Student Suing Amazon For Book Deletions 646
Stupified writes "High school student Justin Gawronski is suing Amazon for deleting his Kindle copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four (complaint, PDF), because doing so destroyed the annotations he'd created to the text for class. The complaint states: 'The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as "remember this paragraph for your thesis" is useless if it does not actually reference a specific paragraph.' The suit, which is seeking class action status, asks that Amazon be legally blocked from improperly accessing users' Kindles in the future and punitive damages for those affected by the deletion. Nothing in Amazon's EULA or US copyright law gives them permission to delete books off your Kindle, so this sounds like a plausible suit."
1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really freakin' cool (Score:5, Insightful)
As cool as Amazon can be, this was a lame move by them from many perspectives, and I hope this guy wins the case. Perhaps it could set a precedent against deleting data from users' devices in general.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
Can they demand other items back? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought when I bought something from Amazon, that I owned it!
Lesser of two evils? (Score:5, Insightful)
One word (Score:5, Insightful)
If this was anything except 1984, this wouldn't have been news at all.
Bullshit.
Re:They didn't have the right to sell it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nope, just an opportunistic american. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is really freakin' cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No case (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They didn't have the right to sell it... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you illegally sold an item, you can be required to pay punitive damages, and you can even go so far as to notify the buyers, but taking back the product (recalling it) is reserverd only for true "stolen goods" and even then only in rare cases, and usually not for retail products. Counterfeit products are often reclaimed, but not valid products sold simply without license or copywrite.
Amazon should have paid the fine (if one was even imposed by the holder). By themsleves (and not thrhrough the action of a courth or dualy authorized agency) taking back this product, they have violated multiple premises in the doctrine of first sale, the commerce codes of the United States and likely multiple state laws, and the punishment for doing so should be significantly greater than the punishment would have been simply for the infringement.
The customers though no fault of their owen purchaesed legally this unlicenced product. They did not buy it out of a truck or through some black market where a crime might be inferred, but through a well known and trusted retailer. Refund of money alone is insufficient in this case as once the product has been sold, the contract of sale is completed, and the product is now OWNED by the customer. Should Amazon want it back, the CUSTOMER becomes the seller, and has every right to set their OWN price for the return. As a student, that electronic copy might be FAR more valuable to me than a physical copy, and even if Amazon offered to replace the elctronic copy with one that WAS authorized for distribution, if it was not compatible with the Kindle, and supported the same notes file taken by the student, then it would not have been an equal value replacement, and asking the student, who was the legal woner of that product, to accept an inferior replacement, even for free after refund, may still not equate to the value of his loss (which can easily be measured in man hours repeating his effort in another form of the book, and correcting and correlating all the notes already takes, using a fair labor rate).
You get what you paid for (Score:5, Insightful)
And you paid for a device which was tethered to its master, which happened not to be you.
Re:They didn't have the right to sell it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Derivative work (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, there's probably some boilerplate legal language included with the Kindle that says they are not responsible for data loss, etc., or if it kills your grandmother or dog.
This isn't data loss. This is intentional destruction of data -- quite a different story.
Re:Nope, just an opportunistic american. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a country, they're litigation happy. As a teenager, he's probably lazy and opportunistic. Put the two together ...
or maybe he is willing to stand up and fight for his rights, and the rights of others. There is a reason why Slashdot isn't in German. Godwin!
Re:Isn't an apology enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not. What would be enough? Amazon restoring every last one of these people their copy of 1984, paying whatever they have to to the copyright owners to make it legal. If they then don't reclaim the rebates they sent out, they will have totally redeemed themselves in my eyes, but restoring people their books is the bare minimum.
Re:It's time for the Minute of Hate (Score:3, Insightful)
The irony that Orwell's 1984 describes "Children Heroes" who snitch on grown-ups is tasting sweeter with every passing moment.
Except that our world is sliding closer and closer to a Brave New World than into 1984 (c'mon, it's 2009 already).
We as a people [in the western world] are taught to be complacent and kept in a "healthy" state of mind by being force-fed pleasure from a very early age.
There aren't the thought-police running around selectively re-educating people who go astray, no, instead we're sent to a shrink and spoonfed drugs until we're a normal, functioning member of society again. We're provided copious amounts of mindless drivel (reality TV) to appeal to our senses, while not really providing any benefit to us at all. Beyond that, sex is absolutely everywhere. Sure, it's frowned upon in some circles, but that doesn't make it go away, and there's more and more of it plasted on billboards, in magazines, in movies and television, every day.
