Kindle irony loop
by Gareth on Jul.24, 2009, under Misc
Ouch. Looks like Amazon have made a frightening, if amusing, faux pas.
It seems that a digital version of the books 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell have been pulled due to copyright issues. That’s hardly big news. What is interesting though is that Amazon went onto each and every Kindle that had one or both of the books and deleted them from the device – issuing each customer with a refund.
The implications of this are huge. Amazon have been rather quiet on exactly what level of access they have to Kindles in the wild, but judging from this incident I would say ‘a lot’. Moreover, the fact that someone at Amazon thought that it would be acceptable to delete books that people have paid to read is astonishing. If you’re ever stupid enough to pull off a stunt this Orwellian, DON’T DO IT TO AN ORWELL BOOK! Seriously, that’s just asking for trouble.
This throws a whole new light on the e-book Vs paperback debate. At least I know that no-one is going to storm into my house, steal my books, ravage me and leave a check on the bedside table.
They never steal my books.
