Amazon faces criticism for deleting e-books

If amazon can remotely delete items, what else can it do with your kindle. I'm not buying one if they can search through my files and delete at will.

I never had any trust or confidence in Amazon in the first place. The charge way too much for ebooks and are not what I would call consumer-friendly.
I have an ebook reader that I use ever day, but I would not have a Kindle if they were giving them away. Letting someone like Amazon have control of your library is insane.

I have over 700 books on my reader and all of them were free, so buying from Amazon would be amazingly stupid.

Anything digital will be controlled by someone- don't get used to it. get mad. But really, that's how it is- TV- they can delete your recorded shows, or say how long you can keep them. If you really want something, buy the hard copy and don't trust the digital media.

Amazon.com, instead of penalizing users that bought the books in good faith by remotely destroying their customer's files, they should've said, "our bad", and pay the copyright holder on behalf of their innocent customers...

Never make your customers pay for your mistakes, because they'll turn around and make you pay double.

It is all about money. Don't use your mouth to tell them their actions are wrong, then use your wallet to tell them it is ok.

Does the Kindle license allow for deleting customers' books?! If not, then I would bet there are going to be lawsuits!

I'd say it's "criminal trespass" unless they have a clause in their license agreement that allows them to manipulate my files remotely!

"Big Brother Amazon"...? NO THANKS!

They didn't have to delete the books. They could have chosen to pay the relevant royalties to the copyright owners out of there own profits.

They're the ones at fault, they should accept the responsibility and costs.

Cry me a river. Buy it or borrow from your local library. This digital age disgusts me.

"...paperless future, when all books exist as files..."

Does none see a problem with this? We will lose everything one of these days... although by then, it's unlikely people will even be reading.
"Why read the book when I can just watch the 3 minute recap on youtube?"

Wake up. Idiocracy is here and people are too stupid to even realize it.

Receiving stolen property is still receving stolen property, even if it is digital property. If I have a bootleg software copy, I can be fined $25,000 for usage. For those who purchased innocently, the refund and apology after the deletion should be sufficient. Let's be reasonable here. Amazon was reassonably taking steps to correct a mistake they had made in making it available to Kindle users.

I had planned to buy a kindle but as result of this I will wait until Amazon has removed their ability to access the contant of my device completely. Once I have bought something legally it is mine and nobody elses.

While (from my understanding) it wasn't unlawful for them to delete it from peoples libraries, I don't think a company should be able to take away something that I understand to be "my property", even if it has that DRM/IP stuff around it.

What Amazon did was very unprofessional and it just tells us the fact that even though we can use e-book, peopel have a way of monitoring what we are buying and what we are reading. It tells me one thing. I do not want any company nor nobody telling me what I can or cannot read on me free time. Good bye to e-book. I´m dumping it. I just lost my confidence with AMAZON!!!!!!!

[...] news comes during a week where Amazon is getting slammed for deleting purchased books from the Kindle (which is another discussion – if you buy something digitally, is it really [...]

Dear Jim Smith:

What reader do you own and what is the source of your free books? Competition is the best antidote to Amazon's percieved monopoly.

Bud

Amazon should have payed the license fee and let us keep the book. Kindles are way over priced for a device that in addition to adding sales profits to Amazon also acts as the perfect market research device. All the market sales info that they gather from these devices saves Amazon a ton of market research money. Maybe we should be charging Amazon a royalty each time they analyse and use our personal buying data from these devices.

Big Brother isn't watching us but hes sister Amazon is !!

When a person purchases a device with pre-loaded data or software, the understanding is that there was an agreement made at the time of purchase about exactly what data content would be on the device in return for exactly what amount of money for the device and the content. When a seller removes data from the item after purchase without permission from the owner, they remove a thing of value without compensating the owner, and in the owner's mind, they have violated the terms of the agreement between the seller and the buyer. The owner is out just as much money as before, but the seller has taken back some of what was purchased. It's like a con artist who sells you a box with a brick in it saying it's a radio. Amazon sold a bookreader claiming there were books in it, but the books just evaporated.

It seems that purchasers, Kindle owners, should be compensated, since Amazon did not deliver on it's promise.

