
Amazon deletes purchased copies of 1984 from Kindle - KC8ZKF
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/
======
frossie
I actually had to check it wasn't April 1st. Oh the irony indeed. On the plus
side:

1\. This might focus people's attentions on the problems of buying DRM books -
I am still astonished how little it bothers people.

2\. For the love of all your deities, can we _please_ revisit copyright laws.
The man has been dead for 59 years. Surely we can all agree those books should
be public domain by now. Death+70 is just too long.

~~~
potatolicious
This has turned out to be overblown, as usual. More info here:

[http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showAr...](http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218501227)

Somebody (third-party) decided to sell 1984 and Animal Farm on the Kindle
Store without owning the copyright to it. Amazon is of course forced to take
down said illegal posting. The only questionable part here is whether or not
they should be allowed to delete purchased copies (with refund).

~~~
olefoo
Thanks for finding that, it sounds like that story came out somewhat after the
story had already blown up. The detail that it was due to a self-service
publisher who did not own the copyright is crucial. It sounds like Amazon
could save itself a lot of the PR grief that comes with this sort of thing by
posting takedowns and C&Ds on chillingeffects.org like Google does.

~~~
habibur
Illegal or not, the purchasers bought the books from Amazon's web site, not
from some Hackerz site. Amazon later discovered that the books that Amazon was
itself selling were somehow illegal, which the buyers need not have to be
concerned about in the first place.

Then instead of informing the buyers of it's mistake, Amazon decided to delete
the copies outright, without any notice and of course without any talk of
refund to the buyers.

That's what I understand of this situation.

~~~
potatolicious
Then you misunderstand the situation. Amazon issued notice of the deletion
(though did not clarify that the books were illegal), and automatically
refunded money without the customers having to ask.

I think they handled it as well as anyone can handle this particular
situation.

~~~
tdonia
to not clarify that the books were illegal when rescinded is nearly as grave a
mistake as to allow them to be sold in the first place. rather than being in
front of this and stopping these books from being sold - which was something
they had every right to bar & would have been a pr conflict for exactly no
one- amazon instead designed a system that allowed bad content to be sold with
a kill switch in place so 'in the event of a mistake, it could be rescinded' -
they deserve this pr storm because they've earned it. they've broken trust
with their consumers on not one but 2 fronts here - foremost, they offered an
ILLEGAL product for sale on their website. secondly, rather than explain the
fact that this was illegal, they immediately attempted to go back in time and
undo it - something that directly conflicts with a value proposition offered
on the premise that books create memorable value and that their consumers
might notice if a book suddenly goes missing. Amazon deserves what it's
getting and we can only hope this will be loud enough to set the precedents &
standards that define a better eventuality next time a similar situation
arises.

~~~
uptown
"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present
controls the past."

------
jknupp
I had this on my Kindle and didn't realize it had been deleted until I read
the story here. The email from Amazon is in the "Your Amazon.com Order
#XXX..." format familiar to anyone who buys kindle content regularly, so many
will not even realize this was removed.

1984 is literally my favorite book. I was happy to have it on my Kindle,
readily available at all times. You would think, then, that I would be
outraged by this. To be honest, after I got over the initial creepy "they went
into MY device and deleted something" feeling, my (positive) feelings about
either Amazon and the Kindle itself were unchanged. It's still an amazingly
useful device that I get a ton of mileage out of, and they made a dumb mistake
that just happened to affect me. I've been fully reimbursed for the title (all
$0.99 of it), so no harm done.

The concerns about Amazon randomly deleting content on your Kindle seem
overblown. The ostensible purpose of the Kindle is to drive sales of Amazon's
e-books. How would deleting customers' purchases on a frequent basis further
that goal? I'm willing to write this off as a one-time occurrence, albeit an
unfortunate and somewhat frustrating one.

~~~
breck
Interesting comment.

I feel like too many people are speaking up on HN just to speak (I wonder if
the demographic has changed lately). I like this comment because it adds some
data, not just an opinion or crafted argument.

I come to HN to hear first hand accounts from people. jknupp's comment is a
good example. Other great examples are when founders comment on articles about
their companies, or programmers about their code, or authors about their
articles. But above this comment, with 40+ upvotes, are a couple of comments
where the commenter doesn't even own a kindle, nevermind having 1984. sigh.

