I'm a big fan of the Amazon Kindle, and think that electronic book readers are the future. But behavior such as that described on David Pogue's New York Times blog can do much to alienate prospective readers:
This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for — thought they owned.
But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price....
You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?
The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.” ...
Thanks to Kevin Gerson of the UCLA Law Library for the pointer.
UPDATE: Commenter areader writes, "What are you talking about? 1984 has never been available on Kindle."
God help us on that day.
Signed,
Ray Bradbury
Despite any legalese in the contracts about "this is a license, not a purchase", I would think that a lawyer could whip something up about "rational expectations" and make a killing on this. (Don't laugh -- it happened in the life insurance industry where people would pay the premium with the application, and then insist on payment if they died before the underwriting refusal came back, despite the large type on the payment receipt.)
I guess I should have foreseen that this would, or at least could, be an issue. I did think through the various copy protection issues and concluded that I could live with the attendant restrictions. But the forced return of merchandise didn't occur to me.
I suspect the class action lawyers will point out that your potential damages are much greater in the life insurance scenario than where you've been involuntarily forced to accept a refund for your e-book. What's your best case scenario? Pain and suffering for the loss of your pixels?
TechnicallyLegal.org story
The EULA does say that you can't collect damages, and have to arbitrate confidentially in Seattle.
Makes you wonder if people who had this are free to breach the other parts of the contract now that Amazon has breached their duty? Could they reverse engineer now?
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).
(from “The Road To Tycho”, a collection of articles about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution, published in Luna City in 2096)
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.
...
What exactly is Amazon taking away? Artwork from a particular publication? Or is george-orwell.org itself infringing by publishing the text?
I'm often reminded by stories like these of William Gibson's seminal work, Neuromancer. Constant battle between corporations and individuals over individual scraps of information held in computers.
The electronic publishers of news are not going by my house, taking my newspaper, and leaving $1.25 on my doorstep.
There will be by tomorrow morning.
Hackers of the World, Arise!
What's troubling about it? If you feel strongly about the fact that you have fewer rights in the ebook, and the lower price doesn't make up for it, then buy the hard copy. Those who don't particularly care about the 0.01% chance that Amazon might recall their book, or whatever other rights are at stake here, can pay the cheaper price and save money. That's the beauty of a free market that gives you choices.
Now that I see what Amazon will do to please publishers, I'm really glad I returned it. I've always been happy with Amazon and have ordered a tremendous amount of stuff, but I never completely trusted them. Now I see my suspicions were justified.
If I'm right, that kind of changes the situation from what the NYT "reported," doesn't it?
I look forward to the discussion of exactly how we should plead our cause of action if the book was pirated.
But seriously -- Amazon reinterpreted its adhesion contract EULA, (which if we believe TechnicallyLegal.org explicitly granted an irrevocable, nonexclusive license to the content) as a revocable license? And then Amazon revoked the license by reaching out and deleting Orwell's books remotely, with no notice to the users that their Kindle content license authorized this? Wonder if they got a green light from some of their friends in Microsoft's rather aggressive in-house licensing shop over on the other side of Seattle? You know, the licensing lawyers who managed to get Microsoft into a decade of trouble with competition authorities on at least three continents in large part by combining licensing restrictions and techno-trix in new and especially creative ways?
IMHO, if TechnicallyLegal.org is correct on how egregious Amazon's breach was, class action plaintiffs' counsel isn't going to have too much trouble getting a court to abrogate the mandatory arbitration clause in the adhesion contract, on the way to getting a fairly juicy chunk of attorneys' fees in the ultimate settlement. The poor Kindle users, tho? Expect Amazon's class action settlement to net you a 10% discount on your first Kindle book purchase in 2012, assuming you send back the fine-print-covered acceptance postcard in time...
But don't you have to buy ebooks through the Kindle store? How does anything get in that store without the official approval of Amazon?
Are they fake? Holograms, perhaps? Will all those books I bought from them suddenly vanish one day?
I am blind and thus printed books are of no use to me. (Nor the Kindle for that matter) Electronic books and audio (though I do not like recorded audio) are the only means I have of accessing the material.
The US, UK, and most EU countries have a life-plus-70-years term, so Orwell's books are under copyright until 2020.
So depending on where george-orwell.org is based, they may or may not be infringing the Orwell estate's copyrights.
1984 is public domain in Australia but not in the U.S.
From the kindle forum:
Posted on Jul 17, 2009 3:15 PM PDT
Shelley R Powers says:
Just a guess, but I would imagine this "publisher" grabbed these two books from Project Gutenberg in Australia, and re-sold through the Amazon store. Sold, until someone notified them, and Amazon, that the books are still under copyright in the United States.
