Article

Amazon remotely deletes Kindle books that were legitimately purchased

In a move fraught with irony, the online bookseller has remotely removed copies of George Orwell books from paying customers' Kindles.

July 16, 2009 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

I had to look at the calendar upon seeing this one, to make sure today wasn't April 1st. But no, this is no joke:

Amazon has remotely deleted hundreds of legitimate Kindle book purchases, and in a killing bit of irony, the books in question are "1984" and "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.

David Pogue reports in his New York Times column that evidently, the publisher decided they didn't want to be in the electronic edition business after all, so they put pressure on Amazon to pull the copies that had "shipped."

Now, to be fair, customers were issued credit for the full purchase price. But the damage from this, if word gets around and people think it through, might be substantially more than the cost of any given pile of books. It might cause customers to rethink just how comfortable they are with products that are (a) completely intangible and (b) electronically tied, now and forever, to their source.

Here's a typical, exasperated post in the Amazon discussion board thread on the topic:

I had Animal Farm in my active library on the K2. When I activated whispernet earlier it removed this from the list. My book has been reposessed! [sic]

This isn't just a Kindle issue, but one that looms large on the horizon of a world that is increasingly embracing digital content. It's a worry that will move into the video game world in the next few months when Microsoft brings "Games on Demand" to the Xbox LIVE platform, a service that will let gamers buy complete games from their couch and download them immediately, eliminating a trip to the store for the DVD-based product.

One of the chief selling points of Games on Demand is that you no longer have to take care of a physical collection, because the digital version will always be there if you want to revisit it. From the press release:

It's Yours Forever! - As with other Xbox LIVE content, Games on Demand titles are linked to your Xbox LIVE account, so you can delete and re-download anything you have already purchased to the same console or another console.

But gamers are understandably worried ... what if the service is discontinued? What if a publisher no longer wants to support the product I've paid for? Will those games truly be mine "forever"?

Many buyers of digital books will now have the same worries.