Every now and then, these news items cross your path that simply don't need any words or imagery in order to make an impact. This is definitely one of those. You all know Amazon's Kindle, right? It's Amazon's successful e-book reader which allows you to buy a subset of Amazon's book catalogue in electronic form. Well, the term "buy" doesn't really apply here. Update: In a rare case of company mea culpa, Amazon has explained that deleting the books was a bad idea, and they assured us it won't happen again. The issue here was that the publisher behind the two Orwell books in the Kindle Store did not have the rights to sell these books, and after Amazon was informed by the rightsholder, they removed the books. Still, according to the NYT, more books were deleted from Kindles, even though Amazon doesn't have the right to do so according to its own TOS.
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Member since:2006-11-26
Member since:2009-07-04
>and what exactly makes the agreements some publishers have, more valid than the agreements some consumers have?
The book were pirated copies. The seller had no right to upload them. When the legitimate publisher complained Amazon deleted the books from their store and devices. It's exactly what I would expect if I were the author of books that had been pirated.
Buying stolen property, even intellectual property, doesn't mean you get to keep it.
Member since:2005-08-18
So if someone steal, say, your DVD Player and I buy it in good faith it is then perfectly OK for you to steal it back from me?
Last time I studied law that as not the case and this is exactly why we have legal proceedings and due process.
If course, we all know that digital media is "different" (as in special ed. different, no doubt) from other meda and it is exempt from all previous legalities (unless they happen to be in the favor of the owner) and can do whatever the hell it wants.
Edited 2009-07-20 15:50 UTC
Member since:
2006-03-23
In all likelihood Amazon hadn't obtained the appropriate permission to distribute the eBook versions of these titles, or the permission was incorrectly granted when another sole distribution agreement existed - thus creating a legal problem - so Amazon likely had to do something to correct the situation. This is the more logical conclusion.
But then again logical conclusions don't make for sensationalism do they Thom...
and what exactly makes the agreements some publishers have, more valid than the agreements some consumers have?