Badly handled? Big time. I rarely connect to Amazon now, and make sure I back what I have up, first. But I imagine both organizations (the so-called "publisher", and Amazon) were threatened with major lawsuits (the copyright owner of 1984 in the States is extremely litigious).
But this does point out the vulnerability of Whispernet.
Evidently anyone can self-publish a book, upload it &sell it via Amazon. There's probably some vetting process to try &keep copyrighted material off the store, but there's a whole lot of 99 cent ebooks that are out of copyright, and merely reformated for the Kindle by the "publisher." I'll bet some twenty something figured that the book was so old he didn't bother to make sure if it was in the public domain. Heck, there's some suggestion that the publisher itself is a legit outfit that mistakenly thought the copyright has expired in the US, and sort of accidently pirated it.
(1) Even if Amazon unwittingly infringed the copyright when it sold the copy (which would be the case if the book was "pirated"), I don't see why that should authorize it to delete the copy from people's Kindles. If its continued toleration of the copy on the Kindles were a continuing infringement on its part, then I can see how it would have an obligation to stop it. But it's no longer legally responsible for those copies.
(2) It's possible that the Kindle users would themselves be infringing the copyright by making the electronic copies that are inherent in the process of reading a book on an electronic reader. But that's the users' infringement -- if it is infringement -- and not Amazon's.
(3) Can Amazon reasonably defend itself by saying that it's good for it to prevent infringement (even innocent infringement) by Kindle customers, especially when the infringement was originally facilitated by Amazon? I don't think so; I don't think that product sellers should be the sorts of busybodies that go onto my product and delete items that they think I shouldn't legally possess.
(nb - I can't access bitly from my work computer, so I have not read the forum that some are talking about.)
If it is out of copyright in the country of purchase, how can the copy be "unauthorized?" No one has authority to "authorize" it. Once you LEGALLY purchase it, it's yours wherever you go.
I remember when Honeywell had the import rights to "Pentax" cameras. You could bring in the camera (after all you did LEGALLY purchase it) but US Customs (if they caught you) made you deface the magic word. More good customer relations.
I was thinking of buying a Kindle but now I won't. At least not until an "unlock" program is available for free download.
Manufacturers have to recognize that they cannot stuff the Genie back into the bottle. It ain't gonna happen.
There is a way to get around them. Turn the radio off and never turn it back on. You can still buy Kindle books from Amazon, but download them to your PC and then copy them over to the Kindle with its USB cable.
However this highlights problems with copyright in a digital age. For example if it is out of copyright in one country, it could be made globally available from that country with very little cost. Hence this means that weakest-copyright-term countries prevail.
I don't see anything that would prevent Congress from considering import of works that would be infringing had they been published in the US to be equivalent to the same infringement. I don't think that is the current state of the law though. IANAL however.
Me? I think even Bern-convention requirements are too long. 28 years should be long enough for copyright holders.
So, read it a few times, then donate it to your public library. Still no infringement, right?
So a few years later, they sell the book for $0.50. Infringement then?
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The last part, "you can never sell it," is false. You can never COPY it. But once you have purchased a copy, the copyright holder's rights in the work have been exhausted.
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Similarly, the "only for personal use" part is false too. You can loan, give, sell, or otherwise manage your rights in the copy as you see fit. The one thing prohibited is making a copy.
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Go for the hysterical laughter, it works even if the story is true.
I don't think the situation has anything much to do with Amazon's rights. I think it's about the realistic exposure to a lawsuit.
On the one hand, Amazon is unquestionably vulnerable to a lawsuit by the copyright owner, and this vulnerability could result in significant statutory damages. So there's a lot of reason to placate the copyright owner and stay out of court.
On the other hand, Amazon appears to have little or no vulnerability to a lawsuit, even a class action, by the buyers. In this regard, I don't even see what the basis of the buyers' lawsuit is, once Amazon has refunded the purchase price. How have the buyers been harmed, beyond the amount they paid Amazon for the ebook? Do they even have any property right in a pirated ebook? Is there some kind of tort involved in deleting an ebook the buyer doesn't own, particularly when the buyer has agreed to give Amazon access to the Kindle for purposes of adding and removing ebooks?
I don't think that anyone can infringe a copyright by merely possessing an infringing article. Infringement seems to reside in acts like reproducing, publishing or distributing. OTOH, it seems clear that no one has the inherent right to possess an infringing copy, either, since the courts are authorized to impound and destroy them. It appears to me that buyers of infringing articles possess them, but do not actually own them.
So it seems to me that Amazon doesn't have any legal exposure beyond that for facilitating the distribution of the infringing copy. I don't think that there's any mitigation involved in deleting the copies. But I do think that in dealing with the copyright owner, it helps to tell him that you've limited the damage by deleting all the infringing copies you have any access to at all.
