Amazon Offers To Return Pulled Orwell Ebooks 256
Back in July, Amazon faced public outrage over their decision to delete ebook copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindles of customers who purchased them. Shortly thereafter, CEO Jeff Bezos offered an apology, acknowledging that Amazon handled the situation in a "stupid" and "thoughtless" manner. Now, they're offering something more substantial: anyone who had an ebook deleted can now have it restored, apparently with annotations intact. Any customer who isn't interested in a new copy can get either an Amazon gift certificate or a check for $30.
damage (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the damage has already been done. Amazon handled the situation poorly and when confronted about the situation took a lot more time to attempt to remedy the problem than was necessary to degrade their image.
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
And Amazon also did the right thing by not going taking the typical non-acknowledgment position and instead admitting -- quite publicly -- that they screwed up big. I still have some problems with how Amazon does particular things (read: Kindle DRM), but it's refreshing to see a company fess up in no unequivocal terms when they do something that upsets their customers.
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Me either; I'm very happy with my iliad reader [irextechnologies.com]
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
And somehow, them actually doing the best-possible thing is "handling the situation poorly"?
Let's recap.
- Amazon automagically pulled books from peoples' Kindles that were unauthorized copies (sold, yes, but apparently not legally by the "publisher").
- Amazon provided everyone with a refund.
- People got pissed.
- Amazon's CEO apologized profusely in public and swore to make it right.
- Amazon put the books back even though they were never - and still aren't - entirely legitimate copies. Again... paid for, yes, but that's like paying zomgdownloadlimewirenow.com $9.95 a month to download songs (and viruses) through a scam copy of Limewire.
- People get free books.
Instead of:
- Amazon pulled books.
- People got pissed.
- Amazon craps out standard form-response of "that book wasn't legally purchased by the reseller" and refunds money.
- People sue Amazon.
- Amazon wins.
- Whine, whine, whine.
Somehow what Amazon actually did is considered being handled "poorly"?
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
instead of paying the proper royalties for having sold the book they decided to retroactively void a contract between Amazon and the consumer. Only now are they realizing what they have done and attempt to repair the damage the way they should have done in the first place.
Re:damage (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're missing a key detail, that the books were pulled because the SELLER (that is: not Amazon) was selling the books illegally via Amazon.
You are mistaken. The publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic version. The copies were sold legitimately from a publisher with the rights to do so. Linky [nytimes.com].
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'Somehow what Amazon actually did is considered being handled "poorly"?'
Yes. What gives some corporation the right to remove content from MY device? Oh, the draconian licensing agreement that comes with the Kindle! Which is why I have no interest in one.
Still, removing content from a user's device? I could see it if perhaps the device were somehow paid for by Amazon. But if I buy it, I don't want someone else removing my content.
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So, you mention you don't own a Kindle, which means you weren't affected by this incident yet you're stomping your feet as if someone stole your big wheel. Odd behavior.
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It would have helped if our 20-20 hindsight applied before the fact.
Saying "quit your bitching you had alternatives" does nothing to help you when you're deceived.
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But, someone
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
The mistake was in designing Kindle with the ability to "pull" material in the first place. I'm sticking to paper and text files for this exact reason. That the first already-published thing to vanish without a trace was 1984 is irony, dire warning and a giant big "fuck you serfs" all in one action.
Heck, for all I know it could be some moral Amazon employee trying to make a point who made the decision. It's a rather big coincidence otherwise.
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-Amazon removes the offending books from sale
-Amazon offers to allow each customer to download a non-
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
The bigger damage is that they've demonstrated that no matter what book you buy for it, they can take it away at any time and you're powerless to stop it. Paper copy is still the best option.
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
They have actually demonstrated that they have both the ability and the will to delete books from your kindle.
It is no longer a hypothetical situation when people say "Amazon could delete books you have paid for on your Kindle". It is now a FACT that Amazon had deleted paid-for books on customers Kindle, and they could do it again if they wish to.
This is the best example for showing what harm DRM could do from customers' point of view.