~~~
sailormoon
Huh? Does owning a Kindle give you some special insight into the question of
DRM, copyright, consumer rights, etc, inaccessible to others? How would owning
a Kindle make you more qualified to comment on this development?

Maybe a lot of people didn't buy the Kindle because they have compelling,
well-argued positions on why they don't accept the limitations imposed on you
by the product's terms and conditions. If anything those people are probably
_more_ informed on the issue than someone who just bought the latest gadget.

Speaking up just to speak is a problem, yes. But if you're going to impose
barriers to participation, let's have them be a little less arbitrary than
"owns a Kindle".

~~~
andreyf
As someone that was actually _affected_ by the decision Amazon took, I think
jknupp has an opinion more valid than someone considering the situation
hypothetically.

~~~
sailormoon
An "opinion more valid"? I don't think so. He might be able to offer a "this
is how it made me feel" angle or something, and I liked hearing about how it's
his favourite book, but otherwise he has no more insight or information than
anyone else.

I am not trying to criticise jknupp. I liked his comment. But I reject the
suggestion that only Kindle owners can legitimately comment on this matter.

~~~
andreyf
You're right, that was sloppy - I'd have trouble defining what makes an
opinion "[more|less] valid". And even with the "intuitive" definition one
could just as well argue jknupp is biased in his opinion on the perspective
parties' rights in the matter, as he could be trying to justify the $350 we
paid for the device (and more for the "books").

------
Elessar
I felt Amazon had gained respect when they released their MP3 store without
DRM.

They have lost it today, utterly and likely irredeemably. There is no excuse
for taking back what a customer has already purchased. None.

And that they did so without even asking the customer? It should be considered
outright criminal.

~~~
tomjen
My guess is that it is actually illegal.

~~~
frossie
I don't know whether it is illegal. I am trying to figure out if this violates
their TOS:

 _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"_

Is that " _or_ " a get-out clause? Because the first part seems to quite
definitively rule out what they did.

~~~
req2
A similar case, in which a comma allowed an escape from a 5-year contract:

[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/article838...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/article838561.ece)

------
rcoder
From what I saw on the Kindle forums, the publisher of these editions
(MobileReference) mostly offers $0.99 downloads of public-domain texts.
There's a $10 version of 1984 still available for purchase from Amazon here:

<http://www.amazon.com/Nineteen-Eighty-Four/dp/B002A9JO9W>

So, it looks to me like this was a case of a publisher illegally distributing
a book to which they had no license. As an analogy, think of people who buy a
bootleg DVD from a flea market while traveling overseas, only to discover it
won't play in their region-locked DVD player at home. Yes, it sucks that DRM
prevented them from using media they thought they had bought, but they also
knew perfectly well that they were getting a deal that was just a little too
good to be true.

~~~
easyfrag
If this was indeed the case then the better solution would have been for
Amazon to pay the royalties to the copyright holder on the previous sales and
quietly remove the 99 cent version from the store. This is a public relations
disaster for the Kindle.

I disagree with your argument that people should have known this was too good
to be true. Orwell has been dead for almost 60 years, 1984 will be public
domain soon enough.

~~~
grandalf
disaster? are you kidding? I'm a kindle user and I could care less about this
news.

~~~
adharmad
Sure, but what about potential loss of sales of the kindle by more privacy
conscious users?

Remember the Sony rootkit debacle a few years ago? No end users were really
affected by it, but it was a huge PR disaster for them. Not saying that the
current case is analogous but we cannot fortell how people will react to such
sneaky behavior.

------
darkxanthos
Awesome irony. As a side point, I'm pretty pissy about this and it didn't even
happen to me. Just because you can doesn't mean you have the right, and it
doesn't mean you should. We used to use these publisher bastards to help us
determine what to read since we didn't have an efficient way of establishing
credibility.

Enter TEH T00Bz... We don't need these jack asses anymore. If I write
anything, I'm going to e-publish.

------
keyist
1984 the book only tells us about a bleak future. Amazon's Kindle policies
_show_ u that future. They're just following the maxim "Show, don't tell!"

Obligatory link to Stallman's Right to Read essay:
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

Deleting the books is actually one of the more benign things they can do. What
is truly scary is them or others changing the content of books Ministry of
Truth style, without us realizing it.

