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Student Suing Amazon For Book Deletions
Stupified writes "High school student Justin Gawronski is suing Amazon for deleting his Kindle copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four (complaint, PDF), because doing so destroyed the annotations he'd created to the text for class. The complaint states: 'The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as "remember this paragraph for your thesis" is useless if it does not actually reference a specific paragraph.' The suit, which is seeking class action status, asks that Amazon be legally blocked from improperly accessing users' Kindles in the future and punitive damages for those affected by the deletion. Nothing in Amazon's EULA or US copyright law gives them permission to delete books off your Kindle, so this sounds like a plausible suit."
What class has 1984 as required reading and where can I sign up?
As cool as Amazon can be, this was a lame move by them from many perspectives, and I hope this guy wins the case. Perhaps it could set a precedent against deleting data from users' devices in general.
-Matthew Riley "TofuMatt" MacPherson
I have a website
I thought when I bought something from Amazon, that I owned it!
I get the feeling that this was a decision by Amazon based on what would cost them less. Either delete these and face user wrath, or let users who have the books keep them and settle monetarily with the copyright holder. I think they may have underestimated the true cost of losing reputation with their user base, lawsuit cost aside.
If this was anything except 1984, this wouldn't have been news at all.
Bullshit.
"If this was anything except 1984, this wouldn't have been news at all." I completely disagree. Let's not give up the right to keep the information we buy entirely - it's bad enough that future generations may not own an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, or, potentially, ANY books/information that cannot be instantly taken away by certain companies or even the government or hackers. Sure, if there was some absolute guarantee that this would only happen in cases where a retailer sold something they did not have the right to sell, few people would care much. It's still bad, in that case, but the real worry is that, to pull a crazy hypothetical out of my *ss, Bush got re-elected for a 3rd term in the last election, decided to invade iran, invoked some war powers act to silence the media from complaining about it, and later started quietly pulling books from the virtual shelves ... books that might start dangerous thoughts. As crazy as it may sound, it's hardly crazy at all. People who want to do this exist - these types have been in power in various countries ... these types are IN power in some countries (N. Korea, anyone? And they're not alone - the media in Iran isn't all that free, is it?)
In my opinion, this ability needs to be removed from the hardware - through the law. Simply having people complain enough that companies don't do this won't solve anything, backdoors will still exist.
Litigation happens to be the only way we get things done.
I disagree. The end user purchased the book in good faith and had absolutely no reason to even suspect that Amazon didn't have the US rights. What would have happened if Amazon had shipped physical books? Same sort of thing should happen. The end user still keeps the book, Amazon pays the appropriate damages to the rights-holders.
If you illegally sold an item, you can be required to pay punitive damages, and you can even go so far as to notify the buyers, but taking back the product (recalling it) is reserverd only for true "stolen goods" and even then only in rare cases, and usually not for retail products. Counterfeit products are often reclaimed, but not valid products sold simply without license or copywrite.
Amazon should have paid the fine (if one was even imposed by the holder). By themsleves (and not thrhrough the action of a courth or dualy authorized agency) taking back this product, they have violated multiple premises in the doctrine of first sale, the commerce codes of the United States and likely multiple state laws, and the punishment for doing so should be significantly greater than the punishment would have been simply for the infringement.
The customers though no fault of their owen purchaesed legally this unlicenced product. They did not buy it out of a truck or through some black market where a crime might be inferred, but through a well known and trusted retailer. Refund of money alone is insufficient in this case as once the product has been sold, the contract of sale is completed, and the product is now OWNED by the customer. Should Amazon want it back, the CUSTOMER becomes the seller, and has every right to set their OWN price for the return. As a student, that electronic copy might be FAR more valuable to me than a physical copy, and even if Amazon offered to replace the elctronic copy with one that WAS authorized for distribution, if it was not compatible with the Kindle, and supported the same notes file taken by the student, then it would not have been an equal value replacement, and asking the student, who was the legal woner of that product, to accept an inferior replacement, even for free after refund, may still not equate to the value of his loss (which can easily be measured in man hours repeating his effort in another form of the book, and correcting and correlating all the notes already takes, using a fair labor rate).
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
And you paid for a device which was tethered to its master, which happened not to be you.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Amazon didn't have the right to distribute the book, however, I don't believe they had the right to delete something off my device that I've already paid for. If they paid damages to the rightsholders, then those should have been paid on condition that they wouldn't be able to remove the book from the devices.
Also, there's probably some boilerplate legal language included with the Kindle that says they are not responsible for data loss, etc., or if it kills your grandmother or dog.
This isn't data loss. This is intentional destruction of data -- quite a different story.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
As a country, they're litigation happy. As a teenager, he's probably lazy and opportunistic. Put the two together ...
or maybe he is willing to stand up and fight for his rights, and the rights of others. There is a reason why Slashdot isn't in German. Godwin!
No, it's not. What would be enough? Amazon restoring every last one of these people their copy of 1984, paying whatever they have to to the copyright owners to make it legal. If they then don't reclaim the rebates they sent out, they will have totally redeemed themselves in my eyes, but restoring people their books is the bare minimum.