I don't think that Amazon has a good defense, but the question I have is, defense against what? Against a lawsuit that says that Amazon deleted an ebook that the plaintiff has no ownership interest in? (Can Amazon convey property rights in an infringing article to the buyer in the first place?) It seems to me that the only right a buyer of infringing property has against the seller is to rescind the sale, unless it can prove circumstances giving rise to further damages resulting from being sold an infringing article. And Amazon has preemptively agreed to rescind the sale. By giving the refund, Amazon has confessed liability, but what additional damages are there to the buyer? If there are no damages, can there be a lawsuit? About the only thing I can think of is that there might be some state laws Amazon has run afoul of, involving trespass to the computer, but remember, the buyer has already authorized Amazon to muck about on the Kindle, and handed over the ability to do so by turning on Whispersync.
Bottom line is that I think that Amazon's lawyers have rather sensibly worked out the course of action that is best likely to limit Amazon's financial damage.
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I agree. Refund the purchase price to those who obtained a digital copy, and everybody is made whole. This is the best that Amazon can do, in fact.
I wonder if maybe "unauthorized" or "infringing" is a status? Maybe if you legally buy a book in country X, but bring it into country Y where the copyright owner has not authorized any copies to be made, what you have is a book which you don't have any ownership interest in. The copyright owner might be able to have a Y court impound and destroy the book. Or at least, the pages of the book, since the cover might not necessarily be an infringement.
All this is without taking into account any treaties that might exist.
That took me a minute, too. But what "a reader" is doing is making a very neat little joke involving the way that writings are changed or eliminated in 1984, resulting in their "never" having existed.
Is that notion of "exhaustion of rights" something that exists in copyright caselaw?
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Yes. It's also known as "first sale." The holder of copyright can control COPY, nothing else.
1. To clarify the problem, it simply isn't true that copyright only prohibits copying. It prohibits lots of other things, including redistribution, public performance, and importation.
2. Both the redistribution and importation prohibitions have an exception, known as the "first sale doctrine," that permits the sale and importation of "a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under [the United States Copyright Act]." 17 U.S.C. 109.
3. It is an open question whether a copy made and purchased outside the United States is "lawfully made under the U.S. Copyright Act." The best case law that I am aware of indicates that it is not. Therefore, re-sale violates the redistribution right of 17 U.S.C. 106(3).
I disagree. They have limited Amazon's financial damage from a lawsuit. However, looking at this solely from the perspective of a lawsuit is rather myopic. The bad publicity from this incident will cost Amazon much more in the long run than any lawsuit by either the publisher or customers conceivably would have.
They would have been far better off removing the infringing copy of the book from the store while leaving already purchased books on people's Kindles, negotiating a monetary settlement with the rightsholder, and suing whoever was trying to sell the infringing version. Deleting the books off of people's devices is just about the worst course they could have taken. It calls into question whether digital copies are really yours even after you purchase them, which is not what Amazon wants to be doing to the Kindle long term. The fact that they deleted these particular books makes it even worse (the only other book in the same league would be if they had deleted Fahrenheit 451).
As I understand the current state of the law, zombies are not recognized by the courts as qualified to bring suit.
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The copy is not MADE under US copyright law. The copyright holder's rights internationally are satisfied if the copy is purchased, legally, anywhere. The issue is one of importation of the copy. If the copy is legally inside the US, the person who holds the copy can dispose of it, and doing so does not dilute or infringe the copyright holder's rights.
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A non-trivial set of issues arise when the copy is embodied in a digital form, and the holder of the digital form has "agreed" to limit his "buyer's" rights via a license. License questions go beyond simple copyright.
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Refund makes the buyers whole. But you have a good point, and Amazon might be smart to mail a hardcopy of the books to those whose Kindle copies have been withdrawn. Good PR for Amazon, and illuminates the contrary position of the entity that has enforceable legal rights as to digital distribution in the US.
That's a business judgment, not a legal judgment. You might be right, but I have to believe that Amazon has thought about that, too.
That's certainly arguable.
OTOH, I think that the real audience that Amazon is thinking about with this course of action might be publishers and authors in general. Basically, by deleting the infringing copies, Amazon is telling the publishers and authors that it will protect them against anyone trying to use Amazon to infringe their copyrights.
There are no ebook buyers if there aren't any ebook publishers. If you go over to http://booksquare.com you will get some sense of how much trepidation concerning ebooks exists in the publishing community.
You said it. No one would have published such a story - it's too ridiculous!
The DX is supposed to read PDFs just fine if they're formatted right, apparently it can't zoom in on them though, so most PDFs won't be legible.
Try the Sony PRS 505 or 700 if you want good PDF support.
If publishers believe that, they're going to end up the same place as the recording industry.
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction." - Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Sounds like this may have primarily been a product of an idiotic design decision rather than legal analysis.