Orwell's future is a relic of the Cold War, instead it is Huxley's vision of the future that is proving to be a reality, and that's not a good thing.
Re:No case (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine someone purchased a car, and spent many hours customizing and tuning it. The seller then realized he shouldn't have sold the car, so he sneaks into the garage in the middle of the night, takes the car back, and leaves the added components and the cash for the original purchase price lying on the floor.
In this case, it is obvious that the seller acted improperly, and the buyer suffered a loss. The Amazon case involves data and copyrights rather than physical property, but the same principles should apply.
Re:They didn't have the right to sell it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon didn't know that it was still under copyright in the US, and didn't have the rights to sell it. When they discovered their mistake, they took it back -- removing the books and refunding the buyers' money. Damages paid to rights-holders are given to compensate for the fact that the violator can't remove every copy of the infringing product they sold; but in this case, they were able to. If this was anything except 1984, this wouldn't have been news at all.
Perhaps it would not have been news, but it should be. The problem with e-books is that they can be edited after the fact with no reliable way to know which version is the original. This makes practical the kind of altering of history talked about in "1984".
Re:They didn't have the right to sell it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really?
FTFS: The complaint states: 'The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as "remember this paragraph for your thesis" is useless if it does not actually reference a specific paragraph.'
It's a sad day when we don't even bother reading the SUMMARY any more.
Re:Eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Derivative work (Score:5, Insightful)
A case! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think the guy has a legal leg to stand on. Amazon removed an illegal book, and the guy still has his annotations, useless or not.
While Amazon didn't destroy "tangible stuff"*, they did destroy the value of that stuff.
Say I throw a really loud party at my house, with you living next door; or I burn my garden waste, which is smoky and sooty; or I park in front of your driveway. I haven't destroyed your property, but I have reduced it's value. I have destroyed the value of your property without destroying the property itself.
I don't know whether any of the nuisance scenarios would give you a case, but if they do, why doesn't the same common sense extend to destroying the value of bits by changing their context?
* I know bits aren't tangible, but go with me here.
Re:Hrrm (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only theft if you accept the idea that selling the book to you was also theft (i.e. you accept the infringement of intellectual property rights = theft) and if you do, then you were, ispo facto, in possession of stolen property and have no claim over it.
If you don't accept that the orginal sale was theft, (i.e. you believe it was simply copy right infringement) then at most the deletion of the book could be would be a violation of the license agreement you made with Amazon. In this case, given that Amazon did not have the permission necessary to enter into that agreement with you and also refunded your money, you aren't going to have much ground to stand on in terms of 'damages'. Amazon did not steal anything. They removed data which they discovered they didn't have a right to provide you.
And I imagine that regardless of Amazon's actions, Mobireference (the company that did the actual infringment of selling the book via Amazon's third party system) is probably open to lawsuit by the rights holders and in hot water wtih Amazon over screwing the pooch.
Granted, this is a good arguement why copyrights need revamping, especially for the digital age - does purchasing an electronic product give you the same rights as purchasing a physical one, what protections should be in place to allow digital consumers to safeguard their purchases and what needs to be in place to allow rights holders safeguard their rights. And it does highlight the flaws of Amazon's implementation with the Kindle, but it isn't worth the breast pounding drama people are attempting to turn it into.
NOT "stolen". (Score:4, Insightful)
It sucks, but with digital technology, it is possible to recover stolen property, which is what Amazon did and should have done.
It was not "stolen" property. It was misappropriated according to copyright law. This is sort of like the issue of illegal downloads: IP owners like the **AA like to spout about "stolen" IP, but that's not what it is. Neither Amazon nore the customer broke into anything or anywhere and made off with anyone's IP. You may debate the validity of the copyright and if the content was misused by Amazon, but nothing was "stolen".
Re:Factual and legal errors in the summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should we allow books or music to be licensed to us? or anything for that matter?
And even if we do, why for perpetual licenses do we allow them to take away all our rights?
The doctrine of first sale was created to protect us from this behavior, but we've thrown it out the window as soon as we agree to this kind of license.
Any time we agree to a perpetual license we should have certain rights that can't be signed away, and the first two I would think would be:
1) If the term is forever, you CAN NOT remove my access to the material.
