Seems publisher Mobile Reference pulled it’s illegal versions of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Amazon Kindle library thus removing them from all Amazon Kindles even if you bought and downloaded it and were reading it. The users did get a refund but also the shock in finding out that Amazon can remotely erase any eBooks it sells from their possession without notice.
Obviously Amazon shouldn’t have been selling someone else’s copyrighted books it did not own in the first place and there is obviously some serious legally questionable processes with how it puts eBooks up for sale.
In my opinion the whole deal from how Amazon accepts eBooks for sale to how it interacts with it’s customers is not something I think is worth the top dollar Amazon asks for it’s eBook Readers.
Maybe this is good news for all the copyright holders and writers, maybe they want a world much like Orwell wrote about so they can immediately exercise their rights, but as a reader I certainly won’t waste my money buying into their utopia. I think this crossed a line and not one many customers will forget or forgive.
1. Every time you buy a book from Amazon, download it to your PC and save it as a backup copy. You’re allowed to do this. You should also be backing up the text file on your device that stores all of your notes and highlights, just in case.
2. Keep your Kindle’s wireless connection turned off unless you need it.
I know it sounds obvious but good consumer safety tips usually are.
Tags: Kindle, Reader Beware
Selah wrote,
Aw, Teddy, please don’t put this on the writers. Orwell’s been dead for over fifty years. I doubt he’d like what his copyright holder did, or what Amazon did to placate them.
Link | July 18th, 2009 at 7:04 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Now I did say “maybe”.
I don’t like DRM. I don’t like the very idea that purchasing an eBook somehow entails reading it as only a privilege you bought that can be taken away or controlled by someone else.
Be that in locking files or arbitrarily taking away access on a crummy eBook reader the fight should be one fought with the rogue publishers or the pirates not with the customer and his purchase.
The actions we have seen continue to show that publishers are all about their rights with no regard being given at all to a customer’s rights of property. This will not end well for them. I won’t be surprised if people start hacking the Kindle around the Whispernet functionality and then simply disarm the DRM in total.
The magic show can suddenly become “Watch me saw a Kindle in half!” It’s MAGIC!
Link | July 18th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Selah wrote,
I don’t necessarily disagree with a word of this, but neither do I have much control over it as an author.
The publisher with which most of my work is placed operates DRM-free (Amber Quill/Amber Allure). This week I spent a solid five hours of what should’ve been writing time tracking down pirate sites that are distributing Amber Allure titles by the hundreds.
Rock? Meet hard place. Multiply by every ebook author you know.
DRM sucks. Pirates and wankers who think they’re entitled to free books just because they’re offered in electronic format suck harder. (I always want to ask these fuckwits if they shoplift from their local B&N, too. Oh, noes, that would be STEALING.)
I don’t have any answers. If you come up with one, please let the rest of us know. We’ll throw you one hell of a parade. :)
Link | July 18th, 2009 at 8:03 am
TeddyPig wrote,
The only answer I have is “respect for the customer and their purchase” (not treating them like bad children and simply because “you can” do something does not necessarily mean “you should”) and “communication” (Which goes back to that respect thing I think and entails the entire truth being provided). I am sure if customers knew out right that Amazon could leverage their connection to the Kindle that way many would not have purchased it.
Amazon probably tacked that information somewhere in the fine print but I consider that a gotcha.
I can only hope that someone like Cool-er rakes Amazon over the coals for this and several other recent issues and basically trashes Amazon’s reputation for it’s disgusting lack of customer support and it’s design flaws.
I strongly suggest around Christmas they have a rather direct UK commercial showing Amazon as the Grinch who steals eBooks and sells Kindles that fall apart using the cover.
Someone should get in there and make a nice profit off of Amazon’s failures.
Link | July 18th, 2009 at 8:13 am
SarahT wrote,
Reading about crap like this makes me even more reticent to invest in an ereader. I hope the problems with copyright, DRM and geographical restrictions are merely teething problems. I’d love to convert to ebooks at some point but not under the current conditions. Apparently, Amazon are launching the Kindle in the UK before Christmas. I’m very curious to see how that goes.
Link | July 18th, 2009 at 10:30 am