No amount of apology or refund is going to cover this up, unless they publicly send out an update to all Kindle to disable this ability to delete books, and then they have to hope people actually believe it.
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How is paper copy a better option in that regard than, say, drm-free pdf copy?
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Let's be a little more fair with Amazon. They realized they screwed up *right away*. They were apologizing left and right and acknowledged they made the wrong call and its a pretty safe bet it won't happen again anytime soon (unless there's a court order, for instance, forcing Amazon's hand).
Understand what lead this to this:
1) The book was listed through Amazon by someone claiming it as a public domain work, which it was, in *Canada*.
2) Amazon sells said book, only later realizing that the "rights owner"
Re:damage (Score:4, Insightful)
its a pretty safe bet it won't happen again anytime soon (unless there's a court order, for instance, forcing Amazon's hand).
Yes, amazon still has a kill switch, but I think they've been sufficiently humbled to the point where we're very unlikely to see it ever used again.
You've hit the nail right on the head here but have somehow not realised yet. There is a big problem that now that Amazon has demonstrated the existence of a killswitch, it opens the door for a court to order them to use it even if they don't want to themselves. The killswitch should *never* have been present in the first place. If this fiasco had happened with paper books then Amazon would have just paid damages to the copyright holder rather than breaking into everyone's homes and retrieving the books - that's exactly what they should have happened with the ebooks too.
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I believe I addressed that point by pointing out that everyone and their mother has a Killswitch and nobody flips out about it. Apple being able to do it with iPhone apps was the example I used.
I realize it's a bitter pill, but you just have to swallow with the knowledge that it'll probably be fine. If you want to hold a grudge against amazon, then I suppose you'll be holding a grudge against LOTS of companies and simply not buying anything electronic. So be it. Personally, I'd rather just get over it.
Re:damage (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, what is there to still be mad about?
Begging the question a bit, aren't we? You assume that everything you laid out is the entire situation. However, just because you are satisfied with an apology and a mere statement of good intentions doesn't mean you're the arbiter of good sense. Maybe your standards are too low. "Mistakes were made" is a joke, you know...a satire on passive voice.
You give Amazon entirely too much credit and benefit of the doubt here. Some "legal department grunt?" You can't be serious.
Amazon could certainly have worked this out differently, also without breaking the law: they pay the rightsholders and leave existing copies in place. For a book like 1984, I think it's just as likely that a check for $30 for each copy sold, written to the rightsholders, would be as effective as all of this was. Maybe $50, but Amazon multiplied the number of people screwed by orders of magnintude here anyway.
As for your weak-ass "Welp, that's just the way it is. Best we get used to it, guys!" blather, consumers are allowed to have standards and I have no idea why you would want to dissuade them from expecting better than they got. It's almost like you're arguing that people just plain shouldn't have higher standards of behavior and quality than corporations. I don't think you know what you're talking about when you assert that Amazon has been "sufficiently" humbled, because where I'm sitting it's just the same old same ol'.
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customers are allowed to have standards and I have no idea why you would want to dissuade them from expecting better than they got. It's almost like you're arguing that people just plain shouldn't have higher standards of behavior and quality than corporations.
There, made a critical fix to your post for you. These consumers you mentioned in your unfixed post are not permitted to have standards above what those corporate folk in their infinite wisdom decree is best for them. Unlike consumers that those running big corporations prefer, informed customers do not simply and happily accept whatever gets tossed their way.
Re:damage (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon has given us all a great gift: a real-world object lesson on why DRM is anti-consumer.
Re:damage (Score:4, Informative)
Re:damage (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not significant. I've worked for a few very large companies, larger than Amazon and apathy for the customer isn't acceptable no matter how big you are.
Yes, acknowledgment of the colossal stupidity of their decision months later is nice, but that doesn't resolve the bigger problems.
1) It takes months for Amazon complaints, even serious ones to reach a decision point and have action taken.
2) Amazon retains remote kill-switch features in the Kindle and they have shown their willingness to use it.
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
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"2) Amazon retains remote kill-switch features in the Kindle and they have shown their willingness to use it."
