Years from now, people will look back on the year 2009 as the year A) Apple lost the goodwill of a sizable chunk of the Internet audience; and B) when a high school kid sued Amazon because it remotely deleted an illegal copy of 1984. The kid is suing because he annotated the copy of the book, and now is without said notes. So of course, sue right?
First, the backstory. Amazon recently remotely deleted an authorized-to-be-sold copy of George Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindle. People freaked out because, whoa, who knew Amazon could remotely delete books from my Kindle? (Not “my” Kindle, mind you—I don’t have that kind of money!) Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, admitted that the company’s handling of the situation wasn’t very elegant, even though it refunded everyone who bought the book. He also said it’d never delete another book again.
Enter Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old high school student from Michigan. He’s suing Amazon (rather, the law firm representing him is suing) in order to “help set a precedent so that Amazon doesn’t do this again.”
The lawsuit is also seeking monetary relief for people who lost work. The notes Gawronski took are now also useless.
Am I callous in thinking this kid should just get on with it? He’s not exactly Nelson Mandela.
Don’t forget they’re seeking class action status!
if you can get money, I would sue. You gotta stick it to the man every chance you get. Im just mad that i havnt had my laesuit happen to me. Welcome to America free enterprise and if you mess with me I’ll sue your ass.
I believe this will be a good precedent to “possibly” prevent future “purchased” items from hidden deletions, such as an ipod app or a a guitar heroes download from the PS3 online store.
Remote deletions are the price we pay for a connected lifestyle
Those two things are not related.
I’m all for setting this precedent. They’ve not only removed the material they sold him and refunded, but also probably violated copyright by removing content HE created (annotations about the book he’s reading). Amazon didn’t have ANY right to that material.
Less paper means more control. Less paper money, more knowledge of your electronic transactions. Less paper reading, more knowledge of what you read. Less letterwriting, more knowledge of what you write and to whom. These kinds of stories are inevitable but they obscure the bigger picture, that far too much of our life is enacted on electronic mediums under the control of third parties.
The problem with what Amazon did is they took something that somebody purchased in good faith, and deleted it *without notice*.
If I purchase a stolen item from a store or hock shop, the police will take that item from me. However, in most cases I will have the opportunity to retrieve from that item any items stored in the stolen item, or retrieve any improvements I made to the stolen item that are reasonable to retrieve.
For example, if I purchased a car that ended up being a stolen vehicle, the police will let me retrieve any item I had stored in the trunk prior to their taking it away. If I replaced the tires, those tires are mine. Granted, if I painted the car, I am SOL.
Notations of the sort the kid made on his Kindle version of “1984″ should be retrievable. At the very least, had Amazon told Kindle users that the book would be deleted the users could have made copies of or notes of any annotations.
Most users will have to deal with the fact they no longer have “1984″ on their Kindle, but some should not just have to deal with it. They actually lost something of value. Amazon screwed up – and simply returning the amount paid will not be enough for some users due to the work done on those books.
This is a ridiculous waste of time and money on everyone’s part. I’d call this guy something, but he might sue me too.
Again get a Sony!
Amazon deleted not just 1984, they deleted the kid’s own content without his permission. This won’t even make it to court, Amazon will pay whatever (un?)reasonable price the kid asks.