Amazon returns deleted Kindle books

Well I suppose that's something. I do not own a Kindle and was on the fence about buying one. This episode with the deletion of books remotely was what really turned me off to the notion. Not that I don't understand about licensing but there is just something about Amazon being able to pull my purchases at a whim that rubbed me the wrong way. I think that they could have remedied this easily by offering the $30 check or the free book a whole lot sooner rather than allowing this thing to blow out of proportion like it did but you know what they say about big business: they have their own time frames.

I'm still not convinced that the Kindle is my next choice in electronic reading. My laptop will do the same thing and the books I download there, stay there.

This is why paper books are superior to e-books. Also, hypothetically imagine if important documents like the constitution / bill of rights were written in e-paper. Then, image if a tyrant got into power and then changed the wording of the documents. Within one generation, no one will remember what the "original" constitution / bill of rights said, and the tyrants would be in power forever.

This is nice and all, but what will happen the next time they illegally sell copies of a book? People need to know this will never happen again.

I don't have a kindle but my wife does and she loves it, I think Jeff Bezos handled the situation very well, while no one like being treated like they are being controlled by some higher power Jeff responded to the misjudgment adequately in a straight forward and honest manner and offered a no cost option to those affected by his company. His example is to be admired and hopefully emulated by other companies.

This is exactly why allowing control of "books" on electronic devices is a terrible mistake. When some power, benign or not, can remove reading en masse in one swoop, who can tell what decisions about the reading material of the public will be made? One only has to reference, for example, George Orwell's "1984" or Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451" to know that controlling what people can read is a first step in controlling their minds. Printed books, libraries, newspapers, the free press, are vital to preserving freedom of thought.

I was considering a date to purchase a Kindle, but after reading this Big Brother eventr, I'm spooked.

How is this different from when printing was controlled and only the rich could afford to read or have books. What if you cannot afford the internut? Do you have to use the library's just to read books? You cannot bring it home with you! The rich kids will get richer, and the poor kids will get poorer.

I think this proves Amazon is a fair company, and more than made up for this error. I'm upgrading to the Kindle 2 shortly, I was on the fence but this pushed me over the edge.

grow up people, they made a licensing mistake, fixed it, and are now making it right. you only have yourself to blame if this happened to you because you were too impatient to read the EULA and understand that they did have the power and ability to control what was on your device from the beginning. all of you doom-sayers and big brother freaks need to chill out with it and realize that these things have growing pains and this is one of them. also, if you believe that this is the first time something like this has ever happened in any context and it is something new, wake up and look around you. you are lied to everyday and it rarely hurts you because you'd just freak out if you knew how everything in this world really works.

Jean, I so agree with you. I was about to write the same thing myself, but since you did, I won't. Thank you.

Sally

Like others have said, all the more reason to stick to real books.

I think Amazon has made a smart move trying to placate people. I like the idea of the E-Ink type devices, but I will wait until I can purchase one without an electronic tether. The Sony looks promising. I'll wait a little longer for prices to drop too. E-Ink type tech price/performance ratio is not there yet.

This is a perfect example of why DRM (digital resource managment) is bordering on evil. I think that when a person purchases or obtains some kind of content, I think that they should own the copy. I don't think the owner should have to seek approval from a higher authority for each use. And I don't think that the authority to read content should be revocable AT ALL. It is sad irony that it was the novel 1984 that illustrated the ability that Jeff Bezos has to control your data. In the novel "1984", the government attempts to control all of thought, and indeed the Government changes the historical records to make itself appear to be better than it is. The novel 1984 invented the word "doublespeak". George Orwell would have been astonished to "buy" a book from Amazon, then discover that it could be yanked back. This "purchase" is doublespeak for sure. You don't own the book. Jeff Bezos, and his suppliers, own it. You only have their revokable permission to read it. They will revoke it whenever it suits them, or whenever they get a court order to do it. The cat is out of the bag now, purchases are revocable, at the whim of someone who is not you. If Amazon goes under, the licenses may be revoked from you at any time, to settle someone elses debt, because you don't "own" the content. You only have a revocable license. The "revocability" is a huge game changer for those of us who believe in our rights to ownership, and is a huge loss for the freedom and free flow of information. What a shame for the Kindle. It is a great technology, with great power. But those who wield great power are very easily corrupted.