~~~
sailormoon
Your comment goes a little too far (this is not the full realisation of 1984,
not yet anyway) but you do raise a good point. It introduces the first actual
working _memory hole_ ; one of the key enablers of the 1984 regime.

Imagine some little guy writes a controversial tell-all book, it's published.
People buy it on Kindle. The guy is sued by The Man, loses, and any unsold
books are pulped - plus, now, any Kindle books are recalled, or possibly
revised.

We have the technology ...

~~~
andreyf
And we have the legal basis, in some parts of the world (notably, China).

~~~
sailormoon
Well the worst thing is it seems like there doesn't even need to be a legal
basis! Everything's under a "license", no-one owns anything. What's to stop a
newspaper company retroactively editing the news? _Their_ news? Hell the
system is in place for that already. Most news syndication uses Atom or
similar, that has support for "updates".

We might be giving away more than we bargained for when we replace paper for
mutable digitalia. We need to at least think about how we can address this
systemic risk.

------
asciilifeform
Curiously, the full text of the book is prominently posted online in multiple
places, for example:

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

This could be because the copyright has expired almost everywhere.

~~~
tomjen
He wrote it in 1948, which is post Mickey so it is still under copyright.

Not that it matters, as you pointed out.

~~~
xiaoma
It's still under copyright in the US and UK, but not in Canada, where the
copyright was "only" the author's life plus 50 years.

<http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/info.htm>

------
gojomo
Next week, Amazon plans a special interactive commemorative edition of
_Fahrenheit 451_ that will trigger a battery-overload, setting your Kindle on
fire and destroying its entire contents.

------
wmblaettler
It would have been even more ironic if the book had been Fahrenheit 451.

------
macmac
Does anybody know what happened to the owner's annotations?

~~~
Xichekolas
Yeah wouldn't those annotations be copyrighted by the owner, and hence Amazon
seizing them would constitute basis for case of appropriating someone else's
work.

Of course IANAL, I'm just speculating, and am 95% certain what I just said
wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

~~~
sailormoon
How could a user prove their annotations ever even existed?

------
DannoHung
One day, someone's gonna come out with a 8 1/2" x 11" eBook reader that
doesn't look like it ran into the ugly tree at 80 mph that _doesn't_ have any
associated DRM and I am gonna buy the FUCK out of that thing.

------
Tiktaalik
hah wow.

 _strikes Kindle off "to buy" list_

~~~
zimbabwe
The Kindle is absolutely worth buying. Just break the DRM on the books you
get, take back-ups, and remember that The Pirate Bay is your friend when
Amazon does something stupid.

(<http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5003507/1984_-_George_Orwell>, for people in
a rebellious mood.)

~~~
reduxredacted
Step 1 - Remove legitimately purchased e-books that the publisher "changed
their mind on"

Step 2 - Remove books that cannot be identified as legitimately purchased.

The "whispernet" functionality is often talked about as this great feature of
the Kindle. It's the single biggest reason that I won't buy one.

~~~
rbanffy
Whispernet is not the problem (although I would prefer a less "world-proof"
GSM modem with no tie-in). The problem is the software that has this kind of
backdoor.

Owners of those titles were robbed by Amazon. Amazon broke into their
libraries, took the books and left some money on the table. All through the
backdoor they had installed when you purchased your book case.

~~~
reduxredacted
Good point. It's not really Whispernet, specifically, it's it combined with
control.

Taking the iPhone Kindle app out of the picture (though it's probably
relevant, I just don't know much about it, so I'll leave it alone for the
moment)... Whispernet and software that is in the complete control of Amazon
gives them a capability it can't have on my Netbook.

The thing that always concerned me about the Kindle/Whispernet is that they
_could_ use it to control _all_ of the content on the Kindle. Lets say Amazon
decides that only Kindle purchased e-books are allowed on the device ... one
software update later and your imported PDF files are gone (legally or
otherwise). I don't think they'd really be that nasty, but it's not as though
the software installed is available for inspection. If the publishers push
hard enough and the circumstances are right, who knows?

