Comments on: Deleting Books — A New Kindle Dilemma

By: Some Memorable Dishes from the Kitchen in 2009 « The Scholarly Kitchen

Some Memorable Dishes from the Kitchen in 2009 « The Scholarly Kitchen — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:16:25 +0000

[...] Deleting Books — A New Kindle Dilemma [...]

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:21:56 +0000

Looks like one customer in particular is a lot more angry than you, and is suing Amazon over the work he lost when they deleted material from his Kindle:
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2452087/

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:56:36 +0000

A good article here, calling for Amazon to be open and upfront about what the Kindle can and can’t do, as well as what the actual terms of sale (or rental) are:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/23/jeff-bezoss-kindle-a.html

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:06:59 +0000

Glad to see this from Bezos, and it’s rare to hear a CEO be so frank and honest about a company’s mistake. That said, I’ll be a lot more convinced that they’ve learned their lesson when we see it reflected in the Kindle’s terms of service. It’s kind of like when Bezos said that they’d be open to supporting other file formats on the Kindle. Certainly a welcome statement, but also a meaningless one without actions to back it up.

By: Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:31:12 +0000

Jeff Bezos just posted a mea culpa for this debacle, writing: “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.”

The apology can be found here:
http://bit.ly/2sHdW

By: Arnold

Arnold — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:07:00 +0000

I wonder if the Kindle will spawn a new form of artistic medium where the hyperlink is given mass importance. I found an interesting discussion of the subject on Pandalous. It’s here: http://www.pandalous.com/topic/is_the_world_ready_for

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:45:31 +0000

I agree that no great financial harm was done to customers here–although there are some exceptions, like the student whose notes and annotations on one of the books disappeared down the memory hole with Amazon’s deletions:

Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.

What’s been damaged here is Amazon’s reputation–previously, they’ve been well-thought of by consumers. But with the advent of their video rental service through their Kindle venture, the poor execution of moving into digital licensing has made them look like the bad guys time and time again. The hundreds of 1 star reviews currently flooding the Kindle page on Amazon certainly won’t help sales.

More importantly, this incident has made the limitations and flaws inherent in DRM-laden e-books blatantly clear to potential customers. Amazon is doing a great job convincing people that e-books are “damaged goods”, flawed products with much lower value than traditional books due to all the restrictions. This hurts publishers in general as it’s hurting the nascent e-book market and driving down potential revenue as it is establishing e-books as low quality products that should be priced accordingly.

I guess the good news is that flagrant acts like this open the public’s eyes to the dangers of DRM and will hasten progress toward a time where DRM is not acceptable in the marketplace.

By: Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:11:53 +0000

I agree, what Amazon did was precipitous and wrong. However, they seem to agree with that assessment now, as well. Lesson learned, I hope. Having a wirelessly synced e-book = new capability. They didn’t use it well. But given the backlash and Amazon’s reliance on happy customers, I think they’ll not repeat this mistake again.

Also, customers were made “whole” again, financially. How angry would I be if I had a book on my Kindle, it disappeared, I received soon afterward an email from Amazon explaining why, and then I received a refund? Probably not all that angry. In fact, I’d be mad at the person who put it on there without owning the rights, and would probably leave Amazon off my anger target list. So I don’t think this will cause long-term customer relationship damage for Amazon. If anything, it will change policies and practices for them so they avoid repeating the errors that led up to this, and that seems to be what you think is the right outcome.

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:02:31 +0000

I still think Amazon was overstepping though. They needed to pull the content from the store. If the Orwell copyright holders demanded restitution, that should have been settled as well. But there’s no way the copies should have been taken away from the purchasers. As the EFF notes, the infringement took place when Amazon sold the copies, not when the already purchased copies are read by purchaser. There’s no legal reason Amazon needed to make them disappear. If a court or a law enforcement agency declared that this was necessary, then they would be the agents to confiscate the copies. Amazon instead jumped the gun, and took on the authority of a law enforcement agency in violation of the contract they signed with their customers.

I think it’s all evident of how poorly thought-through Amazon’s approach to selling digital content has been. There are so many glaringly obvious things they needed to prepare for, and so far, it looks like they hadn’t thought any of them would occur and are just making it up as they go. A vetting process, similar to what Apple uses for its store, would certainly be a good start.

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:46:57 +0000

I’m sorry. My statement wasn’t clear. When I said that Amazon did the right thing, I meant that they were correct in pulling the content (even if their Kindle terms of use were poorly constructed). The individual who published the title on Amazon’s platform did wrong by violating copyright in the United States and Amazon was abiding by the law in pulling it even if their terms of use (that is, the contract in place with Kindle owners) were being violated. Amazon ought to have handled the communications differently. Amazon ought to have thought to place safeguards around or otherwise monitored content being uploaded to their publishing platform. But I still think they were right to pull the content.