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When Amazon deleted digital copies of Orwell’s 1984 from Kindles, there was a public outcry. Two customers went further and filed a lawsuit against Amazon on September 25th. Now, there is already a settlement in the case. Amazon has agreed to pay the pair $150,000. The settlement may have come quickly in order to prevent a judge from certifying the case for class-action status.
Amazon admitted this summer that it remotely removed two Orwell novels from Kindles after finding out that the books were posted illegally. Affected customers were eventually compensated with a new digital copy of the book, and $30.
The terms of the settlement also stipulate that Amazon can only delete works from Kindles under certain circumstances. A book can only be deleted if a customer agrees to its removal, if a customer requests a refund, or the digital files are found to contain malicious code. So, is this a reasonable policy?
Links:
[1] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/ryan_whitwam
[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE59151X20091002
[3] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/kindle_lights_amazon_with_12_book_sales
[4] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/amazon_concedes_kindle_texttospeech
[5] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/amazon_kindle_2
[6] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/1984
[7] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/amazon
[8] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/amazon_kindle
[9] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/george_orwell
[10] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/kindle
[11] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/lawsuit
[12] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/remote_deletion
[13] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/news
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