And this doesn't even get into the maliciousness that can ensue when the book you thought you read is now revised, thereby changing history. You might testify that you read something that is not even there anymore. Can you ask for the old version back? Maybe, maybe not. You don't "own" it anymore. I would like Amazon to declare that there will NEVER be any modifications to purchased content, and then prove it with a digital signature on all purchased content.

Thanks for your consideration.
John

-continued-

Or better yet, provide a NONREVOCABLE technology to deliver books. I am sure there is an ability to deliver it in a way that not even a court order or act of congress could revoke it. Like delivering food that is eaten, he cannot take it back. How about using a digital signature that the buyer owns? That would be nonrevocable. A court could still order the buyer to turn over the digital key, but that would be harder. And a buyer could still keep the key in a secret location, thereby keeping the book forever.

John.

The problem is, the "properly licensed" Orwell that Amazon is offering to Kindle users won't be the SAME e-book that was deleted, and as a result, any annotations that students might have made to the previous e-book are permanently lost. It's awfully difficult for a student to tell the teacher, "Jeff Bezos ate my homework."

I have two Kindles (a K1 and a K2), but I see them as a convenience. I'd never use them for academic purposes unless I was sure that I had everything properly backed up on a regular computer. What's happened in the Orwell case, though, may make a lot of college and graduate students think twice about using the Kindle DX for academic purposes, if they're at risk of losing a substantial amount of high-lighting and annotation.

If I bought a hardcover or paperback book that later somebody said was fraudulently sold, or went to court and had declared slanderous, or whatever, I'd still have the book. The fact that amazon was able to enter private property and steal properly purchased content says as much about 1984 as that book does. Why would anybody knowingly buy something while knowing that somebody else has the power to take it from them as easy as pushing a few computer keys. Anybody who buys a Kindle is nuts, plain and simple. I cut waaaay back on my amazon purchases after this incident. I prefer to not spend my money with tyrants and crooks.

People need to chill and stop blowing things out of proportion.

Amazon deleted what the pirates had already stolen and now Bezos is giving it all back! Yo! Ho! Mateys the pirates have won this one.

Pirating aside, Bezos is being honest and upfront about what Amazon did and making amends with an exact replacement or a fair cash settlement. All of this has happened without a class action lawsuit and undeserved gains by the Kindlers and their lawyers. Wow it is kinda like the way the world should work, except for that remote delete button thingy.

I had thought of buying Kindle, but won't now, not after this. This is too much like George Orwell's 1984...no pun intended. They should not be able to 'delete' anything that has been purchased. I will use my own laptop for such functions, and they can't touch that. Sorry, Amazon, you blew it this time.

Amazon so hurt their reputation. I have enjoyed their view of vodow services and have been about to buy Kindle. Who would have thought to even impliment such a capability? To have you property removed after you paid for it is stealing. To some extent there should be a civil lawsuit to have code removed or changed.

Amazon has a long history of excellent customer service. It really surprised and bothered me to hear they yanked books off of people's Kindles. They screwed up in a big way, but now they're trying to make it right. Mistakes will always happen and the important thing is how they address them when they happen. I say "well done" to their response, even if it was slow in coming.

Honestly, though, the "be afraid" comments above concern me because manipulation based on fear-mongering is starting to run rampant in the US. The concern isn't without some merit, but let's keep it in perspective: we keep novels in electronic format–not only copies of founding documents. This is still a young industry and will have some growing pains, but let's not break out the torches and pitchforks just yet.

While I'm glad people still read books like 1984 and Farenheit 451 and learn lessons from them, let's remember that books probably aren't the primary medium for mind control these days...

Well, speaking of "1984" wait till the morality-based "deletions" come into play. There is no telling what could happen in the future, corporations being the toadies of the legal profession and all. Here's to PRIVATELY-OWNED, PRINTED PAPER BOOKS!