The irony that Orwell's 1984 describes "Children Heroes" who snitch on grown-ups is tasting sweeter with every passing moment.
Except that our world is sliding closer and closer to a Brave New World than into 1984 (c'mon, it's 2009 already).
We as a people [in the western world] are taught to be complacent and kept in a "healthy" state of mind by being force-fed pleasure from a very early age.
There aren't the thought-police running around selectively re-educating people who go astray, no, instead we're sent to a shrink and spoonfed drugs until we're a normal, functioning member of society again. We're provided copious amounts of mindless drivel (reality TV) to appeal to our senses, while not really providing any benefit to us at all. Beyond that, sex is absolutely everywhere. Sure, it's frowned upon in some circles, but that doesn't make it go away, and there's more and more of it plasted on billboards, in magazines, in movies and television, every day.
Orwell's future is a relic of the Cold War, instead it is Huxley's vision of the future that is proving to be a reality, and that's not a good thing.
Imagine someone purchased a car, and spent many hours customizing and tuning it. The seller then realized he shouldn't have sold the car, so he sneaks into the garage in the middle of the night, takes the car back, and leaves the added components and the cash for the original purchase price lying on the floor.
In this case, it is obvious that the seller acted improperly, and the buyer suffered a loss. The Amazon case involves data and copyrights rather than physical property, but the same principles should apply.
Amazon didn't know that it was still under copyright in the US, and didn't have the rights to sell it. When they discovered their mistake, they took it back -- removing the books and refunding the buyers' money. Damages paid to rights-holders are given to compensate for the fact that the violator can't remove every copy of the infringing product they sold; but in this case, they were able to. If this was anything except 1984, this wouldn't have been news at all.
Perhaps it would not have been news, but it should be. The problem with e-books is that they can be edited after the fact with no reliable way to know which version is the original. This makes practical the kind of altering of history talked about in "1984".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Really?
FTFS: The complaint states: 'The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as "remember this paragraph for your thesis" is useless if it does not actually reference a specific paragraph.'
It's a sad day when we don't even bother reading the SUMMARY any more.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
Maybe he read and understood the book?
Unless or until copyright law mentions a difference, electronic products should be treated similarly to existing products which they claim to mimic. In this case, Amazon should have notified it's customers before recalling the books. If Amazon intends to recall by deletion, they most certainly should inform the users so that the deletion can happen at a time convenient to the customer. Burying a disclaimer in the TOS isn't a substitute since most TOS aren't written to be understandable and if I was the judge, wouldn't stand up in court unless they stated common sense, or practices that were already common. Deleting purchased software files from a customers computer is certainly not typical or expectable, unless you live in a country where books are seized an destroyed without warning. Can you imagine what would happen if Intuit suddenly deleted all existing copies of Quck Books? But, all legal issues aside, Amazon let a really big cat out of the bag. They immediately made competing products more attractive. And Kindle customers now know to make a backup copy.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
I don't think the guy has a legal leg to stand on. Amazon removed an illegal book, and the guy still has his annotations, useless or not.
While Amazon didn't destroy "tangible stuff"*, they did destroy the value of that stuff.
Say I throw a really loud party at my house, with you living next door; or I burn my garden waste, which is smoky and sooty; or I park in front of your driveway. I haven't destroyed your property, but I have reduced it's value. I have destroyed the value of your property without destroying the property itself.
I don't know whether any of the nuisance scenarios would give you a case, but if they do, why doesn't the same common sense extend to destroying the value of bits by changing their context?
* I know bits aren't tangible, but go with me here.
It's only theft if you accept the idea that selling the book to you was also theft (i.e. you accept the infringement of intellectual property rights = theft) and if you do, then you were, ispo facto, in possession of stolen property and have no claim over it.
If you don't accept that the orginal sale was theft, (i.e. you believe it was simply copy right infringement) then at most the deletion of the book could be would be a violation of the license agreement you made with Amazon. In this case, given that Amazon did not have the permission necessary to enter into that agreement with you and also refunded your money, you aren't going to have much ground to stand on in terms of 'damages'. Amazon did not steal anything. They removed data which they discovered they didn't have a right to provide you.
And I imagine that regardless of Amazon's actions, Mobireference (the company that did the actual infringment of selling the book via Amazon's third party system) is probably open to lawsuit by the rights holders and in hot water wtih Amazon over screwing the pooch.
Granted, this is a good arguement why copyrights need revamping, especially for the digital age - does purchasing an electronic product give you the same rights as purchasing a physical one, what protections should be in place to allow digital consumers to safeguard their purchases and what needs to be in place to allow rights holders safeguard their rights. And it does highlight the flaws of Amazon's implementation with the Kindle, but it isn't worth the breast pounding drama people are attempting to turn it into.
It sucks, but with digital technology, it is possible to recover stolen property, which is what Amazon did and should have done.
It was not "stolen" property. It was misappropriated according to copyright law. This is sort of like the issue of illegal downloads: IP owners like the **AA like to spout about "stolen" IP, but that's not what it is. Neither Amazon nore the customer broke into anything or anywhere and made off with anyone's IP. You may debate the validity of the copyright and if the content was misused by Amazon, but nothing was "stolen".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
And this is where I think we all went wrong.