But I was talking about Amazon's belief. There's no question but that publishers are struggling with how ebooks fit into, change, or maybe even require the replacement the existing marketing &distribution structure.
Or that Amazon is looking for a face-saving way to reverse its policy. This isn't the first time it's happened.
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Bolded part being what I'm asserting, yes?
Sounds like this may have primarily been a product of an idiotic design decision rather than legal analysis.
delete from store where book = "$v" on delete cascade;
I'm guessing the annotations are tied to the copy in such a way that not removing them isn't possible. Which I would call a defect as well.
Tough damages case, though. With respect to most students, anyway.
I was just about to bring up the issue of electronic annotations, but you beat me to it.
Suppose someone writes book reviews for a living, and put in substantial time reading and electronically annotating his Kindle copy of 1984. Then Amazon destroys his work product. Why would this be a tough case for damages? Of course I don't think anyone is reviewing 1984 these days.
Yes, I think that is right, but I would think that that means that Amazon has no right to delete the file. Indeed, the situation is reminiscent of that of Shylock and his pound of flesh.
But that means yer copy of 1984 vanished, to be replaced with the money you spent, so that -- how infuriating! -- you have to go click a few more times to download a legit copy. Oh dear! The inhumanity! Meanwhile, I notice at least one commenter who failed to consider the list of titles available on the Kindle and ordered one by mistake, later returning it, no doubt for a full refund. You want Amazon to tolerate your mistakes -- millions of them -- even when it costs them money, because, well, that's just good business sense, but you don't want to be even trivially inconvenienced by Amazon's mistakes. A little ethically immature, I think, but characteristic of the age. We insist on inhuman perfection in our leaders -- both political and business -- and then become shocked when good people don't bother seeking those roles, and we're left with charlatans and psychopaths.
How about we grow up? Maybe it wasn't the absolutely supreme best Amazon could've done. Maybe using the magic retrospectoscope, some of us could think up an even better plan. (I'm sure Amazon will have a better plan next time, too. Can we keep in mind this is a whole new business paradigm? Pioneering is by definition risky, full of mistakes.) But however sliced, it's a little mistake, if any, and a minor inconvenience, at most. Demonizing Amazon as a whole, or even the Kindle idea, because it turns out that the people running it turn out to be, well, people, and occasionally make minor mistakes, is narcissistic excess.
Oh but wait, it's the principle of the thing! If Amazon can reach into your very Kindle, locked in the privacy of your very own home, and delete books -- can 1984 and Big Brother be far behind? Eek!
Newsflash, gents. The ominous threat to your individual liberty ain't coming from Amazon. Or Microsoft. Or GE. It's squatting in Washington casually planning on hoovering up half or more of your wages to do with as it pleases, and planning on deciding for you whether or not mom gets the hip replacement or you get an expensive gamma knife treatment for your brain tumor instead of daily injections of an anticonvulsant and morphine.
But maybe we've already reached the world of 1984, with bread 'n' circuses for the opiated mass of serfs. We furiously denounce the penny-ante, nearly unmeasureably inconsequential perfidy of Amazon, or the RIAA, or even AIG, while remaining blissfully unconcerned at the prospect of government rifling our pocketbooks and prying into our fortunes and businesses as never before, choosing how we spend our money on everything from electrical power to chemotherapy, constraining all kinds of private choice in the interest of vague public goods defined (of course!) by government itself, and second-guessing even our most private decisions. Wasn't Professor Volt suggesting the possibility that a judge could order you, a father, to donate part of your liver to save the life of your 17-year-old with the drinking problem? Why not? Don't our masters know best?
Just leave us the two minute hate against those evil scum who might delete our e-books without asking, and we are happy to wear the collar almost anywhere else in life. I think our American ancestors would be ashamed of us.
That transaction costs them precisely nothing.
I think the larger point is the prospect of more sinister effects. Imagine, the not too distant future where the printed book becomes rare or non-existent and it is not an error in a business transaction that "requires" erasure of the book, but "national security." The government of the time decides to pressure the publisher to erase writings of political opposition and radical ideas. Good bye books.
Easier than burning and no greenhouse gases.
Well, I was mostly being flip. Certainly there are worse damages cases. Maybe, if you had a track record of getting paid for review work, you could figure out an hourly rate for the work, and tap them for how many hours you put into the annotations.
If the EULA doesn't address this now, it will very soon.
Spoken like a true lawyer who has no concept of, or concern for, the term "costs" as it applies to business. Even if someone at Amazon could just wish this book retraction to happen, it would take some time, and if lawyers understood anything about actually running a business, you'd think they'd be aware that time is money.