I own a Kindle 2 and love it. I'm enthusiastic about the potential of e-paper in general, but debacles like this are dangerous not only for Amazon but for the concept as a whole. People who purchased 1984 on the Kindle did so legally. If the license on the publisher or distributor side was improper, that's their problem to sort out with whatever reparations for copies already sold they need to make. It will take a lot to get me off my Kindle, but with Sony aiming to copy their delivery model, Amazon needs to position itself as an advocate for information freedom and consumer rights.

Incidentally, I experienced the same behaviour from Amazon with their Unbox service. Their agreement with the publisher changed, and a movie I had purchased was no longer available in my library. As far as I can tell the service is a non-starter, mostly due to lack of consumer confidence arising from nonsense like that. Fair warning, Amazon.

Irreversible damage. The Kindle is a novelty, a luxury item. The stigma that they attached to this device is a stain that's not going to go away. They've lost many would-have-been customers through their suboordination of customer's rights to privacy to their own financial interests. It may have been an easier pill to swallow if they'd just left it as it was yesterday. Giving the titles back and/or a monetary offering just shows that someone has crunched numbers into a calculator.

I have a Kindle, which I use only for long backpacking trips. Carrying 1 pound plus a few ounces on a long backpacking trip sure beats carrying 4 to 6 pounds of books. But, except on long backpacking trips, I never use the Kindle. Paper books are easier to read, easier to handle, easier to annotate and more esthetically appealing. The Kindle is totally unnecessary unless you have to carry a lot of books on top of a lot of other stuff for days and miles on end. But, I suppose it appeals to people who like a lot of electronic rubbish.

While everyone is saying controlling books, keep in mind it was an illegally distributed copy. To protect the integrity of freedom of speech and support the protection of people's ideas and written works Amazon should have removed those books, so that others may not be tempted to act in the same way. I agree they should have apologized sooner, but do they feel they had every right and responsibilty to do what they did and did (eventually) cater to their customers rights.

The amazingly-amusing and massive coincidence that Amazon's illegal distribution of an improperly licensed piece of intellectual property - and their draconian 'Big Brother-esque' remedy - involved George Orwell's "1984" is stunning to me! It's almost TOO appropriate to have been a coincidence in the first place. Perhaps someone at Amazon had a sense of humor when they set these strings in motion...hahaha!

An enormous company, offering an innovative product in a new format, rushed to meet its legal obligation to protect publisher rights, in a ham-fisted and clumsy way. In scrambling to protect its relationship with the provider of the content, it bruised its relationship with the consumer. The wheels came off the car. I'll bet Amazon was embarrassed, and lots of meetings and Powerpoints ensued, as middle management tried to do what they rarely are willing to do, namely make a decision.

That the head of the company was willing to put his name to an apology of refreshing brevity and clarity, and further provide an offer that not only fixes the car, but also offers to add a spare tire at no cost is testament, in my book, to the fact that AT NO TIME was Amazon wearing the mantle of "Big Brother" or otherwise behaving in an underhanded manner. They just did the right thing in a very stupid way. That simple.

However, we live in a time when paranoia is the norm, and webmania is rife. "Obama is speaking to our children?! He must be indoctrinating them! Stop the dark monster!!"..."Amazon just took back an illegally procured book?! They must be fascist censors! Storm the castle gates and burn your Kindles!!"...

Come on, people: lighten up a little, and see things for what they are. Leave your darkest fears and paranoia where they belong: in the pages of a novel. Better yet, why not buy a Kindle and enjoy the drama via eBook!?

Good news for Sony!

I'm almost glad this happened. It lets me know I should physically destroy the transceiver in my Kindle. I load books manually anyway, and the idea of someone remotely snooping through my collection, let alone having the power to delete things, is horrifying.

I have a Kindle and absolutely love it. I downloaded 6 books from Amazon yesterday. One cost $1.60 and the other 5 were free. They don't need to offer free books, they do it to provide a service to their customers. Everyplace I go, I take my Kindle and have music, internet access, and 90 books to read. You'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers to get it away from me.