That's the only problem I see.
Re:damage (Score:5, Interesting)
How else would you explain the 2 month time period that elapsed before a decision was made?
Both very large companies I have worked for in the past corrected decisions that affected the customer in hours, not months. When you do something hilariously stupid, you fix it immediately and ponder the ramifications later. That's just good business.
Re:damage (Score:4, Insightful)
How else would you explain the 2 month time period that elapsed before a decision was made?
You may be over-simplifying the situation. The thing you have to remember here is that this wasn't a simple matter of Amazon shipping people the wrong color sweater. In essence, they shipped out stolen property. They were never free to just shrug their shoulders, say "Oops!", and pretend nothing happened. Their ebook business model depends on them rigorously defending the rights of IP owners. If copyright holders get the idea that anyone can just upload a copy of a work to Amazon without their permission, and start making cash off of it, the Kindle will fail. Of course, none of this is to say that Amazon handled the original situation well. What they probably should've done was to first make a statement about what happened, and then explain that customers should delete the books on their own, but if the user chose not to do that, it would be automatically deleted in an "update" after some predetermined date. (Of course, they would need to point to the part of the user agreement that allowed them to do this, but in this case, giving notice to users would've been the right thing to do, even if they weren't actually required to do it, legally.
But, as to the original question: The reason Amazon took so long to react after they made the mistake they did was simple enough to understand: There was undoubtedly some behind-the-scenes maneuvering with the copyright holder, and some bean-counting in terms of how much they could afford to pay out in credit should someone not want to re-download the book.
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
In essence, they shipped out stolen property.
Not quite. If you (the customer) purchase stolen goods then you can lose them without compensation as they are returned to their rightful owner. I'm not sure the same is true if you purchase goods which infringe copyright.
They were never free to just shrug their shoulders, say "Oops!", and pretend nothing happened.
If they had shipped an infringing physical book, they would have said "Oops!" and simply paid damages to the copyright holder. They wouldn't break into the homes of all their customers and retrieve the books.
Public domain content here. (Score:3, Informative)
In this case, I'm not sure how copyright comes into it, since the books concerned are clearly derivative works. The original text of both books is now well and truly available in the public domain, and in fact are available in clear text at Project Gutenberg here [gutenberg.net.au] and here [gutenberg.net.au].
All you would be paying for is someone else's annotations.
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You will note that site is Australian, a country that cannot use Kindles.
Are those books available like that in the relevant countries?
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You will note that site is Australian, a country that cannot use Kindles.
Are those books available like that in the relevant countries?
No. The book is still under copyright in the United States, as it was written after Mickey Mouse was created (the unofficial cutoff point for permanent copyright in the US).
That was the problem. A user in Canada uploaded the book, as it was copyright free in saner ports, and US customers were buying it illegally.
Re:Public domain content here. (Score:5, Informative)
They are public domain in Australia, but not the US. Copyright in Australia expires 50 years after the author's death, in this case 21st January 2000. In the US, it won't expire until 70 years after the author's death, which is 21st January 2020. Most likely the copyright term will have been extended again by that time, so it won't actually expire.
Re:damage (Score:4, Insightful)
But even then, the seller cannot forcibly take it back from you. Only the police can.
Re:damage (Score:4, Informative)
Copyright violation is not theft, it's copyright violation. And no, the distinction is not academic. Stolen property can be taken back by the rightful owner, but the remedy for copyright violation is a civil suit or settlement for damages.
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Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me.
Their are other places to buy books!
Rule of law (Score:3, Insightful)
1) It wasn't stolen property
1.1) If a shopping mall finds out that a shop (in the mall) is selling stolen property even if it has the physical ability (mall guards etc) to go to buyer's houses, take the stuff and return it to the original owners, it does not have the legal right to do it. The mall should report it to the relevant authorities so that appropriate action can be taken. The mall could tell the shop they cannot operate in the mall, and they might
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How else would you explain the 2 month time period that elapsed before a decision was made?
