« World’s First Integrated Cigarette Lighter Cell Phone Puts New Meaning to “Hot Line”
Blackberry Tour Gets Torn Into Pieces, I Don’t Know Why »

Last week Amazon decided to be play the role of big brother and deleted George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 eBooks from their Kindle customers. Confused as to why this took place, many cried foul and accused Amazon of spying on them. Although a refund was issued, users were not happy with Amazon’s ability to delete books from their Kindle.

This incident was first reported on the Amazon community, then on the NY Times by David Pogue, which turned the fiasco into a debate of whether or not Amazon was to be blamed for something they claimed was out of their hand.

Amazon says the publishing company that sells the George Orwell ebooks, did not have the rights to sell the eBooks. The books were put into the Amazon database by MobileReference, 3rd party seller. Amazon made this statement about the situation:

“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.”

According ArsTechnica, George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm are not available in the United States in the public domain, so Amazon was not allowed to sell it.

After reading all the different perspectives and the initial reactions, I think most Kindle users and bloggers overreacted about the situation without letting the smoke clear. It seems that Amazon’s purchasing system was to blame, at least that’s what Amazon tells us. The system is designed to remove books Amazon no longer have the rights to to sell. Why that’s the case, we don’t know but let’s take some time to look into this scenario Amazon has found themselves in.

Amazon’s eBook service and Kindles are relatively new to the public. There’s always a first time for these mistakes and I believe Amazon when they said they’re changing their system to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again and users are going to be allowed to keep their eBooks in the future. Amazon was clearly in the wrong for removing the eBooks, but If Amazon no longer has the license to sell something, they can’t continue to sell the item. It’s that simple.

This incident reminds me of the reactions by the public to Apple’s iPhone “kill switch” that gave Apple the ability to delete apps from iPhones they deemed were unauthorized. Many were questioning Apple’s motives and cried “violation of user rights” but it eventually died down. Amazon is hoping for the same… and quick.

(Via ArsTechnica)



« World’s First Integrated Cigarette Lighter Cell Phone Puts New Meaning to “Hot Line”
Blackberry Tour Gets Torn Into Pieces, I Don’t Know Why »

5 Comments

At least the issued a refund. I don’t blame Amazon here. Someone just used their system to skirt copyright and try to profit from that.

Overreaction.. maybe

I need to try this one, its look good

It IS a big deal. If the same thing happened with iTunes, say a certain popular CD wasn’t allowed to be sold through the iTunes store and it was sold anyway. If Apple then deleted it from everyone’s iPod and iTunes library, that would be just as outrageous. People would be mad and blam the music industry, blame Apple, etc. The way they should have approached it is by asking all the customers to return their copies for a refund and offering something supplemental to keep them as customers for the inconvenience. Third parties (in this case, the customers) aren’t liable for what amazon did in this case, they were not at fault and could not be litigated against. in this case amazon was saving their own ass and forgetting about the customer.

From the blog post:

“but If Amazon no longer has the license to sell something, they can’t continue to sell the item”.

Key word “continue”. The end users who entered into a legitimate transaction should never had to face any repercussion of this. It is a big deal because it KEEPS happening: Wal-mart and Microsoft decommissioning licensing servers that renders music unplayable, Sony shipping CD’s with root kits, Apple’s kill switch, now Amazon retroactively clawing back your purchases. If you can’t see a pattern here that is screwing over the buying public then there is no use attempting a conversation on this track of thought.

The REAL problem is that those novels should be in the public domain. Copyright is so f’d up that it really is an Orwellian present.

Dear Guest, please login to comment

Login with your ZiggyTek account

Create New Account | Forgot password?

OR login with Facebook


Please keep the comments clean by not posting advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks. Terms of Use.

Newsletter

Contests

Enter for a chance to win free iPod Touch!

Note: Only registered users can enter.

Tips

We love to hear from our users, so if you have anything you would like us to write about let us know by emailing us at tips@ziggytek.com.

MustRead


PopularBlogPosts

Categories


Archives


Tag Cloud

About ZiggyTek

ZiggyTek is more than a gadget blog - it's a gadget community. In addition to bringing you the updates on the newest gadgets around the world, we give you a venue to discuss amongst each other and ponder those nuances that make all the difference. Got a tip on a hot new product? Let us know! Do you own one of the gadgets we cover? Give us your own impressions! Just around for articles? Take your time!

The Bloggers