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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[BarefootClown]

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

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

[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

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

[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

[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.

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

[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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[Punto]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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]

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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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.)

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?

[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?

[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.

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

Stick with dead tree editions..

[Dr_Ken]

For stuff you really want to have access to permanently.

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.

[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.

[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.

[WinterSolstice]

LOTR.

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

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/

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

[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...

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!

[Chyeld]

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

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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[DavidD_CA]

So then for polytheists, would that be an array?

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!

[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!

[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.

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.

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?

Amazon's new product

[AdmiralXyz]

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

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: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).

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.

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

[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: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.

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: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: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: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.

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.

New fourth one

[Weaselmancer]

Ignorance is strength
War is peace
Freedom is slavery

And the new fourth one:

OWNERSHIP IS DISCRETIONARY

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.

Score 1 to Stallman

[BlackSabbath]

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

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

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."

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?

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

[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.

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...

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

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: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).