Amazon Sued for Kindle Deletion of Orwell

(AP)  A high school student is suing Amazon.com Inc. for deleting an e-book he purchased for the Kindle reader, saying his electronic notes were bollixed, too.

Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos has apologized to Kindle customers for remotely removing copies of the George Orwell novels "1984" and "Animal Farm" from their e-reader devices. The company did so after learning the electronic editions were pirated, and it gave buyers automatic refunds. But Amazon did it without prior notice.

The lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle on behalf of Justin D. Gawronski, 17, a student at Eisenhower High School in Shelby Township, Mich., as well as Antoine J. Bruguier, an adult reader in Milpitas, Calif.

Patty Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the Seattle-based company was aware of the filing but does not comment on pending litigation.

The case seeks unspecified damages for all buyers of e-books that Amazon deleted from the Kindle as well as a ban on future deletions.

The lawsuit said Amazon never disclosed to customers that it "possessed the technological ability or right to remotely delete digital content purchased through the Kindle Store."

Bruguier complained to Amazon repeatedly after losing his copy of "1984," appealing in vain for that or an authorized edition to be restored to his Kindle, according to the lawsuit. "I thought that once purchased, the books were mine," he wrote.

Gawronski told The Associated Press he was assigned "1984" for an advanced placement course in which students must turn in "reflections" on each 100 pages of text when they return from summer break, then take a test. He was a quarter to halfway through the book when it disappeared from his Kindle.

His notes on the book were "rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book," according to the lawsuit.

Jay Edelson, a Chicago lawyer who filed the lawsuit, said in a news release that Amazon's actions could have far-reaching consequences if allowed to stand.

"Amazon.com had no more right to hack into people's Kindles than its customers have the right to hack into Amazon's bank account to recover a mistaken overpayment," Edelson said. "Technology companies increasingly feel that because they have the ability to access people's personal property, they have the right to do so. That is 100 percent contrary to the laws of this country."

[licavolim]

I liked the excuse that the dog ate my homework. What a jerk!

[gunownerdan]

There's only one way to stop "1984" and that's with "1776"!

[gunownerdan]

"Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. The cause of liberty, the cause of American, cannot succeed with any lesser effort."
-- President John F. Kennedy, January 29, 1961

[gunownerdan]

In "1984" Winston Smith was not allowed to have guns.
I wonder why?

"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
-- George Orwell

www.A-HUMAN-RIGHT.com

[Liberity1776]

Not coincidence that 1984 was deleted.
Our media is owned by the elite!
The elite runs America!

[saturn05]

Give me a break! Class-action lawsuit, why? We all know what Amazon did and it was wrong and I am sure things will be handled differently after this. This main person in this article is a big baby. Make your point, try to get Animal Farm on your stupid Kindle or how about going to the used bookstore and buying it for a $1.00. Get real and grow up. It is these types of lawsuits that come back to harm us financially. It is frivilous.

[brianbwb-2009]

Do you think that this is the only book that the person has to use for school?

You haven't been checking lately, a modern world-class education sees elementary-school children with up to 20 lbs of books in a backpack. In today's rather transitory population, it is not wise to accumulate space and resource-wasting items, not everyone has space for a library at home.

What is important is accessing and using the information in the story, not wasting paper that will later sit unused, a waste of resources. You call Kindle stupid, can you use one? I doubt it, otherwise you might understand the convenience of having hundreds, or thousands of books at your fingertips, and also might appreciate the saving of the planet's lungs.

You tell a teen to grow up, he can tell you to grow modern.

If a fat lawsuit shuts down some of these software companies, and puts the fear of the law into others to refrain abrogating centuries of common-law commerce, it will only harm the stockholders of such companies, and that is no big harm, they shouldn't be backing thieves with their money in the first place.

You still seem to believe that already-proven lie that companies will police themselves without incentive to do so. I say gut and gibbet a few, and hoist their eviscerated corporate bodies on a stake as a warning to the rest.

[bigreddog222]

Great reply, brianbwb-2009. Agree 100%.

[brianbwb-2009]

$100,000,000 dollars for each unauthorized deletion! It is time we take back our centuries-old common-law commerce rights from the clowns who would deny us those rights.

The crooks at Amazon could easily have contacted the owners of the rights, and paid the prevailing royalty fees, as such payments had to have been calculated into the selling price for the works.

Refund? I'll bet they simply extended a credit for that amount on the purchase of another e-book, which is not a refund, but is "bait and switch".

Also a court should nullify any "agreements" assumed without a personal signature, such as the one that says "by opening this package, you agree to be bound by...", or software "contracts" assumed because someone clicked on an icon.

We also need to shut down the CD/DVD firms that installed "call home" trojans that disable your computer if you remove it, as Sony records most famously did.

and let's not forget Microsoft, whose OS won't load hardware drivers if the manufacturer of the hardware doesn't pay Microsoft big bucks to "sign" their drivers, for them I say we should exercise our government right to "eminent domain" and put Windows XP64 into the public domain, since they no longer sell, service, or update it.