Exactly how do you think "transactions" like this would be accomplished in a business? I doubt if they had the software in place to do mass removals, so someone had to write it and test it, which can often require considerable effort. The legal and customer service departments would have to be involved to deal with people like, well, the commenters on this blog who get outraged about this action. So would their public relations and marketing people, as well as management at all levels. It could end up hurting Amazon's image, which certainly can cost a business big time.
The fact that all an employee had to do when all this was finally set up and in place was pick a title, check "Remove" and push "Enter" is not the same as saying it had no "cost". Fielding all the complaints about this policy alone will be very expensive.
No wonder congress/judiciary/bureaucracy doesn't want to do "cost/benefit" anaylses on all the stupid/onerous/confiscatory laws and regulations they write. First, they don't understand costs either because the Treasury is a bottomless pit of free OPM (Other People's Money). Second, they could care less. After all, it's only the greedy capitalists that suffer, not the employees who will be laid off and the consumers who will pay higher prices.
I don't like what Amazon did because I think it's a very dangerous for the capability to even exist to remove books in mass, electronic or otherwise, as noted by others here. However, to say that there is no "cost" to Amazon is specious.
Needless to say, adult (or even juvenile) humans are not poodles, and greatly resent being treated as such. I will never buy a device that allows remote unauthorised manipulation of its contents, and regardless of the fine print crammed into unreadable EULAs by smirking lawyers, *any* remote manipulation against my will is unauthorised. Frankly, the mere ability to perform such actions is itself an extremely offensive problem.
Many Kindle owners are aware of a free utility that gives them the ability to read DRM MOBI-format ebooks on their Kindle. This allows them to buy DRM books from other booksellers besides Amazon. The other booksellers have no problem; in fact they tie the ebook to the user's specific Kindle at the time of purchase. However, Amazon has a problem with this such that they have threatened any website that talks about this tool with a lawsuit. Why? Because it breaks the monopoly of only Amazon being a source for paid ebooks for Kindle owners.
What happens if Amazon finds one or more of these legally-owned files while rummaging around through someone's Kindle? Amazon threatens to de-register Kindles if they are found to have such content. This means the owner of a de-registered Kindle would never be able to use Amazon's website with his Kindle again. More ominous, any Amazon AZW-format ebooks that were purchased would now be unavailable to that owner. In short, Amazon would deny the owner the ability to access any of his legally purchased Amazon ebooks because that owner had the temerity to purchase ebooks from another vendor.
What is truly ludicrous about the whole scenario above is that Amazon OWNS Mobipocket, the company that set up these other booksellers in the first place.
I see Amazon is trying to sic the government on Google and its Books Online project. Maybe someone should sic the government on Amazon and its attempt to monopolize the ebook market.
The size and scope of Amazon is becoming scary. They could become a virtual monopoly player in book retailing. Then it's one step to having the government monitor and determine what you read. Amazon + Obama = 1984. The equation of doom.
Great point. The idea of a paperless world may at first blush sound terrific. But in that world, how hard would it be to rewrite history? There would be no need for the tireless editors envisioned by George Orwell to rewrite news articles for the Ministry of Truth. Instead, history could be rewritten at the flick of switch or the peck of a keyboard.
and
As one user observed, he "can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.” Whether or not Amazon fixes that third problem, the first two will remain.
If usernames weren't placed ABOVE a user's post I would have thought this was Sarcastro.
How is that? Do you disagree?
Then again the books are cheaper on Kindle than virtually anywhere else - including FREE copies (or .99 copies, at the most) of anything in the public domain. Try getting a copy of Portrait of a Lady for 99 cents at your local bookstore.
Which kind of eliminates the "I can't resell it" problem. Reselling it is no longer makes any economic sense.
The other reason to resell books is shelf space. Except SD cards can hold tens of thousands of books.
So I guess the only real objection is that you can't lend people books. Of course, anyone who wants can get a "free sample" of any book they have. So there's no need to "lend" a book to anyone when they can instantaneously get a free sample of it.
Students in particular need to be wary. Imagine having your textbook deleted just before the final exam.
What is there to disagree with? You haven't said anything anyone could possibly have an intelligent discussion about.
The same is true of ordering anything from anywhere ever.
Yes, I would think trying to acquire instructions on how to make bombs should put you on a list somewhere. Not that Amazon even sells The Anarchist's Cookbook, so I'm not sure what the point of this example is.
Again, something that could be done with records of anything anywhere.
Scary to you, perhaps. I don't get the sense that any one else I've discussed this with is "scared".
Really? So what's their market share right now? In online book retailing? In e-book sales? In book sales? This is just alarmist garbage with nothing to back it up.
Yawn. Yes, and Walmart selling everything means we're just one step from the government determining what we buy! And the government owning GM means we're just one step from the government determining what we drive!
Except his missives are shorter.
Yes.
Yes.