1984 ...1948 plus 54 years2002 . but wait 1948 plus 27 years 1975, who are the relatives now/then living that still hold copyright? Public domain in 1075 by my understanding, I smell a DRM rat.

It is so refreshng for a major corporation and a major CEO to honestly and correctly describe what they did. People would have a much higher opinion of corporate America if we saw more of the same.

Anyone who buys a device that allows the seller to remotely take back what they sold on a whim is an idiot.

Ok, folks. This is important. Listen up. We are talking about the future of digital media here. Digital media is a fantastic advancement of human culture, but if it is destroyed by an idiotic tyrant who abuses his position, then we all lose.

Whether Bezos apologises and hands out hundred dollar bills to those who he has wronged is completely irrelevant right now. Make that a thousand or a million dollars handed out and it makes no difference. What is important is freedom of knowledge, and ownership of that knowledge. Knowledge is what separates us from all of the animals, so, YES, I THINK IT S THAT IMPORTANT. I don't care what Bezos does now. REMOTE DELETE IS A POWERFUL TOOL. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

He has demonstrated a remote delete capability. This capability is now available to anyone who can control Amazon. This includes Banks, stockholders, the US Congress, any two bit judge in the USA who issues a court order, some hacker in a third world country, or, as we have seen, some one who claims that Amazon didn't have the right to sell the knowledge in the first place. The most pernicious would be a politician who convinces Amazon that some textbook is mistaken in its interpretation of history, or evolution, or creation science. I don't care what side of that divide you are on. What is important is that someone that is not you will most definitely have a delete button on your data/content.

Until that data is on your media and formatted in a manner that no one can delete, then FREEDOM ITSELF IS AT RISK. George Orwell would know of what I speak.

DRM is, in and of itself, a means to deprive you of your media if someone else believes you shouldn't have it. As such, we need to fight this remote delete capability with everything we have. It needs to be illegal. It needs to be technically removed, so that a court order or a two bit politician cannot control your library of information.

Bezos sold a technical system based on a promise that was false. That the purchasers would not have to buy paper books anymore. This was a lie. The lie was proven with the remote delete.

This whole thing is that important to me.

John @ September 5th, 2009 6:33 pm ET

for someone who bothered to write so much on this subject, why haven't you bothered to investigate what you were talking about?

this was NOT a matter of consumers buying something that ended up having a revocable licence. The consumers never bought a thing. sure they thought they did. sure they paid money for the copies of 1984 – but that doesn't mean they entered into a proper transaction with the owner of the content.

this fumble is no different than your next door neighbor selling you HIS next door neighbor's brand new BMW, but without proper title to the car. Sure YOU thought you were buying the car. but the person you engaged in a transaction with wasn't the rightful owner of the property you bought. when the authorities come knocking on your door to ask why the guy from 2 doors down's car is in your driveway they aren't going to let you keep the BMW just because you paid for it. It's going to get taken away from you just like amazon removed 1984 from peoples kindles.

Whats so hard to grasp here?

People like me who have physical limitations are well served by e-technology, i.e. e-books, touch pads, miniaturization, etc.
I had been considering a Kindle purchase, but was unhappy with the licensing issue. When I buy something I consider it mine, period. This issue has made my decision for me. I will wait for a similar product from a company who recognizes the concept of ownership.

 
Amazon is missing out on advertising revenue
Pay by watching advertisements or by PayPal ?

Put a web-cam and microphone on the Kindle
Mission creep to book discussion, socializing

Jeff Bezos just does not have the vision to become
The Gargoyle behind the curtains to control the world

This is reply to Stan.

You are still very far from understanding the point of all this.

In your allegory, the BMW has been returned, and I never had any problem with returning property that wasn't properly owned.

I stated that it didn't matter that Jeff Bezos gave back a thousand or a million dollars. That is not the point at all. The BMW can and should be returned without question.

