Student sues Amazon over lost Kindle homework

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 31 Jul 2009 at 09:25

A student from Washington is suing Amazon for damages for deleting his homework.

17-year-old Justin Gawronski was among those who had their copy of George Orwell's 1984 remotely deleted from their Kindle, after Amazon discovered it didn't have the rights to distribute the novel.

Now Gawronski and a fellow student have launched a class-action suit against the company, claiming damages for both deleting the book and rendering the electronic notes Gawronski made on the novel effectively useless.

"As part of his studies of 1984, Mr Gawronski had made copious notes in the book," the filing later states. "After Amazon remotely deleted 1984, those notes were rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book.

"The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as 'remember this paragraph for your thesis' is useless if it does not actually reference a specific paragraph. By deleting 1984 from Mr. Gawronski's Kindle 2, this is the position in which Amazon left him. Mr Gawronski now needs to recreate all of his studies."

The students are urging the court to rule "that Amazon lacks the right to remotely delete any digital content from Kindles and the Kindle for iPhone application".

They are also seeking damages for both the deletion and replacement of the book, and the "irreparable injury" caused by rendering the notes useless.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos last week publicly apologised for the decision to remotely wipe 1984, describing the move as "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles".