Amazon is making good after killing copies of 1984 for the Kindle. As you recall, Amazon had to recall the electronic version of the book for copyright reasons.
Purchasers will receive a copy of the book for the Kindle or $30 in credit for Amazon products or a check. So either you can get one book or cash for two or more books.
Giz has the full text of emails being sent to folks who bought the book:
Hello,
On July 23, 2009, Jeff Bezos, our Founder and CEO, made the following apology to our customers:
“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.
With deep apology to our customers,
Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com”As you were one of the customers impacted by the removal of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” from your Kindle device in July of this year, we would like to offer you the option to have us re-deliver this book to your Kindle along with any annotations you made. You will not be charged for the book. If you do not wish to have us re-deliver the book to your Kindle, you can instead choose to receive an Amazon.com electronic gift certificate or check for $30.
Please email Kindle customer support at kindle-response@amazon.com to indicate your preference. If you prefer to receive a check, please also provide your mailing address.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
The Kindle Team
Well that’s nice! Amazon made two mistakes here – they didn’t pay attention to copyright ownership and they didn’t pay attention to the implications of destroying copies of 1984. If this were My Life in France or a Clive Cussler novel, I doubt it would have created such a buzz. However, the irony and newsworthiness of the destruction essentially made this explode. Amazon will probably send flowers next time they have to delete a book like this – and I know they will – in order to head all the outrage off at the pass.
Apology aside, I’d still be worried if I bought a copy of “Fahrenheit 451″….
Na them sabi
Wait a minute, Amazon has access to your annotations?
Most likely annotations are mapped to the page numbers. So restoring a book would relink those annotations automatically.
Yes, Amazon backs up your annotations, with your permission (Menu/Settings) to your private Amazon kindle book page. Each book’s highlightings and notes will show and there’s an option to show them all on one page. This beats trying to go through the notes one by one on he Kindle.
Kindle owners can see these at their own kindle.amazon.com webpage.
If you delete the book from your Kindle, you can re-download it later if you want, and the accompany file of annotations will come along with it, so your notes are still linked to your copy of the book.
– Andrys
Jeff seems to be doing a great job by admitting his mistakes and willing to do whatever they can.
‘Course, there’s a great big Kindle ad in the upper right-hand corner of the window as I’m reading this. Just ironic.
I think the uproar has really put the kibosh on Kindle sales, especially Kindle DX. Look at Kindle DX user review additions–basically dead in the water. Adding only some two or three a day…
am i the ONLY one who is bothered by the fact that amazon is storing kindle annotations “forever” on a remote server? doesn’t this trouble you a bit?
I don’t know anything about it, but it seems like the earlier comment would suggest that the annotations are stored locally, but are tied to the specific book. if they deleted the book, but not the annotations, when the book was returned, the annotations would appear again… makes sense… no idea if it is true though.
“As you recall, Amazon had to recall the electronic version of the book for copyright reasons.”
No, they did not “have” to. They chose to, illegally and in violation of their own ToS.
Their apology is nice. I’ll consider a Kindle when it supports EPUB and the very ability to do this sort of thing has been straight-up removed from the code. Not before.
This would have been much better if they had done it earlier than later. There’s already bad blood that’s clotting. Like that student you talked about.
http://www.traderbots.com/stocks/Stock.aspx?symbol=amzn
“they didn’t pay attention to copyright ownership ”
I ah… I fail to see any evidence presented to support this claim. If it’s the annotations you’re referring to, deleting the annotations of the reader does not violate the reader’s copyright interests. Perhaps keeping the annotations on a server or keeping them in a secure area of the device and reading them remotely could be construed as copyright violation depending on the TOS. If it’s the distribution of new copies of the book, obviously Amazon will have to license those copies from whoever holds the copyright of that particular edition… duh…
But anyway, really… If you look at the number of people who have bought Windows computers without a Windows install CD, or who subsequently misplace the CD and are then screwed when the (inevitably) need to reload the windows OS… If you look at the number of people who never backup their hard drives and then loose important personal and business documents… How is Amazon deleting annotations off of the kindle any different? And for that matter, how is Amazon deleting books off the kindle any different? At least Amazon issued a refund… It’s not like Microsoft issues you a refund when your Windows OS install gets corrupted beyond repair, err, I mean, beyond it’s initial level of corruption when you first install it, anyway… If the annotations are kept on a remote server, that is likely to be a hell of a lot more reliable and secure for most users who keep all kinda documents on their personal computers without any security and backup precautions at all, and who happily download and install all manner of trojans and viruses.
Personally, I wouldn’t touch a kindle with a 10 foot pole. But then again I also use Linux. Just sayin’…
Would be nice if it was true.
I was one of the folks who purchased Animal Farm on the Kindle and had it “stolen” by Amazon.
I have not:
1. Received the original promised credit
2. Received a response to the email I sent to customer support on the matter
3. Received the email described above
4. Received the book back
5. Received this make nice offer
As far as I am concerned, this is still broken.
This is a solid move by Amazon. Most people who were pissed off by the original move would be happy with this resolution. Throwing money can solve many problems!
The annotations are synced from device to device so yes Amazon must be handling our annotations in order to do that …
The same thing happens with the last page read, I’ve got the kindle iphone app and a kindle 2 and if I read a few pages on the kindle 2, the book also advances on the iphone, I think they call that whispersync… that can be turned off too.