My point is that there is a remote delete button on your data. I am stating the the remote delete button should be illegal. Plain and simple.

No authority came knocking, and no authority came asking. The book was summarily deleted without discussion or consent. Your allegorical story is a mile wide from the point I am trying to make.

The point I am trying to make is that nobodies data is safe, from Amazon or anyone who can control Amazon. Including politicians, creditors, plaintiffs, business partners, owners of intellectual property, hackers, on and on and what have you.

And a side point is that DRM sucks, bacuse it enables these problems.

I am not even saying that the Kindle sucks, I like the Kindle.

John.

Haha, I actually owned a copy of the deleted, illegal copies of 1984. I never got a chance to read it before it was deleted. Such a crazy situation.

"This is why paper books are superior to e-books. Also, hypothetically imagine if important documents like the constitution / bill of rights were written in e-paper. Then, image if a tyrant got into power and then changed the wording of the documents. Within one generation, no one will remember what the “original” constitution / bill of rights said, and the tyrants would be in power forever."

Because really, someone can't just go around doing the same thing with paper versions.

And anyways, that would require getting rid of the versions of the Constitution that have the original wording, and getting rid of something completely on the internet is notoriously difficult...

When I first read of the remote deletion, it turned me off to devices like Kindles instantly.

Note that this apology is accompanied by NO PROMISES that they wouldn't do it again. Nothing changed except they got caught.

I imagine some day, when people are sufficiently desensitized again, we will see regular deletions of material off of people's e-books, computers, etc. The reasons will be varied: deemed immoral, replaced by the new version 2.0 book which you only pay a small fee to download, your movie was legal in your old home state, but not this one, etc. But in the end we will still pay for the privlidge of storing someone else's property at our own expense. Even when we thought it was our property to begin with.

Actually, this isn't so different from Singapore. You may own your home there, but you don't own the property it sits on; you lease it. Just think of this as "dictatorship by lawyers."

This whole circumstance has lost me forever as a Kindle (or any sort of e-book reader) consumer. If I want to read 1984 I'll just go buy a copy at my local bookstore, snag it from the public library or - as it happens - take it off the shelf from my 3000-volume home library. I might have warmed to the Kindle idea, but the very fact such a thing is possible – deletion by remote – has led me to ban them from my household.

Indignation is necessarily public relationed by the responsible men of the governing corporate elite. Just think how haphazardly confused the world would become without the guidance of the enlightened ones.

This is so sad. It was not their person property. It was stolen material, they had no rights to it!

Some of these comments are pretty hilarious. This wouldn't deter me from buying a Kindle. I'd expect Amazon to have all their ducks in a row going forward.

Stop supporting Amazon, and the Kindle, I cannot believe this company would actually break into thousands of peoples privacy (by tapping into their kindle and taking the book back) and then expect people to be ok with it. This company obviously has no respect for peoples privacy, they will just break in whenever, and then issue an apology. No thanks.

While the CEO of Amazon seemed to handle this issue well and sincerely, my problem is that if this can be done once, it can be done again, regardless of all the promises. (We see this all the time with politicians, yes?) All they have to say if/when they decide to do it again is "Whoops! Our fault! Sorry, it won't happen again! No, really this time...!"
As someone else put it so well, the cat is out of the bag now, and I wouldn't spend good money (it's too expensive, really) for a reader that someone else can remotely delete or change content that I paid for.
Nope, no thank you. Not until it is 'pickpocket-proof'.

Personaly I note the part of the Amazon apology that says:
".. re-deliver .. along with any annotations you made .."
i.e. they also downloaded and stored information written
by the owners of the Kindles before they deleted the
ebook along with annotations.

I wonder what else they download from the Kindle?

Perhaps Jeff is holding work product created by the customer? Better check the EULA and see where Amazon can sell that. The letter does not mention deleting the annotation file by some specific date, if you do not respond. Is Amazon holding all of the annotation files for Kindle as a benevolent backup, perhaps?

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All this is interesting, but what I would really like to see is a Kindle hack that would prevent this from being done again.