The time it took Amazon to analyze the bad press. Kindle buyers are netizens - and pretty sophisticated ones, overall; the very demographic that read the stories about that incident. It took 'em two months to work out that their most likely customers know about the incident and are pissed.
Had it not hit pretty much every major tech blog and news site, I doubt Amazon would've bothered even apologizing. By now, they've likely noticed their numbers are not recovering and are trying another round of the damag
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It's too late. It only takes one very conspicuously nasty action on their part to sour customers' attitudes. People who already have Kindles are pretty much stuck with them, but attracting new customers will be harder.
The fact that Amazon CAN swipe content off your device after you've bought it in good faith is damaging enough. The fact that Amazon has demonstrated that they WILL do so
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This also brings up the inadequacy of their "cloud" model for storage of annotations etc.: if you have any content you want to keep, you had better handle storage yourself, because nobody else can be trusted. This principle, of course, goes beyond Amazon, but is brought into focus here.
Are you saying that... RMS is right? [guardian.co.uk]
My head hurts. I'm going to lie down for a bit...
Re:damage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is saying they should have redistributed the copies illegally.
The proper course of action would have been to never have a remote kill-switch in the first place. The fact that Amazon remotely deleted everyones copies of the copyrighted work did not remove their civil liability for copyright infringement. It might have made the copyright owner more palpable but had they chosen to sue Amazon, Bezos would have found himself none the safer.
From a simple customer fairness perspective, Amazon's customers purchased the book in good faith. Amazon should have no more right, let alone capability to forcibly take the book away than a brick and mortar store has to force you to return a physical book. If you buy a physical book from Barnes & Noble and it turns out that the printer didn't have copyrights to produce it, B&N doesn't call you demanding you return the book-they resolve the issue between the copyright holder and publisher behind the scenes.
Amazon should be no different.
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
From a simple customer fairness perspective, Amazon's customers purchased the book in good faith.
And for potential buyers like me, the perspective is even simpler.
Even my government hasn't such a power.
Re:damage (Score:5, Insightful)
No-one would have criticised them for withdrawing the books from new sales when they discovered they didn't actually have publishing rights for that book.
They're angry that after a sale was completed, and with the slimmest of justifications from the EULA, they deleted books already sold - something just not possible with real books. Last I checked, people who purchase illegally copyrighted works are not held liable, it's the producer that's commited copyright infringement; though they may have them confiscated by the police if they 'should' have known the goods were infringing. What amazon should have done is stop sales, leave the copies sold already in place, then work with the copyright holder to recompense them for the copies already sold.
Amazon acting like copyright cops after the sale, and on very iffy legal grounds - especially by destroying people's annotations - that damage to their reputation is done, and no amount of backtracking, apologising, or 'here, have it back' fixes it, for me.
Who knows when they'll next decide to use a remote kill switch on what I've already paid for?
This has long been one of the criticisms of ebooks and ereaders; DRM and the ability to retroactively render a purchase unusable. It's why I didn't buy a kindle, and seeing amazon so handily demonstrate their power, I'm amazed anyone with half a brain would willingly do so either.
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Leaving legally bought books that were illegally manufactured in existance doesn't break any laws. Deleting them does not reduce their legal liability (and probably did violate the law). They should have left them. They can acqu
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When bookstores got in trouble selling Harry Potter books a day early, could you imagine them hiring goons to break into your house and revoke your copies
Why yes, yes I can. [slashdot.org]
(or at least a step in that direction).
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>>>How else would you explain the 2 month time period that elapsed before a decision was made?
Simple. They were hoping they could get-away with deleting the books, just like my local Comcast was hoping they could get-away with removing TCM from their lineup, even though they did not give the 2 month notice required by the FCC. After the FCC and then the local television station came-down on comcast like a ton of bricks, they offered to give any dissatisfied customer two months free.
Same with amaz
Re:damage (Score:4, Interesting)
Something else that's been bugging me is the offer regarding user annotations. Are those supposed to be stored elsewhere because if they aren't amazon just gave away that they don't just have a killswitch but also keep watch on what you do with the kindle.