I'm not begging for a GNU/Linux e-book reader. I paid about the price of a
Kindle for a low-end Eee PC with a big battery. It lasts about 7 hours (not
9.5 as advertised, but enough). To me, the Kindle is something undefinable.
What do I get for $300?. Text to speech on all of my books? Sometimes. The
ability to import PDF files? So far. Getting to read the books you
purchased... unless...

I "get" that Amazon lives at the whims of their publishers. Unfortunately, the
book publishers live at the whims of the consumer and the conditions of the
marketplace. They should take notes from what's going on with music today.
Scanners are cheap, and OCR software is very good with print. Compressed,
text-only renditions of a book are tiny and bandwidth to the home is
plentiful. Top that off with an inexpensive device that gets acceptable
battery life and offers convenience and an acceptable screen for reading
text... It certainly sounds a lot like Napster and mp3's to me.

~~~
rcoder
Okay, just a few points here:

1\. The Kindle _is_ a GNU/Linux e-book reader -- it runs a Linux kernel +
userland atop an ARM chipset. The only thing "proprietary" about the system is
the actual GUI tools for browsing/buying/reading books, and the radio firmware
(pretty much mandated by the FCC).

2\. The Kindle "experience" is very much different from what you get from
reading on a laptop, even when suing a very compact model like the Eee. I've
been reading book-length text on LCDs for years, but the Kindle is the first
device that has allowed me to totally forget that I'm not reading a printed
volume. If you haven't used one for at least 15 minutes, you really haven't
had a chance to evaluate it fairly.

3\. Finally, Amazon has _never_ asserted any right to so much as _examine_
what non-Kindle-store content you have on the device, much less delete it
without your permission. Conversion of content from non-Amazon sources has
been a feature of the Kindle from day 1, and any documents you acquire from
other sources can simply be copied by using the Kindle as a USB mass storage
device.

Like any hardware/software bundle manufacturer, Amazon has the _option_ to
render a large portion of the installed base of devices less useful via over-
the-air provisioning. However, like other companies possessing such power
(Microsoft, for the XBox 360; Apple, for the iPhone; not to mention basically
every smartphone on every carrier) they have to weigh any potential change
against the risk that their customers will go elsewhere.

~~~
reduxredacted
Good points, and in fairness, I don't know how to shut up, so I have to
respond :o).

Point 1: You clearly have a better understanding of the software than I do and
I appreciate the clarification. I still stand by the outcome, though. My own
ignorance: has anyone managed to install firmware that eliminates the radio
and makes it a simple GNU/Linux device (either generation)? That would make it
more appealing to me assuming it has acceptable storage.

Point 2: Agreed that the experience is much different than an Eee. I rarely
read text on paper. Most of my reading is on inexpensive, large LCDs with
uneven back-lighting. The Eee display is an improvement to my eyes, though
I've read on the eSlick (foxit's product) for well over 15 minutes and it is
pleasant (minus the black and white which is unnecessary for books usually).

Point 3: Here's where I have to disagree: Amazon announced that the latest
iteration of the Kindle would have Text to Speech, and had to back down. What
I know is that if I purchase this device, I am purchasing something that I
cannot control without an exceptional effort (hacking it myself, time I don't
have). They own the front end and the back channel.

As to your final point: Yes. I'm a PC gamer, not an Xbox 360 guy for precisely
this reason. I don't like mandatory game updates or a "sanctioned" selection
of DLC. I'll concede on the iPhone comment since all mobile phones in the US
suffer from the same disease to a greater or lesser degree.

The difference is that I believe Amazon has already _rendered a large portion
of the installed base of devices less useful via over-the-air provisioning_.
GNU/Linux on the Kindle aside, the GUI _is_ the functionality and whispernet
_is_ the control when the two are married in a device. Assertions (or lack
thereof) and promises are as good as the screen they're read on.

[edit] So I'll make one more point, which is that it looks like Amazon may
well have removed and refunded due to fraud perpetrated upon them because they
expected that the copyright belonged to the person signing the rights over.

It's nice to know that Amazon didn't respond to the whims of a publisher but
tried to make a wrong right again. But the outcome was still a serious wrong
for the customer.

If they had been printing copies of the book based on the claims of permission
from someone who didn't own the copyright, they would have sued that
individual after being sued themselves. I'd get to keep my book that was
purchased in good faith.

Nobody wins here.

------
MaddHatta
"Books simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from
the kindles, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your
one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished,
annihilated: vaporized was the usual word."

