Amazon had believed it had the digital rights to sell George Orwell’s “1984" and "Animal Farm" to its Kindle owners. But when Amazon discovered that certain versions of those e-books were added to the Amazon catalog by an unauthorized publisher, it, without warning, removed the books from the Kindle library and refunded money to users.
Amazon apologizes
In an e-mail to Kindle owners on Thursday, Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos regretted the action saying, "This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.
“It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."
Amazon will offer its affected customers new copies of the novels, including any annotations they may have made. The customers could also choose $30 gift certificate or check if they do not want the book.
More troubles could be brewing
The deletion of the novels had triggered a wave of criticism in July. The move had also prompted Justin D. Gawronski, a Shelby Township, Mich., high school student, to file a lawsuit against Amazon.
Gawronski said that the removal of “1984" from his Kindle library had caused inconvenience and made the notes he had taken on the e-reader useless.
Though Amazon has taken measures to redress the wrong, more troubles could be brewing.
Calling the whole effort a public relation move by the company, Jay Edelson, a Chicago-based lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of Gawronski, said he would continue with the lawsuit.
Further, Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard Law professor, said that regulators will now take note of Amazon’s ability to regulate Kindle. The governments could force the online retailer to delete books that they consider are politically dangerous.
“There is this new prospect for control, and it is hard to imagine that regulators or litigants won’t notice,” Zittrain said.
Litigants in defamation cases or government regulators could demand that these services remove entire works from their collections, or simply a word or paragraph that they found offensive, Zittrain said.
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