2) I have the right to sell my license to someone else when I'm done with it, provided I transfer all copies of the material.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon, and big corps in general, are NOT the police, and do not have the rights as such.
Re:Same as stolen property? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a big difference between electronic devices failing because nothing -- including technology -- is perfect, and intentionally and willfully destroying content, as Amazon did in this case.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong, the correct answer is: "We will discontinue the sale, but we can not remove existing copies from a users' devices." Then raise a stink if the publisher tries to coerce them to do otherwise
Since they have proven that they can remove the copy from the user's device (by doing so) if they said they could not, that would not be the "correct answer", it would be a lie. And, if the failure to remove the infringing data was a "will not", not a "can not", it would seem to be trivial to prove that any further infringement (by keeping it on the device) was wilful. (if they could remove it but _chose_ not to)
Precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
As cool as Amazon can be, this was a lame move by them from many perspectives, and I hope this guy wins the case. Perhaps it could set a precedent against deleting data from users' devices in general.
Precedent is indeed the right worry here, but not quite in the way you're mentioning.
1984 was not legally sold on Amazon.com's Kindle store. It's legal in almost every other country on Earth -- basically any country without corporate overlords demanding Copyright be extended to "Age of Mickey Mouse +20 years" in perpetuity.
No, the real precedent that is very, very bad and very, very scary is that now, now publishers know that Amazon can remotely delete items from the Kindle, without user input.
Textbook companies want to sell a textbook that's only good for 1 quarter? Why not? Not like you'll need it after this year, since we're gonna release the 351st edition to make sure students can't resell the deadtree back to the bookstore.
Someone sues Amazon cause "Twilight" offends local obscenity laws? "Well golly gee, we're seeing you're connecting to a Cell tower in Bumfuck Idaho, we'll just auto-delete that Twilight book for you to avoid offending the prudes..."
Or better yet. "Hey Apple, Amazon can just delete stuff from their Kindle remotely, why can't you delete any songs with Metallica in their filename / ID3 tags that don't match up with ones they've bought from us off iPods when they dock?"
Amazon played a very bad hand here. They admitted they can screw over users on behalf of 3rd party companies. Worse, they admitted they will if asked.
A very, very bad precedent all around.
Re:This is really freakin' cool (Score:4, Insightful)
"Let's think about this - is Amazon the kind of company that would intentionally incite a class-action lawsuit for the purpose of setting legal precedent against the type of actions it performed?"
This question pretty much boils down to "is Amazon run by criminally insane morons?" Given that I haven't heard about any of their executives rampaging through the streets leaving trails of bodies, and given the tremendous success of Amazon in a very competitive market chock full of very big fish, I'm going to say "probably not".
"Call me a conspiracy theorist, but having this whole mess center around "1984" is a pretty big coincidence."
Ok, you're a conspiracy theorist. It's a coincidence, and a somewhat ironic one, but a coincidence nonetheless.
Re:This is really freakin' cool (Score:5, Insightful)
While true, this particular case seems to be very well-founded. I especially like how he doesn't sue them just for deleting the book (even though that's really what we would all like to get rid of), but for actual loss that he suffered as a result. It should make people who wouldn't otherwise take sides in that debate be much more sympathetic.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since they have proven that they can remove the copy from the user's device (by doing so) if they said they could not, that would not be the "correct answer", it would be a lie.
If they said they were incapable of doing so, they'd be lying. But merely saying "we cannot do that" is different. They could argue that "we cannot do that" because of the ill-will and backlash it will cause against our business, for example.
And, if the failure to remove the infringing data was a "will not", not a "can not", it would seem to be trivial to prove that any further infringement (by keeping it on the device) was wilful. (if they could remove it but _chose_ not to)
Infringement isn't an ongoing activity. The infringing activity on Amazon's part would be distribution, which already took place (and was clearly a mistake). (In fact, just because Amazon pulled the books doesn't mean the rightsholder won't sue - they could sue for the damages of people who read the book in the time that it was on their Kindles, for example). It's not as if Amazon is actively keeping the material on people's Kindles; rather, they had to take further positive action to remove it.
Amazon accessing your device deleting your book? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would believe it's the Kindle accessing Amazon and deleting the book when something is flagged (or not flagged!)
And Amazon won't trespass your device. Never heard of any DRM setup that would do that.