I'm curious, isn't Obama supposed to have taken all our guns away now so that he can arm his blackshirts and put us all in death camps? You're pathetic.
Amazon does, in fact, sell the Anarchist Cookbook.
"The same is true of ordering anything from anywhere ever."
If I purchase a book from a store and pay cash there is no record.
'Scary to you, perhaps. I don't get the sense that any one else I've discussed this with is "scared".'
You need to expand your horizons.
"Really? So what's their market share right now? In online book retailing? In e-book sales? In book sales? This is just alarmist garbage with nothing to back it up."
As a prior poster pointed out:
"What is truly ludicrous about the whole scenario above is that Amazon OWNS Mobipocket, the company that set up these other booksellers in the first place."
If Amazon going to be a virtual monopoly next year? Of course not. But how about 20 years? Look at Microsoft.
"I'm curious, isn't Obama supposed to have taken all our guns away now so that he can arm his blackshirts and put us all in death camps? You're pathetic."
Obama has only been in office for about 7 months. Give him time.
But I've had enough of your insults. It's useless to try and have any kind of dialog with you, so I will not respond you anymore. Remind me if I forget in the future.
That's not the Anarchist's Cookbook to which Zarkov was referring. That is the Anarchist Cookbook (sans the possessive).
How could the author of the first six sentences and sentence fragments--which are fairly useful even despite the use of "it's" instead of "its"--be the same person who wrote the last one? The French have no First Amendment and no tradition of a strong belief in free speech. We are not France. Do you really think that if "Obama and his cronies" were somehow minded to delete information from readers' Kindles, Congress would not explode and the judiciary would bar lawsuits? You just don't like Obama, and you let your hatred mar your analysis.
Actually, if you look at his original post, you will find there is no apostrophe. I believe you were the one who erroneously added the apostrophe to the title in your reply.
Wait for the Summer clearance sale or go to the used book table. You can find ANYTHING in print for 99 cents if you are willing to wait and to hunt. Even on the internet.
How could the author of the first six sentences and sentence fragments--which are fairly useful even despite the use of "it's" instead of "its"
Do you really think a simple typo constitutes a serious criticism? I see typos and misspelling all the time on VC.
"The French have no First Amendment and no tradition of a strong belief in free speech. We are not France."
I'm glad you realize that the French are least capable of suppressing speech, unlike the other poster. But not being France or having a 1A is not sufficient. Free speech is constantly under attack in the US. We have workplace exceptions, and campus speech codes. Look at the cases described in David Berstein's book You can't say that. Organizations such as the Untied Council of La Raza openly advocate suppression of speech by asserting "hate speech is not free speech." We are about to put a member (or former member) of UCLR on the Supreme Court. Will we one day get a "hate speech" exception to 1A? I can well imagine a book getting deleted because it's "... regarded as constituting a threat to public policy, security or health." This is exactly the excuse Britain used to ban Geert Wilders from entering the UK. His crime: He made a movie critical of Islam. If the US is to look more and more like the EU, why would we not also adopt European attitudes towards speech.
"Do you really think that if "Obama and his cronies" were somehow minded to delete information from readers' Kindles,..."
Of course the courts would act-- today. But how about in 10 years? If Obama wants us to become like the EU, don't you think he will appoint judges sympathetic to that viewpoint?
You really don't see a difference between issuing restrictions on disclosures made by government law enforcement employees and altering ebooks on private computers? I'm not saying I agree with the French policy here, but those are two radically different things.
I see that mistake all too often, and I am getting concerned that some dictionary will endorse it as alternate usage.
I am quite aware of the attack on free speech in this country. (The latest one is a lawsuit by the Florida attorney general to prevent Arbitron from releasing its ratings for radio stations in the Miami area until its methodology gets approved by the Media Rating Council; how that is a matter of proper governmental concern is beyond me.) I am concerned about hate speech too, but proponents of the concept have lost every time the matter has been taken to court, so far as I know. Will we adopt EU attitudes toward speech? I hope not. Some people worry me in this regard (Harold Koh anyone?), but Sotomayor does not.
He could, and the Senate could confirm his picks. But does he want us to become like the EU? If you believe so, what is the basis for that belief?
JK, I think that Zarkov is suggesting that the French government would delete information from French citizens' Kindles if it did not want the information to be read by them and if it could do. He believes that Obama would do the same if he could. Zarkov's discussion has nothing to do with Amazon at this point.
"I see that mistake all too often, and I am getting concerned that some dictionary will endorse it as alternate usage."
I'm well aware of the proper usage, and I think I rarely make that mistake, but come on, it's [there we go] pretty easy to mistype.
I agree with Zarkov; the circumstances differ, of course, but it is the same mentality at work, namely, that the government has a right to control the information available to the public.
"You really don't see a difference between issuing restrictions on disclosures made by government law enforcement employees and altering ebooks on private computers?"
