[Danimoth]

Your ration of 1984 has been increased to 0 copies in celebration of a great victory!

I had 1984 on my Kindle

[dsypul]

I had 1984 on my Kindle and I am not upset that it has been removed. Truth be told, those that have replied bashing Amazon and DRM are the perfect candidates for bringing the fiction of 1984 into reality. I think that Amazon is trying to bring as much content to the Kindle as quickly as possible, they are doing this by allowing third parties to publish material to the Kindle. It was a third party that violated copyright of the books, Amazon did the right thing by honoring the copyright!

Downloading copyrighted material is stealing, you aren't stealing from Amazon or any other retailer. You are stealing from the artist or the estate of the artist that created the work. It takes talent and many hours of dedication (10,000+ if you agree with Malcolm Gladwell) to produce a book such as 1984. The artist's motivation may be the love of their art form, but it is the market for the art that sustains them and their family. You want a world devoid of art? Abolish DRM, encourage open piracy and when the majority enjoys art with out compensating the artist see how many choose to pursue it full time.

For everyone bitching about DRM, you can do something about it. Take your talent, spend 10,000 hours polishing your craft and then produce works that are free to the public.

Here is the message from Amazon:

Hello,

We have recently refunded your purchase of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1984). This book was added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and refunded previous customers.

We are working with the authorized rights holder to make this title available in our store very soon. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com

This whole story is BS...

[nycguy]

The publisher who put the books on Amazon for download apparently had no legal right to make the books thus available. The publisher that did have the right to make them available asked Amazon to pull them. I don't think there's any Orwellian conspiracy here, but leave it to the Slashdot crowd to find one and work itself into a froth...

Re:This whole story is BS...

[HiThere]

If you don't see the danger of a device that can remove & replace reference materials without user action or notification...then you're nearly beyond help.

This particular interaction didn't demonstrate the entire capacity, that was done earlier (ref. Stephen King, above), but was significant because of it's ironic, nearly satiric, appropriateness.

Re:This whole story is BS...

[nycguy]

If you don't see the danger of a government that can confiscate your property without your consent (e.g., through taxes, the RICO statute, etc.), then you're the one who is beyond help. People have come to accept far greater abuse from their government than what Amazon did, so it's just a matter of time before this relatively trivial inconvenience is similarly accepted.

Re:This whole story is BS...

[HiThere]

Have I *EVER* said that? I don't think so.

N.B.: If Amazon has a certain capability WRT say, the Kindle, then you can be fairly certain that the govt. has the same capability. With or without cooperation from Amazon.

OT-fest

[Estragib]

Only the first supports yours...

But.. but... I didn't tell you mine. :)

I think it's ambiguous, you can use it in both senses.

One way of constructing the word atheism would be to take your English "theism" and prepend your English "a-" for "not", meaning "not theistic". I see this is your way and would mean exactly what you argue.

The other way is taking the greek "theos" meaning "god" and prepending the greek "an-, a-" meaning "not, without". If you look at this greek root and where and how it's used, this would mean "against god" or "no god" and some people, especially the people who coined the term way back then, mean it that way. So really #3 and #4 don't support your definition because they're etymological and only look where it came from, not where it is.

Finally, I agree very much agnosticism shouldn't be used for "not sure" but mean "I believe you can never know and you shouldn't try". There is no need for a word to mean "I'm not sure" because you don't normally identify as someone whose persuasion is "unpersuaded". Much the same way you don't have a third party for people who will either vote Republican or Democrat, but aren't sure yet.

Anyway, this isn't a topic dear to my heart and really either way is fine with me because it's mostly semantics when most everyone knows what the other person means. Ambiguous statements exist en masse and we clarify by expanding on something all the time, if need be.

I hope this makes a little sense.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, I own both 1984 and Animal Farm in paperback book format. The viewing of those Australian pages would be protected under form-shift.

Re:The only time I'll ever recommend a Sony produc

[Orbijx]

Hm.

I've never knowingly used a device using e-ink, so I can't call it an advantage, but I won't declare it a disadvantage.

But, my PSP, equipped with the Hold+ plugin does extend the battery life while providing instant on functionality by underclocking the processor to 60Hz and turning off the LCD when the hold switch is engaged, which really helps out when I need to make that bus to bus switch, or get a phone call while I'm at work and reading between work calls.

I can usually get through the day with no worries, and still have about 10-20% of the battery left for the ride home so I can play some Every Extend Extra to break up that Wall Of Text feeling I eventually develop.

Perhaps for my needs, a modified PSP is sufficient, but for others, a little extra oomph is desirable.

Big Brother deleting 1984

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony of it all is Big Brother deleting 1984. Why BURN books when you can mass delete it from the comfort of your Areon Chair?

Another twist.

