By now most folks have heard about Amazon remotely deleting every single copy of 1984 and Animal Farm from every Kindle ever sold. The issue appears to be that the publisher didn't have rights to the book here in the United States, so Amazon was required to remove the Kindle version from their US bookstore. Whether or not they were required to delete already sold copies from everyone's Kindle is an open legal question. They took the easy out.
One would think that if they'd given it any thought, they'd have realized that their action was going to be a PR nightmare. Specifically if they remembered that the main character of 1984, Winston Smith, is "a bureaucrat in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, revising historical records to match The Party's contemporary, official version of the past." If Orwell had only know how easy this would be in the digital age! Can't get any more ironic than that.
In reaction, some are vowing to never purchase a Kindle or similarly licensed technology. Turns out you don't own your itunes music either. You've just leased it for a very long time. According to Apple's end user agreement, they can take the songs back, and refund your money, at any time and for any reason.Welcome to the digital age.
1 comment:
I'd like to say I was prescient and this is why I still buy CDs and books, but I'm not. I just like CDs and books.
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