I am an avid reader, and have looked at bookreader technology several times, but it is clear to me that this technology is not yet ready for prime time. This story makes me even more skeptical. The problem with power, like the power to reach into someone's portable device and delete content, is that it is inevitably abused.

in the paperless world of the future there should be an almighty deletion mainframe where all the banned files go, that way we could pull the out when the laws change.

... And this, people, is why I shall never pay money for any digital media that is DRM-controlled. The licensing for such things will always have a clause somewhere that says 'we can take stuff away for any or no reason', as an emergency CYA. EVERY license where such is technically possible with the product has this - so make sure it's not possible with what you buy! Anything you can't legally back-up yourself is essentially not YOURS, it's merely borrowed as long as they feel like letting you have it.

Had already told my family I wanted a Kindle for Christmas...sending a link to this story and a request for a pink,fuzzy robe instead. At least I know I can keep the robe.

I have been seriously considering purchasing a Kindle soon. However, this latest development is very disturbing to say the least. In my eyes, this action by Amazon threatens the device's overall viability and undermines and harms public confidence.

I was thinking of purchasing a Kindle, I love to read and having a number of books at hand would be very handy, but I have to say no more. Sorry, I will stick to paper where once I purchase it, it actually is mine, not just some bits floating around out there that anyone can take away from you at anytime for any reason.

I guess it boils down to, screw buying books for the kindle, Ill buy something that I can actually keep thanks.

I still have my copy of 1984 on my kindle. Did I just happen to buy the legal version? Who knows. Regardless, the kindle is an amazing product.

Amen about Idiocracy Emmanuael, amen....

Oddly enough I was looking at getting a Kindle just yesterday… Makes me revisit my thoughts. What Amazon did was like if I went into Barnes & Noble and bought a copy of “Eye Of The World” then the family of Robert Jordan finds out that B&N were selling the books illegally then B&N forcefully coming into my house at night and taking my copy away… (Extreme I know, but similar). Hope this gets rectified so it can never happen again.

This entire situation has convinced me that I'm not ready for an e-reader yet. I had been seriously considering getting a Kindle, but the idea that items that I had purchased could be summarily deleted worries me. It's akin to someone from Amazon walking into your house and taking back a physical book that you've purchased. No thanks!

In addition to refunding the money, I think Amazon should at least send hard-copy versions of the books to the folks they deleted the ebooks from.

All of you that are complaining are probably the same misinformed individuals I used to deal with when I worked at Kinko's. People would walk in with their professional photos and want color copies made of them. I would explain in a professional mannner that they are copyrighted and I can't do that they would yell at me "But I purchased them at Wal-Mart", they are mine!!" I will give you that Amazon could have handled it better, but this probably comes down to somone not reading the fine print – electronic or on paper. I want to buy a Kindle and this story would certainly not keep me from doing so.

I too was just about to buy a Kindle when I saw this article. Well, no Kindle for me now. I think I will look instead at the sony e-book readers as a somewhat more independent alternative. Big Brother indeed. Having someone else decide what should reside on any of my digital devices is simply not right nor should they even know what that content is. I think Amazon has overstepped a bound here and it will cost them some customers.

I purchased the Sony Book Reader for just these sorts of reasons. I don't want my content on my ereader controlled by anyone. There are lots of wonderful alternatives to Amazons Kindle.

And here I thought that video games were the only things getting censored anymore these days. Ah, how nostalgic my parents must feel hearing that the days of book burnings are back.

It's called Kindle for a reason!

But seriously, I don't think it was too intentional for those books specifically and it might have just been some sort of copyright issue. But like it said, from my understanding usually these things just go straight to fines and people who bought the product from the company get to keep their "unlawful" copies.
But I could easily be wrong.

~Oh, and I forgot to mention. What if Amazon gets tyrannical? You don't own the book, you're renting it! It can be taken away at any time then. So really you own nothing. Whereas if you purchase a paper book then it's yours and you don't have to worry about "errors" that occur along the way.

WOW! Big Brother deleting Big Brother!! Whats next? This does not bode well.