[xigxag]

It seems to me that if Amazon can permanently delete an item from your Kindle, then there is no further argument that can be made against digital resales.

A Kindle user should have the ability to give away/resell the license to another user, thereupon permanently deleting their own access rights. Said transfer would work effectively the same way a paper book resale would work. What's more, their US customers should demand this first sale right that they've been illegally deprived of. Just as an ordinary bookseller does not have the legal right to prevent you from reselling a book, regardless of any contract they impose upon you, Amazon should not have this right. Especially since they have demonstrated through this gaffe that a transfer can be cleanly effectuated.

 

I woke up this morning...

[sjdude]

I woke up this morning and... my Kindle was GONE!!! Oh well.

Love Kindle2

[makemine]

I love my Kindle2 and this concerns me a great deal. I would love to see a class action lawsuit against Amazon and the Publishers to put a stop to this practice immediately. They canÃ(TM)t pull this stunt with a physical book so why should they be able to pull it with a digital book.

Re:Love Kindle2

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

They can't pull this stunt with a physical book . . .

They did something similar in Canada with a Harry Potter book.

Re:They have control of device (including plain tx

[drinkypoo]

IMHO, device vendor and software vendor along with content provider should always be separate with lots of options.

All you have to do to accomplish this is buy something with GPL software. Wait for a GPL (or similar) offering, then buy that. Some nice people will come along to help you come up with an alternate OS for the device shortly.

I don't want to live in your world where hardware and software decoupling is forced, because while the same company developing the hardware and software doesn't guarantee synergy, it's usually far better than collaborative attempts which provide more opportunities for miscommunication.

The Right To Read

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

This reminds me a bit about rms's old short story, The Right To Read.

Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free

[Anonymous Coward]

What is actually more reasonable to expect is that at some point Mickey Mouse will fail to be culturally relevant, and no one, Disney nor consumer will care about the copyright. It isn't like even infinite copyright protection prevents Disney from having to produce or die, because culture moves on.

The author predicted it

[trenton]

Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. ... [A]lways the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.

George Orwell. "Nineteen Eighty-Four." 1949.

Bad movies?

[PMBjornerud]

Oh no.. Watch the movie "Naked Space" With Leslie Nielsen, Patrick MacNee, and Cinty Williams.

The highlight of the movie is an alien singing "I'm going to eat your face."

HA! You whippersnappers should get acquainted with Ed Wood.

May I suggest "Glen or Glenda"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_or_Glenda

Re:Put down the pitchforks

[Pitr]

Car analogies! Yay! OK, I'll bite.

1) We're going to ignore the stolen argument as a) I already said "except for stolen stuff" and b) it's not what this is about.

2) As per the status quo, your analogy is off base. I'm going to assume this is just tradition since we're on slashdot, so you were obligated to use a bad analogy.

Now, as for the appropriate analogy, say you bought a car (new, like the ebook(s) we're talking about), but someone put the wrong logo on it (or painted it a colour not offered on that model, or something else they had access to but weren't supposed to do, not stolen, because that has nothing to do with the case at hand). The dealer or manufacturer or whoever's fault it is might get sued/fired/whatever, but could not in any way shape or form repossess the car. They _might_ be able to refuse to warranty the car or something, but it stays yours.

Let's make something very clear; This situation called for a "recall". Unless it involves a safety issue a recall is VOLUNTARY! It's voluntary because when someone takes back something you bought without your consent, there's a problem. If the item is physical, it's theft. If it's not, it's something else, but still wrong.

While there are some issues w/ treating virtual items and media like physical ones when it comes to the law there are enough parallels that we should just use the existing laws as much as possible until someone with half a brain works out something better. It would simplify the RIAA mess, "Oh, 20 songs stolen? That's petty theft, $20 owed, plus a fine and community service, maybe some time if it's a repeat offence, have a nice day.". Sell something you shouldn't have, "Oops! Our bad, here's a recall request, and we'll throw in a $5 gift cert to make it worth your while.".

But maybe I'm just old fashioned. Like the good old days when things were simple, property was property, and we didn't need a car analogy for everything. I never thought I'd miss the 90s so much...

Re:They have control of device (including plain tx

[Golddess]

Except they didn't so much as turn off the feature as they did alter the existing book files to disable text-to-speech. At least I thought that's how it worked since text-to-speech is now on a book-by-book basis.

That being said, the Kindle receives software updates automatically, right? So they certainly _could_ remotely disable a feature completely. And I have no doubt that given the right incentive, they would.

privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

The tresspassing argument here raises another interesting question: Can they also scan what you got on your kindle?

re amazon animal farm

[Mortgage]

What a strange thing to do! one would assume there was some kind of copyright infringement on the electronic material? Bit of an odd situation..