Amazon gives back 1984

Jake Widman
Saturday, 05 September 2009 01:48

Your IT - Mobility

In early July, Amazon remotely deleted copies of 1984 from users' Kindles, creating a PR firestorm. Now the company has offered to return the books or give the affected users an Amazon gift certificate.

The flap all started a couple of months ago, when Kindle owners who'd bought George Orwell's 1984 suddenly and without notice found the book deleted from their library.

It seems that the publisher who'd offered the book for sale in Amazon's Kindle store didn't actually have the rights to do so.

But it wasn't the loss of the books that upset most readers; it was the demonstration that Amazon had the ability to take back content the customers thought they owned.

By late July, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had apologized, but a U.S. student had filed a lawsuit , based on the allegation that losing the Kindle version of the book meant that the notes he'd taken for a reading project were now useless since the page references wouldn't match any other edition.

Today's offer by Amazon to restore the book (presumably from a publisher with the proper rights) includes a promise that readers' digital annotations would be restored as well.

Those who may have bought a paper copy in the meantime can choose a US$30 Amazon gift certificate or check instead.

The e-mail message from Amazon describing the offer includes the CEO's apology.

For Amazon's mea culpa and make-good offer, see Page 2.