Actually what Amazon did was an ilegal invasion of private property and likely theft as well. Amazon does not own Kindle. Once you buy it you own it. Amazon has no more right to invade your Kindle than to invade your PC or your home, regardless of the circumstances. Amazon should be sued and hit hard to prevent this type of illegal activity in the future.

Please consider this story from a different perspective. We have a publisher that refuses to allow their works to be read by people who want to read them. Why are the majority of you blaming Amazon for something that really is the fault of a publisher! I fully support Amazon’s decision to remove the content and refund the people who bought it. Anyone that bought it can now put that money towards buying a hard copy of they prefer ($15.60 for both on Amazon) or wait for the publisher to release it as an e-book (if they ever do).

Mobile devices are all over the map when it comes to the content they can download or stream. Amazon may be deleting e-books and Apple may be getting rid of a soft-porn app, but the mobile web means anyone can access any kind of porn available.

A new publisher just debuted an iPhone novel today on the "sexy secrets" of U.S. Presidents' mistresses (most of them pre-Clinton) – and while Apple gave the novel a 17+ rating because of the word "mistresses," it didn't and won't censor any of the content (I understand there's a presidential love child). Read more about this (now free) app at http://www.MobilizedTV.com

Are most of you conspiracy theorist or just supremely selfish. An item was bought that should not have been sold !!! A Kindle was bought that REMOTELY downloads formerly printed material which means there is a TWO way connection. I should not have to explain this but... I will. THE BOOK WASN'T AMAZON'S TO SELL. Should they have sent a message via the Kindle to let the users know the download would be retracted? Sure, as a business courtesy and next time they will BUT chances are if Amazon had not told it's users that the company was retracting the Orwellian classics the users would not have known. Also, notice that most of the comments are from non-Kindlers? Just a bunch of paranoid people who will use this as an excuse not to progress or embrace what will be the way of the world. As the Borg state : Resistance is futile".

I think this story blows the issue way out of proportion. Amazon did not go into the user's device, scan what files are on the device and remove the books in question. The device simply synchronized itself with the user's digital media library, which is stored on Amazon.com. The synchronization routine "saw" that the books were removed from the media library, and removed the books from the device. This type of operation is the same on many different media devices, like the iPod or Zune, which synchronizes itself with a media library, and anything that is in the device that is not contained in the library gets deleted. If this were a case of physical stolen merchandise (which, in essence, is exactly what happened – the books were posted by an individual who did not have legal rights to sell the book, therefore, the posted works were illegal), the police would have recovered the stolen goods from your home and you'd be lucky not to be charged with possession of stolen goods, not to mention never receiving compensation for your purchase. At least Amazon refunded the purchase price for the consumers who purchased the books. Do I necessarily agree with how Amazon handled it? No. I think that Amazon should have admitted that the books that were posted were not posted by the authorized copyright holders, and that the books were being removed due to copyright issues.

No Kindle for me. What does that mean "change their software so they won't do this in the future."?? How about "change their software so they CAN'T do this in the future" ?? They can't be trusted. Period. DRM is a ridiculous concept anyway, but this move (and the response) by Amazon proves that the companies desire for revenue and control outweighs any morsel of respect for the customer they may claim.

well rick this isn't new. apple can remotely access all their products and edit them at will. in fact most companies have that power. so it really isn't much of a kindle only issue.

I would love to buy a kindle but issues like these and DRM hold me back.

I began reading ebooks in 2003 on my palm pilot and computer. I bought from three places Adobe ebookstore, Amazon, and fictionwise.

The Adobe store and format was tethered to a device codes and you could only read on "activated" devices. The Adobe store went out of business so I could no longer re-download any books to use on a new computer or palm pilot (it would have to be activated then downloaded). Shortly after I updated my adobe reader on my computer, this inactivated all of my books for some reason. I could not restore from a properly made backup. I lost several hundred dollars worth of books.

Amazon closed their ebook store in preparation for the Kindle and I no longer have access to that content.

Currently I use fictionwise.com and love it. It was recently bought out by Barnes and Noble. I live in fear of them being shut down and loosing access to thousands of books that are similarly linked to hardware activated codes.