Re:damage (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding is that the annotations are stored seperately and could indeed be accessed after the book dissapeared. The trouble is without the context provided by the exact version of the book they are meant to go with the annotations lose a lot of thier meaning.
So if amazon has restored the exact version of the book they killed then I don't see the annotations regaining thier context as too serious.
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Something else that's been bugging me is the offer regarding user annotations. Are those supposed to be stored elsewhere because if they aren't amazon just gave away that they don't just have a killswitch but also keep watch on what you do with the kindle.
Your annotations are saved along with the electronic book, both on the Kindle and on Amazon's servers. A while back Amazon announced the online storage of annotations. I was actually surprised at first that annotations were caught up in the Orwell fiasco, considering that they're stored in files independent from the book itself. I can only assume that the original copyright holder put the squeeze on Amazon, claiming that the notes were "derivative works" or some such thing, and that since the users didn'
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My understanding is that they never deleted the notes and they have always been fully accessible but they loose much of their meaning without the context of the story. All that amazon is doing here is restoring the story and so the annotations now have the context again.
Nice, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
...this would make it better:
"The new firmware update for the Kindle removes the remote deletion capability. We pledge [in some legally binding fashion] that this capability will never be reactivated."
Unfortunately, I don't see that happening.
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Of course not, it would be bad for business if they did that.
George Orwell books like "1984" and "Animal Farm" deserve to be deleted because they cannot have customers drawing parallels from the books to their business model or even the way modern governments are run. But it was just a coincidence that those two books happened to be pulled and deleted.
Amazon.com got caught and had to backpeddle and do some Public Relations and offer to restore the books or at least offer a discount.
Anything to get people to
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> Kindle removes the remote deletion capability
Agreed that would be the best solution. Anything else amounts to a rental.
But from the summary: "apparently with annotations intact" suggests to me it may never have actually removed from the device in the first place.
Perhaps a little careful hacking may reveal how to undo Amazon triggered deletions.
Or perhaps only the annotations, stored in a separate location remain.
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>the terms of use already specify that you own everything you buy from amazon forever.
Does it infact ever say that in so many words?
Or does it say in effect you own every *legally* purchased item?
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And moreover, they can say it all they want, but if there's DRM involved, it's a lie.
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I'm not defending Amazon's actions here, merely questioning SlothDead's characterization of the terms of sale.
Amazon did not have the right to sell it, because the their supplier did not have the right to sell to them.
It is somewhat akin to stolen property at this point, and can not be legally bought any more than stolen jewelry or cars.
But unlike cars, all Amazon had to do was pay the rightful copyright owner a royalty out of their pocket, and chock it up to damaged goods, and write it off on their taxes.
T
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But that account is wrong:
http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/storymf00554.htm [melonfarmers.co.uk]
"Contrary to what the New York Times reported, the publisher did not change its mind, nor did Amazon cave to pressure. Rather, Amazon was notified that copyrighted material was being sold on the Amazon store without permission and it removed said material."
So we are back to the stolen goods scenario. Someone sold Amazon ebooks that they did not hold the rights to. Amazon was itself a victim.
Amazon can't legally resell stolen goods.
Havin
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You're close. The correct action would have been for the copyright holder to sue the seller. Amazon just provided a venue for the sale, on good faith that the seller was allowed to sell the good. They probably have language in the marketplace agreement to state that the seller must indemnify Amazon against all such damages, so they would have almost certainly been on solid legal ground to simply stop selling the book and then allow the publisher to pursue the seller in court.
Nice gesture, but that's not what worries me (Score:5, Insightful)
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Unfortunately, it's going to take more than even a firm "commitment" to fix the Kindle. The whole Kindle firmware needs to be redesigned so it's actually not possible for things to be remotely deleted. I know that may sound radical, but honestly, nothing less is going to cut it.
If I sold you something that I later found out I wasn't supposed to, sneaked into your house to retrieve it, but ultimately offered to make it up to you, that's one thing. I made good, right?
