[Web4lib] RE: Amazon Deletes Orwell from Kindles

[Walt Crawford]

I'd disagree. Quite a few of those who were outraged recognized that the
books are still in copyright in the U.S.

The outrage I saw was over Amazon's ability to delete already-"purchased"
ebooks from customers' Kindles and its decision to do so without advance
notice.

Personally, I view it as a useful lesson--that is, that many download
"purchases"--including nearly all that involve DRM--aren't really purchases
at all, they're leases that can be revoked at will by the "seller."

-walt crawford-

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Amy Rogers <rogers.a at comcast.net> wrote:

> For what it is worth, I came across this item the other day. Seemed that if
> some fact checking were done, there would not have been an outrage.
>
> "The two books in question were published for the Kindle by a company
> called Mobile Reference, which offers public domain books for around $1.
> Mobile Reference did not have the right to sell Orwell's novels because 1984
> and Animal Farm are still under copyright protection in the United States.
> They were not legitimate or "perfectly legal" copies of the books, but
> rather illicit copies that should not have been sold in the first place.
> "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."
>
> More at http://bit.ly/hQDZQ
>
> "Media goes crazy over Amazon deleting '1984' from Kindle, but 99-cent
> ebook was illegal copy"
>
>
>
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