Amazon: A Digital Thief in the Den
Posted on 20. Jul, 2009 by Chris Matney in Book Publishing, Front Page Posts
It’s a beautiful Monday afternoon, and I am getting caught up from a weekend spent away from the computer. There seem to be too many stories to comment on all of them today, but this one struck me as particularly interesting.
It seems that Amazon has crossed the line – big time – in using technology for evil. How much time does it take to regain trust after pulling a fast one on a client? I guess we will find out. The story was first broken in a NY Times article by David Pogue who wrote that hundreds of Kindle customer awoke to find that Amazon remotely deleted books that they had bought and downloaded. What !?!
Yup, I have already blogged about the fact that you don’t “own” electronic books in the traditional sense – you can’t loam them to friends, resell them or even donate them. But, Amazon electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price. And here comes the irony… wait for it… the titles of the books deleted? 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell. Classic! “Four legs good, two legs bad” never sounded so right.
The reason behind the “theft” is that a publisher specialized in bringing public domain books into print put their catalog on Amazon, and Amazon got a nasty-gram from the Orwell literary estate. Apparently, the books weren’t quite in the public domain. However, Amazon made the mistake of selling the book – and compounded it by sneaking in like a digital thief and taking a book out of my den. Imagine if your local grocer broke into your house and stole back that expired bottle of mayo that was mistakenly sold to you, leaving you $1.39 on the kitchen counter. Outrageous!
The article was also covered by BoingBoing as Amazon’s Orwellian deletion of Kindle books, the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Orwell in 2009: Dystopian Rights Management, and Pan Macmillian’s the digitalist with the title DRM Is Not Evil. As for me, I am going to rustle up my paperback copy of 1984 and read about Winston Smith as he makes information appear and disappear for the Ministry of Truth. Shame on you, Amazon.
3 Responses to “Amazon: A Digital Thief in the Den”
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Here’s another one from a reader. I like the fact that the apology is direct and not just a waffling.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218600600
On Thursday, Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, posted a statement on a customer forum, publicly apologizing for his company’s handling of the situation:
“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of ‘1984′ and other novels on Kindle. Our ’solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”
The apology came as Amazon reported second-quarter sales on Thursday that disappointed investors, who sent its shares down about 8 percent in after-hours trading.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/amazon-chief-says-erasing-orwell-books-was-stupid/?hp
Clearly, Amazon should have anticipated the backlash over this sneaky caper. The fact that 1984 was one of the titles involved should have given them great pause. I would wager that the person at Amazon who pulled the trigger on this ill-advised decision has never even read the book.