Now what if I kept the copy of your house
Re:Nice gesture, but that's not what worries me (Score:5, Informative)
Other side of the coin, let's say that these were just counterfeit copies. I.E. unauthorized copies of a protected item. I feel that this is closer to the truth. Current law says that it is NOT within the government's rights to seize a single counterfeit item if that is the only copy in your possession and you do not intend to sell it. That's why you never hear about a non-seller's collection of bootleg dvd's or fake-gucci purses being siezed. So had amazon realized that, it would have classified the re-seller as a digital counterfeiter and possibly resolved the matter by shutting off transfer rights (to another account, not another device within the account.)
Re:Nice gesture, but that's not what worries me (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the first problem is that while the government can (legally) do many things (from taking your goods to killing people) Amazon can't . After they sold you the stolen or fake or infringing or whatever goods they can't (legally) just reach to your computer/kindle and "correct" the mistake by helping themselves just because this is the way they designed the system.
Plus I'm sick and tired of this DRM double dipping. Copyright gives rights not only to authors but also to customers AND all other people. With DRM authors are giving themselves technologically rights they don't have legally. Copyright owners don't have the legal right to stop you from selling your music collection. They don't have the right to take back what they sold to you. They don't have the right to prevent you from playing your US DVD in Europe. They don't have the right to forbid you to take small parts to use them in a research work (fair use). They don't have the right to kill your collection because they don't think maintaining the authentication servers is profitable for them (yes, Yahoo, Microsoft, Wallmart I'm looking at you). And above all they don't have the right to keep their creations from falling into public domain (although they are very close to their desired "forever less one day" in extending the copyright terms).
Not that there's any chance in hell for this to happen but I vote to have any (legal) copyright protection removed for any material that has DRM. You, author, want to break the deal with customers and with general public by not giving them all the rights they have (via technological means). FINE. There's no deal then. No (legal) copyright protection for whatever DRMed crap you sell.
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Amazon has WAY overstepped themselves here, and they clearly know it. The only question that remains is will anyone take them to cou
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Something which very often gets overlooked. Also they can't do anything which is explicitally forbidden by the "law of the land".
Any license that takes liberties can be overturned with enough money and effort.
Typically they will contain words to the effect that if any part isn't valid the rest still stand.
This is the real problem with our corp
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License agreements can not give a corporation legal rights that don't exist.
Not quite right. As long as the license agreement has clauses in it that are different than default copyright, this is perfectly fine so long as the clauses aren't illegal. A contract drawn by one party and accepted by another party binds both parties to the terms of the contract. Its kind of the whole point.
Now if the contract had a clause that was illegal, ie: in the case of downloading animal farm amazon may send agents to your house to kill you, then yes the contact would be considered invalid or at lea
Re:Nice gesture, but that's not what worries me (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, in most cases, they do have a right to do all of those things that you mentioned...you just didn't read the license agreements.
The parent was talking about the legally enshrined rights provided by the copyright legislation. Whatever the EULA says is pretty moot because there is no legal requirement for you to agree to an EULA.
However, even if you were to assume that the consumer agrees to whatever licence they are presented with and that the licence is enforceable, you are still wrong: When I buy a DVD, I am never presented with a licence agreement - I go into the shop and say "I want to buy this DVD", hand over some money and get given the DVD in return. You cannot argue that this doesn't constitute the sale of the DVD (which would give me all the rights and restrictions granted by copyright law). Iff I were to go into the shop and say "I want to buy this DVD" and they said "you can't buy it, you can only licence the content, here's a licence for you to sign" then you could argue that I didn't buy the DVD and that I am therefore bound by the licence terms, but that never happens.
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Especially if the DVD is adve
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Annotations?? (Score:5, Interesting)
... can now have it restored, apparently with annotations intact.
Wait a second-- where are these annotations coming from? When they erased the text of the books from Kindles, they didn't erase the annotations, but apparently archived them somewhere?
Does this imply that Amazon can remotely access (and read?) any private notes anybody makes using their Kindle?
Re:Annotations?? (Score:5, Informative)
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Wait a second-- where are these annotations coming from? When they erased the text of the books from Kindles, they didn't erase the annotations, but apparently archived them somewhere?