Of course I see a difference. I used that example to show that the French government does not mind tampering with reality. The government's ministerial directives do just that. Moreover the French and other EU governments have gone beyond the mere deletion of works they don't like to criminalizing authorship. Need I remind you that Oriana Fallaci was indicted [in Italy] for her book The Force of Reason? Now ironically The Force of Reason was a bestseller in Europe, so it was criminal to write the book, but not publish, sell and read it. Go figure. Nevertheless, the next step would be to ban books critical of Islam, and and have Amazon delete them from its readers when they become available there. For Europe, I don't think this is an irrational fear.
"He believes that Obama would do the same if he could."
Let me be clear. I don't think Obama would do that today; it's the future I'm worried about. I see a drift towards intolerance for offensive speech because I think many people forget that 1A exists primarily for offensive speech.
Now it seems to be the French.
Thread over.
(but for a while, it was quite instructive - thanks!)
I think that the real problem with intolerance for offensive speech these days is in the private sector, which is not regulated by the First Amendment. If you say something that an interest group does not like, you are supposed to lose your job, apologize abjectly, and make a financial contribution. Even then you can get blacklisted and so forth at least until you go through sensitivity training.
Is there a remedy for this?
Closer to home, but with thankfully somewhat more distant basis in statutory and constitutional law, we have the example of Canada's Human Rights Commission. And anyone who thinks that the Canadian Human Rights Commission wouldn't use Amazon's book deletion capability in a hot second, hasn't really read up on their numerous outrageous actions.
I have debated this issue with Canadians in various fora. They really do believe that we are wrong in how we deal with the "problem" of freedom of speech.
So a business shouldn't be able to fire an employee you says things that piss of it's customers? You guys are unreal.
I have no problem with a business that takes action against an employee who says things that customers don't like--when the statements occur at the place of business or are otherwise business-related. But what if the employee writes a letter to the editor, without identifying himself as an employee of the business, that criticizes something that some customer dislikes and, realizing where the employee works, complains to the employer? Are you comfortable with letting the employer discharge him?
A number of states have laws that forbid discrimination against someone for exercising a lawful right. Originally intended to protect smokers, these laws have been applied more broadly, and I believe that they would cover situations like this. Would you object? (I don't know what sort of defense an employer would be entitled to raise.)
Yeah, what would happen is that the life insurance company would sometimes take months and months to finally approve or reject someone's application. Guess how many they approve after they've heard someone already died?
Nick
Sacre bleu! Mon auto is a pile of cinders. If the government does not tell me this, I will not notice and still drive it to work.
This wouldn't be the first time Brussels Journal has failed to pass a sniff test.
Bold prediction:
Barbri, Kaplan law school texts, etc are all going to follow eventually. It's only a matter of time before the complete electronicization of publishing begins to bear piracy fruit on a large scale.
I'm simply amazed that no one is learning from the whole music industry debacle.
All that Amazon succeeds in doing with these restrictions is driving readers to the black market which produces a better quality product (scans) for less money (free). Unauthorized downloads can be given to others and ownership can never be rescinded by some central authority. Even people who are willing to pay would be stupid to buy an inferior product that costs more.
Sacre bleu! Mon auto is a pile of cinders. If the government does not tell me this, I will not notice and still drive it to work.
This wouldn't be the first time Brussels Journal has failed to pass a sniff test.
If you think the French news blackout is a pack of lies, then tell us which statements are false and why. Otherwise all you have provided us is drive by snark.
As I point of information, I sent a colleague, who is from Brussels, a link to a story from Brussels Journal about the French police (acting under instructions from the Interior Ministry) suppression of a videotape. The tape recorded an attack by North Africans on a white Parisian bus rider. The only way to see the tape was to go to a Russian website. My colleague said that the story was consistent with his own experience, and that's one reason he intends to remain the the US. He fears for the safety of his family.
I don't see what the "at work"/"of work" distinction has to do with this. You either have waivable free speech rights, such that you can contract with an employer to not say certain things as a condition of employment, or you have unwaivable free speech rights and your employer can't contractually oblige you to not say certain things. The on/off work distinction would only be relevant if the nature of your contract made it so.
I definitely have a problem with that. I've had problems with smokers who are constantly taking "smoking breaks" that disrupt the flow of work. Now it's not a major problem, but ceteris Paribus I would prefer to hire a non-smoker because it eliminates the whole smoking break thing, and I don't see why an employer shouldn't be able to make that call.
Typical liberal. If you're going to use Alinsky's rule #5, at least be intelligent enough about it to make the ridicule somewhat believable. I would put this more along the line of self-parody.
No one claimed the French are saying cars were not burned. It's that they're disingenuously and dishonestly reporting only that "youths" are doing it, to cover up the fact that all the "youths" just happen to be Muslim. NYTitis has obviously spread its infection to Europe.
