[sf-lug] [Fwd: [FSF] Amazon, 1984, and what we're doing about it.]

[Rohen Peterson]

I think one article I read on the issue pointed out that the Amazon system
deleted the content automatically once they removed the third-party vendor
that was selling licensed content illegally. Amazon stated they were
changing their system to prevent this from happening again.

I don't believe the issue is purely DRM. Amazon can't sell illegally copied
material, with or without DRM. If they are changing their system already, I
think the issue may be moot, unless you wanted to raise a larger question of
copyright.

Think of this as that time you first heard of that person who wrote a make
file with a clean option and deleted all of their code. You fix it and move
on.

Rohen Peterson


On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:22, Bill Kendrick <nbs at sonic.net> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:45:31AM -0700, jim wrote:
> > Have you seen this story?  Last week, Amazon deleted purchased copies of
> > George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from the ebook readers of hundreds
> > of users.  Yesterday, FSF's Defective by Design campaign responded by
> > giving the Kindle hundreds of 1-star reviews, but now we need your help.
> <snip>
>
> I think the worst story related to this is that of a high school student
> who had bought '1984' to read for a class assignment.  Not ONLY did
> Amazon end up removing the book from the kid's Kindle, but it ended
> up wiping out the ANNOTATIONS AND NOTES the kid had been taking!!!
>
> In other words, it wasn't just a case of "oops, we shouldn't have
> sold that to you, here's your 99 cents back," but it actually
> destroyed the kid's own work.
>
> -bill!
> (Disclaimer: I'm CTO of web-based service that allows authors to publish
> ebooks, and we don't do any kind of DRM.  I don't own a Kindle, and
> it looks like I never will, at this rate.  Yikes.)
>
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