RSSAmazon's Orwell deletion garners a lawsuit
By Angela Gunn | Published July 31, 2009, 9:29 AM
A Michigan teen has filed suit in Seattle against Amazon, maker of the Kindle eReader, for deleting a copy of 1984 on which he was keeping notes for his AP English coursework. Justin Gawronski is suing in order to impress on Amazon the importance of not simply deleting purchased texts -- whatever their copyright or licensing status.
The suit, which seeks class-action status for those affected by the deletion several weeks ago, also names Antoine J. Bruguier, a Kindle owner from Milpitas, California. KamberEdelson is the Chicago-based legal team handling the suit.
Readers who purchased the disputed copies of Animal Farm and 1984 were given refunds by Amazon, and after several days of outrage they also got an apology from CEO Jeff Bezos, who called his company's handling of the problem "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles."
But apologies don't feed the bulldog -- or, in this case, Mr. Gawronski's teacher, who's expecting multiple written reports on the text from students. Mr. Gawronski had been reading and, as he went along, dropping a note into the text where something caught his eye. His notes were not deleted, but with the text to which they referred gone, they're not particularly useful now.
HAHAHAHA, THE GUILLOTINE, THE GUILLOTINE HAHAHAHAHA
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|Well, Amazon.com should have checked and re-checked the copyright holders rather than just accepting volumes blindly. I'm sure they will in the future.
Were the student's notes that vital? Maybe, but the company should take into account life-or-death research that might be made in notes from a professional researcher, right?
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|This is why I always convert whatever electronic documents I intend to keep around into safer, all be it, not as aesthetically pleasing, formats. Plain old text, RTF, and even basic HTML are formats that many overlook. But there is no rediculous DRM attached to any of these, and I can read what I want, on any device I choose, and there's jack the publishers can do about it.
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|I'd like a little more detailed reporting on the matter. Don't know if the teen is a minor or 18-19, who bought the Kindle which I'm sure will be brought up in court, or who is filing the lawsuit. Or on the behalf of whom, if the teen is indeed a minor.
This is why I still buy hard copies. They don't crash. They don't require electronic permission from publishers. The notes stay intact with the text. I just can't curl up in a chair with a glowing machine. And no short-circuits if it should get wet in the bath.
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|The kid's 17. Mr. Bruguier is... adult-aged.
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|proper thing, hopefully he wins this suit and sets some kind of precedent for anti-DRM/TPM
i think just the other day the RIAA stated that, we as consumers 'are not' entitled to what we buy online, forever and that its only right/fair that what we buy (music, books, movies, games etc) expire at a given point, or sooner depending on how well some company is doing... say if it goes bankrupt and their servers die.... i would hope in that case buyers are paid back by somebody? lol yeah right....
its a f*cked up world atm
one would think all amazon had to do and should of done was let readers/consumers keep the pirated digital works, sued or took to task those that 'sold' amazon the 'rights'... and paid the actual rights holder some cash for the mishap, done!
instead amazon showed a blatant disregard for its consumers, the very folks who keep them in business, sad aint it? oh well, at least they said they were extremely sorry for what they did and shouldn't of gone about it in that manner, and will learn from that mistake.... oh is that an admission of guilt? :)
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