For those still interested in ebooks but now afraid of the Kindle. I have a couple of recommendations. For books with DRM, which is pretty much all major releases, look into the ereader software. Instead of linking the book to hardware and making it download dependent, it links the book to your credit card number. You can download the book once and install it on any device just using the card number to activate the book the first time.
Alternatives to the Kindle or Sony hardware include any platform that will run the ereader software- palm os devices, different phones- ereader runs on the iPhone and blackberry platforms.

For those of you who wonder about the benefits of ebooks, convenience is the main factor for me. I can carry hundreds of books in my purse with no problem. Additionally I can't throw books away so storage becomes an issue.
I still read printed books and if their is a particular series or book I love I will also purchase the print copy.

I hope the interest in the Kindle and ebooks continues to the point where DRM is no longer used as is the case with music.

I too was thinking of getting one these Kindles. I'm glad I dind't buy one.

No Kindle for me now. Didn't know they could do that. Why didn't they just pay the copyright fee or maybe it was outrageous?

I'm still considering getting a kindle. A couple of my fav authors have re-acquired the digital rights to their books and are in the process of setting up to sell them as e-books online themselves. Now I'll have access to older books they've written that are no longer published and the author will get some compensation for them instead of me buying used and them getting screwed 🙂

Absolutely not! The government, let alone a private company like Amazon, should not even have the ability to delete items from your electronic devices let alone the right. That is just ridiculous and I can assure you as per usual this kind of DRM crap does not affect pirates one bit. It only affects law abiding citizens which is (as usual) ironic considering it was made to battle pirates NOT law abiding citizens. Case in point, Windows 7 RTM has been announced and will be available to MSDN subscribers in the next few weeks and to regular consumers on October 22nd. Pirates had a copy of Windows 7 RTM before it was even officially announced; they had a copy of it on July 13th. Get rid of DRM; it is an infringement of my rights and needs to be scrapped.

I do not own a kindle nor am I likely to after this stunt. I agree with the previous writer and think legal ramifications are in order. Allowing companies to use heavy-handed measures like this with no consequences only leads to more of the same. As for myself, I will do NO further business with amazon.

They shouldn't have the ability to do this. They need to be legally punished.

Has it occurred to anyone that the issue is not with Amazon, nor with the Kindle, but with the insane patchwork of copyright laws that varies according to the media used to record it? For example, I can purchase "Animal Farm" in hardcover and read it as many times as I want without violating the copyright. I can read it aloud in public without violating the copyright.

I can invite all my friends over and enact scenes from "Animal Farm" without violating the copyright. I can commit the entire novel to memory without violating the copyright. I can decorate my home with the Seven Ruels of the Farm or depict the pigs sleeping in sheets and not violate the copyright. I can quote small sections from the novel freely without violating the copyright, as long as I attribute them correctly.

However, If just once, I attempt to interpret "Animal Farm" and sell my interpretation in some manner, someone will be screaming about a copyright violation. If I write a play, a song, or a movie, somebody will want a cut. If I transcribe it to a new medium and offer it for sale, ala Kindle, the copyright nightmare ensues to the woe of the customer and the transcriber.

Don't get me wrong, I want George Orwell to be recognized for his great work. I just think a little of a good thing has gone too far.

Next up: Amazon will delete "Fahrenheit 451" from everyone's Kindles... hmm.... good name for the reader, no? This is why when I buy a reader, it will be an iRex.

This truly is the age of big brother. The powerful & elite have all of the resources to spy on you and see what you download, email, voice mail, txt msg, what you buy at the grocery store, what highways you drive, what buildings you enter, your files on your computer, this comment I'm writing (is probably being logged flagged in some database) even the camera and speakers on your personal computer & cell phone can be used to listen in on you or watch you. Believe it. You'd be foolish not to. And yet we all willingly and voluntarily allow it every day.... little by little. B/c oh...an inch here an inch there.....no big deal right?..... wrong....one day you'll wake up and truly be living in 1984.....only you won't know it/realize it b/c it gradually happened inch by inch.
And you allowed it.

Kindle is junk for the $ anyway in my opinion. If you're willingly delving into technologies....For the same amount of money you can buy an ipod touch and have the Kindle app on it to read books AND have tons of other apps, games, your calender, contacts, itunes music and pictures.