At any case, I hope the student wins.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Class Action Settlement.. (Score:3, Insightful)
that can provide a proof of purchase.
These were all downloaded digitally. Not only that, they were already refunded their money for the purchase, why should Amazon give them more money back?
Re:They didn't have the right to sell it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's time for the Minute of Hate (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
The article doesn't say that the book was required reading. TFA states that he was using at least one paragraph for reference in his thesis. There is little to suggest how much of the book he was using, nor how many other books he was using for background material.
The question has little to do with "required reading", but with a customer's rights. This student apparently paid for a legal copy of a book, and was using it in his studies. He has a valid complaint, IMHO - although his complaint is no more, and no less valid than that of a more casual user of Amazon's services. Breaking a contract, on the end user's part, is punishable by law, and often accompanied by punitive fees, penalties, and charges. Amazon has obviously broken a contract, so they should be looking at the same sort of penalties, scaled to fit.
Re:This is really freakin' cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nope, just an opportunistic american. (Score:3, Insightful)
"In that case he would be campaigning to have the law changed to make such actions illegal"
Isn't that what he's doing?
"asks that Amazon be legally blocked from improperly accessing users' Kindles in the future"
Not all campaigns to change the law involve congress anymore.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
1984 isn't on either side of the "conservative-liberal" spectrum, it is heavily on the freedom side of the "freedom-fascism" spectrum which is orthogonal to the "conservative-liberal" spectrum.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they just want you to pay for it here.
Re:Copyright law may have forced Amazon's hands... (Score:3, Insightful)
The deletion is analogous to the infringer being ordered to enter into the homes of the people to remove the infringed records or books, with or without a refund.
Seriously.
Copyright law is powerful- but not THAT powerful. No court of competent jurisdiction would ever order such an act. Even to the kindles. Even if they had the ability. Amazon didn't HAVE to do anything remotely resembling what they did.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree almost completely. It sounds like you're urging a bureaucratic solution whereby there's no direct contact between teachers and parents. Is that really what you want? I sure as hell don't. Increased contact between parents and teachers is exactly what we want; that way there's less disconnect between classroom and home learning, and really that's how it should be.
I'm all in favor of kids reading freely, but there are certainly issues about appropriateness of particular books to particular age groups. When a question arises, I think running it by the parent is a better solution than consulting a politician or set of regulations to determine whether a book is appropriate.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
You are a bit confused. Liberal mean the ideology of freedom and is opposed to dictatorial regimes like that in "1984", so the book is extremely pro-liberal. The word you should have used for the spectrum is socialist, which in the US sometimes is confused with liberalism because you have no party confessing to socialism and the so-called liberal party is the closest (major) party you have in that direction.
Re:Nope, just an opportunistic american. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why I won't buy a Kindle2.
Re:Recovery (Off Topic) (Score:4, Insightful)
The other side of the coin is that we probably wouldn't need even non-corrupt regulatory bodies if capitalism didn't breed a bunch of greedy egomaniacs. Capitalism and the free market is flawed from the outset because it favors a person over the people. We're not predator/prey. We're a society of varying people who contribute in different ways, not in all monetarily significant ways.
But the difficult part is that capitalism brings out the worst in people -- you see yourself earning more because you were innovative. That's a good thing. But now you see what money can provide, but your innovative streak has run out or perhaps you're tired of being competitive...but you still want the money.
So you start to screw people out of theirs. You give them bad loans to get the bonus associated with them. You give yourself a million dollar bonus because your company went completely bankrupt but not insolvent so you "saved" it -- and you let your employees take the bullet for you.
Capitalism dates back to a less civilized structure. Let's grow up a bit.
Re:Recovery (Off Topic) (Score:3, Insightful)
If you'll specify exactly what characterizes a system as capitalist, I'll tell you whether there's any evidence that capitalism doesn't work.
My guess is that there won't be any evidence either way, because there never has been a capitalist system.
Re:Isn't an apology enough? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not. What would be enough? Amazon restoring every last one of these people their copy of 1984, paying whatever they have to to the copyright owners to make it legal. If they then don't reclaim the rebates they sent out, they will have totally redeemed themselves in my eyes, but restoring people their books is the bare minimum.
Umm... how about removing the remote delete capability from users' devices? Or, do you just blindly trust them they won't do it in the future just because they "promised?"