They better be. If by having access to those notes, it means we can prevent just one future terrorist from blowing himself up -- it will all have been worth it. Besides, server space is cheap and it's just all text anyway. There is really no reason -- not to keep them.
Scary that they can restore the annotations. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Scary that they can restore the annotations. (Score:4, Insightful)
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In the "run ubuntu on a kindle [slashdot.org]" story, the guy said the kindle uploads syslogs twice a day. That's probably more about monitoring errors and basic usage than any individual tracking, I hope.
It's a normal part of the kindle's operation to sync the last position read in your books. That's what lets you pick up where you left off on another device tied to the same account.
So in theory they know how fast a reader you are, and more interestingly, they could see for any particular book if there are parts where
What the offer doesn't do (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't remove their ability to delete the books you bought and paid for if they deem it necessary. This is different from buying a physical book in that generally to take the work away from you they have to come to where you're keeping it, preferably with guns.
It doesn't remove the inherent unreliability of a system that can take away the content you've bought at any time. To resolve that you need a solution that doesn't involve DRM.
Fuck you, Amazon. (Score:3, Insightful)
Break into my device and delete a product that /I PAID FOR/, and then, months later, offer me a fucking coupon?
Fuck you.
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Break into my device and delete a product that /I PAID FOR/, refund the original purchase price, and then, months later, apologize and offer either a coupon , or a check for $30, or a restoration of the original product, in addition to the refund?
Fixed that for you.
Seriously, did you even read the summary? Amazon could have handled it better, yes, but the way they did handle it is hardly as bad as everyone's making it seem.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the title is justified by the first four words of the comment, "Break into my device". The rest is just details.
The real reason they probably did it (Score:4, Interesting)
It was coming to bite them in the a**... with a student [cnet.com] suing them and everything.
They finally realized they were getting widespread negative publicity, poorer reviews, more people recommending to stay away frmo kindle and get something else, and maybe, just maybe, it put a small dent in their sales.
Enough for them to stand up and take notice...
If it were just a few customers effected by the deletion and hasn't been widely publicized in the news, I have my doubts that Amazon would have ever done something to right the situation.
Soooooo... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Soooooo... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who got fired?
Hopefully nobody. I've worked for companies that liked to fire people for making one mistake -- the air of paranoia was such that nobody was willing to do anything, for fear of screwing up and not being able to find someone else to blame. Companies that do that tend to stagnate until there's a culture shift or they go under (or get bought out, as with the place I worked).
Too late... (Score:2, Interesting)
Then they started to delete Orwell book
The memory hole's still there... (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how much they protest; it doesn't make the whole episode any less ironic. The more they promise they won't do it that way again unless they feel they have a legal right to, the more they point out the fact that they can delete your books (and modify them? and inspect notes? reading patterns? what else?) any time they really want to.
The upshot is: they've demonstrated the presence of the memory hole and their ability and willingness to use it. They're sorry they got caught, and they'd like you to forget all about it and by yourself a Kindle.
$30 is nice (Score:5, Funny)
I would have suggested $19.84
Re: (Score:2)
Where are you getting your exchange rate from? Closest I can get is $30 CAD is 19.30 Euros, and nothing converted from $30 USD is even close.
Just think (Score:2)
Completely ridiculous.
Refund is worthless -- are they going to fix it? (Score:4, Insightful)
So when are they changing the firmware so that deletes always require a user-interface confirmation?
It's the right fix. It still allows refunds, the user just has to manually acquiesce to the deletion on the kindle itself.
It's not like this changes amazon's ability to be sure the delete happened.
The firmware would be just as secure or insecure with the change.
Nothing has changed (Score:2)
Amazon still has the capability of remotely and silently modifying your Kindle. There's no technological reason they couldn't do this again. These devices need to be built with protections that make this sort of thing impossible.
Even scarier, Amazon could theoretically modify your books if they wanted to. If they don't want you reading chapter 28, they can remove it and renumber the rest.
Slight Edit on the new copies (Score:2)
In the new copies there's no such word as freedom.
