Amazon sparks Kindle uproar by wiping 1984

 

Gallery

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 20 Jul 2009 at 11:01

Amazon has deleted copies of the novel 1984 from customers' Kindles without their knowledge.

The company blamed the mass deletion on a rights issue: "These books were added to our catalogue using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books," explains Amazon in a statement.

"When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances," it concludes.

The move left customers stunned and angry with one typical post on the Amazon forum claiming, "It's like having Barnes & Noble sell you a book, charge your Visa and then three months later change its mind, credit your card and demand the book be returned."

The deletion also brought the ire of privacy groups who were quick to note the parallels betwen Amazon's deletion of 1984, and the story itself in which the protagonist erases and invents information at the whims of the Ministry of Truth.

"This is Amazon choosing its "content partners" over its customers," writes privacy advocate Hugh D'Andrade on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website.

"There is nothing about copyright law that required these deletions - if Amazon didn't have the rights to sell the eBooks in the first place, the infringement happened when the books were sold. Remote deletion doesn't change that, and it's not an infringement for the Kindle owner simply to read the book," he concludes.