------
weaksauce
What I do not get is how amazon can be so right on the DRM issue with regards
to digital music and be so backwards on the DRM of books.

~~~
blhack
It isn't amazon, it is the publishers.

Somebody commented on my blog about this the other day, and nailed it pretty
well: <http://www.gibsonandlily.com/comments/4043/>

~~~
andreyf
It's not the publishers, it's copyright law. Copyright law gives the
publishers certain rights. Publishers are economic entities which maximize
profits. Blaming publishers for exercising legal rights which maximize profit
is like blaming rocks for falling on people.

~~~
scscsc
Rocks did not lobby for the law of gravity.

------
svandoren
The book is under copyright still in America. The Orwell estate is to be
blamed for this, not Amazon, except they should be trashed for not vetting,
properly, a book they thought was in the public domain.

------
maxniederhofer
Just underlines the market opportunity for someone who is not beholden to
publishers to launch an open ereader...

------
blhack
Does anybody know if amazon actively checks the books put on your kindle via
their email service? There are a number of books that I own in dead-tree
format (some of them, multiple copies in dead-tree format) that they don't
offer in the kindle store.

This sort of move really scares me; I have been contemplating moving some of
them to the kindle (I have the books in .txt format).

------
DanielStraight
Simple fact. If there is DRM of _any kind_ , you do not own it. Period.

------
timf
_"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._ "

From:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530)

The last 1.5 sentences seem to nullify the rest of the paragraph for all
intents and purposes...

~~~
tolmasky
Is that really how contracts work (honest question)? You can essentially put
"just kidding" at the end of a contract and everything above it is nullified?
If this is the case than those portions of the contract would seem to act
solely for the purposes of deception.

~~~
cschneid
Sorta, not really. Contracts have a lot more leeway than they look like. If
the judge thinks you're being abusive in the writing of a contract, they'll
say "nope, sorry, you lose", or throw out that clause and keep going.

IANAL, etc.

------
jrockway
This is a good thing. Nobody minds DRM when it doesn't bite them. When it
starts fucking them over, they will start getting upset and stop buying
intentionally crippled products. Then DRM will die. (Does DRM'd music even
exist anymore?)

------
veritgo
Nowhere near the same level of disappointment, but it is kind of sad that an
article from the NYTimes lacks any mention that they tried to contact Amazon
for a comment. Even a simple 'Amazon was called but declined to comment' would
have been appreciated.

~~~
sailormoon
What could Amazon possible say to defend their actions? The facts are plain to
see. Personally I could do without their lame corporate spin, anyway.

edit: why the downvotes? It's a sincere comment! When Sony installed frickin'
rootkits on people's computers, did anyone say "wait, wait, let's wait for
_their_ side of the story"? Of course not.

"Why" doesn't matter. What matters is that it can be done, that it has been
done, and it might well be done again. Nothing Amazon says changes any of
that. I stand by what I said.

~~~
andreyf
Um, Amazon could point out that the decision to withdraw the book was that of
the publisher, and that they are legally bound to defend the rights publishers
as defined under US law.

Think of it this way - there are a couple of parties here. Both Amazon and
most publishers are public corporations. That means they have a legal
obligation to maximize shareholder value. The law allows publishers certain
rights, and, in order to follow the law (maximize shareholder value), they
_must_ take advantage of those rights.

Amazon, in turn, has a choice of forcing the publishers give up their rights
under the law. Doing so would decrease the number of publishers that sell
books. I imagine they did an economic analysis and figured that to maximize
shareholder value, they must protect the publishers' legal right at the
expense of common understanding of "readers' rights".

So, where exactly is the problem here? Is it in people following the laws?

I would say no: the problem is with the laws themselves. _Which_ laws is an
interesting question, one that is very much lacking discussion on this forum
:(

------
timwiseman
Incidentally, arstechnica has a detailed write up at

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/amazon-
sold-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/amazon-sold-pirated-
books-raided-some-kindles.ars)

------
tjic
I'm not usually one of the anti-DRM frothing at the mouth folks...

but this screams out EPIC FAIL.

------
socratees
That's shocking. esp. a book such as 1984. why would they do that? Did the
customer service provide any specific reasons why the book was pulled out?