But in good news chocolate rations are going up.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the key for me; rapid exchange of ideas is leading to a global increase in consciousness; this makes us more difficult to subdue/control - therefore, an all-out attack on sharing under one guise or another.
Re: (Score:2)
The cumulative actions sustain a great evil drain on the US economy, decimating local economies in small towns across the country.
And they do this... how? You mean by providing competition that local businesses can't compete with? Well, I have one thing to say to that: tough shit. That's capitalism in action. What would you rather they do? Deliberately inflate prices to protect those precious little mom-and-pops?
For all the good the free market has done, WalMart is the yardstick for measuring where ca
Re: (Score:2)
Just a few reasons, I'll try to be brief.
Walmart, for many years has refused to offer any type of parking lot security due to costs. Numerous employees have been raped, assaulted and robbed in their own parking lots because Walmart refuses to address the issue.
Walmart flaunts many state and local environmental laws about lawn and garden goods being stored outdoors, such as storing pallets of fertilizers outdoors in stream and river watershed areas. Fertilizers have detrimental effects on fish reproductive c
Re: (Score:2)
I originally went with a point-by-point attempt at at rebuttal, but I'm not sure there's much point, so I'll just go with my conclusion:
To sum it up, Walmart is effectively the devil of all corporation
Pure, unadulterated BS. To sum it up, Walmart is a perfectly average corporation. I'm sorry, you didn't cite a single point that is uniquely evil or uniquely Walmart. Sexism? Hiring illegal immigrants? Outsourcing labour? Jebus, you could be describing half the corporations in the US.
Meanwhile, Walmart a
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's not an AVERAGE corporation. WalMart is a $400 billion per year company with over 2 million employees, making them the largest company in the world. If you took all their employees and put them on an island and called it a country, they would be the 143rd largest country on earth.
Are you getting the picture yet?
Their size alone doesn't make them evil, but you have to take their size and resources into account when you look at the effect they have on the US economy. If over 50% of their 2 million emp
Re:The lesson here is. (Score:5, Insightful)
If over 50% of their 2 million employees have no health insurance and average an income of just $1100 per month, that puts almost their entire work force near poverty levels relying on all us other wealthier taxpayers to foot the bill for their medical expenses.
Uhuh. And if there was no Walmart? They might *not having a job at all*. Furthermore, for all those people who *don't* work at Walmart while living on a low income, Walmart has made it possible for them to fund a lifestyle they couldn't otherwise affort, which is a *good* thing. But, of course, you're too blinded in your irrational hatred to consider that Walmart *might* just have some positive effects on the economy.
That is kind of a callous position considering many have little choice because WalMart put local competitors out of business through their cutthroat pricing and megachain distribution agreements.
Uhuh. And those local competitors? a) You have absolutely no evidence proving they would've paid more or provided a better health plan... and in the current economy, the precise opposite would've likely been true, with local businesses firing people or putting them part-time, and cutting or reducing health benefits b) Wouldn't hire as many people as Walmart does, c) Charged higher prices, thus making it more difficult for those poor people you're so worried about to actually support their standard of living.
Thus, in the end, for a local person living near the poverty line, at worst, Walmart is basically a wash... the trade off is a possibly lower salary for definitely lower prices.
I know you're apathetic to the situation because well hell, this is just the way capitalism works right?
Apathetic? No, of course not. I happen to believe that Walmart, while not a perfect corporate citizen, is a net positive force for the economy. They hire millions and they act to stifle inflation by keeping prices down. For the poor that you seem so very deeply concerned with, that's a positive thing, not a negative one.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't this mean that Amazon has backed up every single Kindle? Presumably if you tried hard enough after losing your Kindle you could get all your books back...
Mod parent "+1 so innocent it's funny". Amazon can have their own copy of all the material (for archival and backup) if they want. They can also keep a list of all the things they sold you. Then they don't have to "back it up" to restore it. The reason they won't restore it is because then they can charge you for the same material all over again. You have no legal come back; giving you back your stuff isn't in your contract. This is exactly what the point of the DRM is. It gives them power; it takes a