They funny thing is, if I were to trespass onto someone's property to retrieve an item that was mine or didn't belong to the possessor (proved by sworn affidavits) I could get arrested.

Sue the LIVING TAR out of Amazon.com. These clowns must pay for this. I even suggest jail time just to drive the point home to future executives. CNN will probably ban this comment and you'll never see it though! I've yet to see any of my comments posted on this site.

Who cares? I don't care who looks at what material I have on my Kindle, I have nothing to hide. As for deleting my items, Amazon.com paid the customers who purchased the books back, so there was no reason to be upset. I was actually in the middle of reading this book again, since I have not read it since high school. I woke up this morning and found it was deleted. I was a little curious as to what happened to it, and then I saw this article and I received a notification from the bank that money had been sent back to my account and I was like, okay. I went out and bought the hard copy of the book and you know what happened?...absolutely nothing because it was no big deal!

Anybody who is worried about who can see and delete their material is a little illogical because, unless you created the material yourself, it belongs to someone else. Anything you own can be seen by anybody else who wants to see it. The government can force you to reveal information or charge you with obstruction of justice. Obviously I don't like this, but the system works, so we, as citizens using the system, have to accept the few fall backs.

Nothing is perfect, just deal with it.

Okay, well, no chance I'll ever buy a Kindle until that kind of mentality goes away.

WOA!!!

Big Brother indeed. Well, well, well... we all knew he was here, but this just goes to show that we've all taken it all for granted. More like Brave New World to me. Regardless, no one, absolutely no one, has the right to "sniff" and do what they please. As far as I'm concerned that is a breach of privacy and if I'm not mistaken a constitutional breach as well.

Well, the camera... er... book amazon is out of the bag... the best way to read I say.

Amazon mistakenly sold me "stolen" property.

Amazon reclaimed the stolen property so the customer (me) wouldn't me liable.

I sincerely thank Amazon for theit concern and actions.

Thank you!

@ larry couch

you miss the point, the refund and apology are not enough for the course of action that was taken. They were NOT legally required to do what they did. They made the mistake of distributing the said "bootlegs", and instead of looking out for their customer base, they went a step too far in order to appease the publisher.

If i have received stolen property, the owner of said property has no right to break into my house to retrieve it, do they????

If they can take it like this, then you aren't really buying it. You are leasing it in perpetuity, until they decide to no longer observe the lease.

No, this was very wrong. Amazon should restore the files, then settle with the publishers.

More importantly, the e-book needs to be re-engineered to prevent this from being done. If it can be done, it will be done again.

George Orwell has been dead since 1950. In any semi-reasonable country his works should have been in the public domain since AT LEAST the year 2000. Because of the lobbying power of vested interests (i.e. inheritors, or more likely, heirs of inheritors) you can get a public domain copy in 2025. Have a nice sixteen years (at least it gives you some time to write your congressman if you can be bothered).

My bad, pre-1978 books have 28 years plus 67 more if they request it for a total of 95 years!!!! from the author's death. So now you have to wait until 2045 for a public domain copy of George Orwell's works (I assume the extension was filed for).

Congress needs to change a law. It's silly kids today could be buying PlayStation IIIs with royalties from works where the author died before World War I - worse, it's an impediment to societal advancement.

I believe that digital property is the same as physical property if we are going to live in a digital world. Amazon should not be able to take something that is really not theirs to take...once a person has it on their device a transaction has been made ..period!

Just goes to show how shady these company's really are! Ive never bought from amazon and never will, way better sites out there that are cheaper and wont bend you over.

learn to pirate and hack properly people. the kindle is only useful as a lowtech Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy anyway

This contrasted with parallel titles of the same names which contained conventional hardboiled crime fiction. ,

[...] 原文地址: http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/22/amazon-faces-criticism-for-deleting-e-books/ [...]

[...] Shame on Sony its abuse of power! You'd think they would have learnt their lesson after Amazon caught fire after pulling pirated ebooks from a bunch of Kindles. In an act of breath-taking arrogance, Sony has decided to retroactively remove a feature from the [...]

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