If somebody were torching cars in my community, I'd notice. In fact, they were a couple years ago. I noticed. Didn't need anybody to tell me about it.
I've seen the Muslim riots in the banlieues covered in even small little French-to-English newslettes that my nephew receives as part of his high school French classes, so for you to argue that this story is unapparent or novel seems disingenuous to me.
You may re-educate yourself in the Truth, should you choose to embrace it.
It's one of my favorite novels. Glad to see that it's online, should I wear out my copy.
"I noticed. Didn't need anybody to tell me about it."
You are really characterizing the issue. Of course people in a neighborhood know if rioters have set cars of fire. But what the general French public does not know is the number, nature and extent of the burnings. French journals mistrust the official counts, so they do what good journalists are supposed to do-- check the counts by interviewing police and fireman. The ministries know they do this and that's why they ordered the police and fireman muzzled. It matters whether a particular area on a certain night had 232 or 529 vehicles burned. Put the counts from all the areas together and compare to prior years to show an increasing Muslim youth problem in French suburbs. That's what the French government fears. It fears that French voters will put a new set of politicians in office who will curb immigration from North Africa. We see early signs of this in the UK and Holland.
I don't understand why you find the idea of the French government trying to suppress information so objectionable unless of course you're one them.
I need not have picked France. I could have used UK, Belgium or any of a whole lot of western governments to illustrate the point: We need to be on guard against enabling technologies for the suppression of inconvenient speech.
Excellent choice for an article. In particular I noted this:This is precisely what Sotomayor got accused of doing: apologizing to criminals when sentencing them.
The deaths of school children in Chicago (although ridiculously exaggerated-they count 24 year olds as "children") are widely reported. What's the number two city for child homicide? I bet most people reading this can guess with 50%+ success rate, but they don't actually know.
Yes, I'd know if there were a major rash of a new crime in Evanston/Chicagoland, but you outsiders wouldn't if it didn't become a national media talking point (which it obviously couldn't, even if you had a Chicago-like shooting spree)
I feel the same way in regards to you. To be fair, I'd like to clarify something. You said:
in regards to my comment:
In all sincerity, do you believe that is where Obama is taking this country? Or even any part of that?
should be "(which it obviously couldn't given government censorship at the source, even if you had a Chicago-like shooting spree)
I shouldn't do this but I will. I don't know what you complain about. Do I insult you? Ever? But I'm not going to get into trading insults.
As for Obama, when did I ever say anything that extreme? Obama is taking the country towards a European style social democracy. That's all I meant. But that's bad enough because free speech in Europe is in sad shape. If he can appoint enough justices, then I think we will see the day when "hate speech is not free speech."
Wonder what they would have done in different circumstances, for example if the rightsholder had been ordered by a court to amend the books, or publish a retraction and apology?
Mr Herdeners statement sounds a lot like "I promise to never again borrow the car and crash it against a tree"
But A. Zarkov aren't you aware that any criticism of Obama is an act of "straight up" racism?
Didn't you get the memo?
Under George Chimpy McHalliburatin Bu$Hitler, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Under Barak "The One" Obama, dissent is the highest form of racism.
And as for the 1st Amend protecting "offensive speech", you are also aware that only works in one direction too?
Offensive profanity laced speech by The Left is protected by the 1st Amend and is merely "Speaking Truth To Power".
However, offensive speech by someone not on The Left is NOT (or at least should not be) protected by the 1st Amend and is an act of "Hate Speech".
Indeed, isn't his concern about the precedent setting arbitrary invasion of personal cyberspace and removal of paid-for property without consent?
(We all agree in certain cases the government has not only the right but the responsibility to intervene in our private affairs (say I'm building an H-Bomb in my basement - the government would be charged to intervene in the public good). The argument about the extent of the governments rights and responsibilities is a continuing debate for every society)
I don't buy into the argument that this was just a techno-glitch since programming wiping clients computers simultaneously with any product withdrawl is inimically a deliberate act.
Who says we are all in agreement about nuclear weapons?
Well, let me amend that. You should be stopped from building such devices, of course. But let me have my harmless fun.
.
Where did I leave that tritium and those styrofoam cups?.......:-)
I agree that a discussion of property rights in IP, and the risks to property rights in IP (or risks to those who naively thought they had purchased property rights) resulting from centrally administered DRM and other such methods, would be enlightening.
The Kindle / 1984 episode was not the first such incident, nor will it likely be the last. There have already been episodes of DRM failures when companies fail, rendering the products (often software) that they sold useless to its purchasers. I believe some of the prominent failures have been in the computer games area, but there likely have been failures in other areas as well, such as the "bricking" of some PDAs or cellphones.
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