Why should we allow books or music to be licensed to us? or anything for that matter?
And even if we do, why for perpetual licenses do we allow them to take away all our rights?
The doctrine of first sale was created to protect us from this behavior, but we've thrown it out the window as soon as we agree to this kind of license.
Any time we agree to a perpetual license we should have certain rights that can't be signed away, and the first two I would think would be:
1) If the term is forever, you CAN NOT remove my access to the material.
2) I have the right to sell my license to someone else when I'm done with it, provided I transfer all copies of the material.
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
Amazon, and big corps in general, are NOT the police, and do not have the rights as such.
There's a big difference between electronic devices failing because nothing -- including technology -- is perfect, and intentionally and willfully destroying content, as Amazon did in this case.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
As cool as Amazon can be, this was a lame move by them from many perspectives, and I hope this guy wins the case. Perhaps it could set a precedent against deleting data from users' devices in general.
Precedent is indeed the right worry here, but not quite in the way you're mentioning.
1984 was not legally sold on Amazon.com's Kindle store. It's legal in almost every other country on Earth -- basically any country without corporate overlords demanding Copyright be extended to "Age of Mickey Mouse +20 years" in perpetuity.
No, the real precedent that is very, very bad and very, very scary is that now, now publishers know that Amazon can remotely delete items from the Kindle, without user input.
Textbook companies want to sell a textbook that's only good for 1 quarter? Why not? Not like you'll need it after this year, since we're gonna release the 351st edition to make sure students can't resell the deadtree back to the bookstore.
Someone sues Amazon cause "Twilight" offends local obscenity laws? "Well golly gee, we're seeing you're connecting to a Cell tower in Bumfuck Idaho, we'll just auto-delete that Twilight book for you to avoid offending the prudes..."
Or better yet. "Hey Apple, Amazon can just delete stuff from their Kindle remotely, why can't you delete any songs with Metallica in their filename / ID3 tags that don't match up with ones they've bought from us off iPods when they dock?"
Amazon played a very bad hand here. They admitted they can screw over users on behalf of 3rd party companies. Worse, they admitted they will if asked.
A very, very bad precedent all around.
I would believe it's the Kindle accessing Amazon and deleting the book when something is flagged (or not flagged!)
And Amazon won't trespass your device. Never heard of any DRM setup that would do that.
At any case, I hope the student wins.
that can provide a proof of purchase.
These were all downloaded digitally. Not only that, they were already refunded their money for the purchase, why should Amazon give them more money back?
It would still be news, a student is suing a big company for doing something of controversial ethical nature. That the book was 1984 just adds a certain touch of irony to it.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
"Fahrenheit 451" would have been an even better book for this, but "1984" and "Animal Farm" are both good ones. E-books gooo-oo-ood, paperbacks baa-aa-aa-aad. Doublespeak: We deleted the books to benefit you, the user, from being sullied by reading something impure.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"In that case he would be campaigning to have the law changed to make such actions illegal"
Isn't that what he's doing?
"asks that Amazon be legally blocked from improperly accessing users' Kindles in the future"
Not all campaigns to change the law involve congress anymore.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
The deletion is analogous to the infringer being ordered to enter into the homes of the people to remove the infringed records or books, with or without a refund.
Seriously.
Copyright law is powerful- but not THAT powerful. No court of competent jurisdiction would ever order such an act. Even to the kindles. Even if they had the ability. Amazon didn't HAVE to do anything remotely resembling what they did.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This all doesn't matter. He paid for the book on his Kindle2. He was using that for his school work. Amazon deleted it. Amazon is totally wrong and needs to go to court.
This is why I won't buy a Kindle2.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
The other side of the coin is that we probably wouldn't need even non-corrupt regulatory bodies if capitalism didn't breed a bunch of greedy egomaniacs. Capitalism and the free market is flawed from the outset because it favors a person over the people. We're not predator/prey. We're a society of varying people who contribute in different ways, not in all monetarily significant ways.
But the difficult part is that capitalism brings out the worst in people -- you see yourself earning more because you were innovative. That's a good thing. But now you see what money can provide, but your innovative streak has run out or perhaps you're tired of being competitive...but you still want the money.
So you start to screw people out of theirs. You give them bad loans to get the bonus associated with them. You give yourself a million dollar bonus because your company went completely bankrupt but not insolvent so you "saved" it -- and you let your employees take the bullet for you.
Capitalism dates back to a less civilized structure. Let's grow up a bit.
If you'll specify exactly what characterizes a system as capitalist, I'll tell you whether there's any evidence that capitalism doesn't work.
My guess is that there won't be any evidence either way, because there never has been a capitalist system.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
No, it's not. What would be enough? Amazon restoring every last one of these people their copy of 1984, paying whatever they have to to the copyright owners to make it legal. If they then don't reclaim the rebates they sent out, they will have totally redeemed themselves in my eyes, but restoring people their books is the bare minimum.
Umm... how about removing the remote delete capability from users' devices? Or, do you just blindly trust them they won't do it in the future just because they "promised?"