Amazon offers to give back your Kindle's copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four
By Laura June 
posted September 4th 2009 1:30PM
posted September 4th 2009 1:30PM
Poor Amazon -- ever since the company remotely deleted illegally sold copies of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four -- they've faced an uphill PR battle. First, the company issued an apology, and tried to explain what went down. That didn't really stop people from being rightfully upset about the incident, and its implications -- and at least one student has sued Amazon, claiming they were unable to do their school work once the e-book had been deleted. Now, they've contacted affected customers again, letting them know that they now have the option to either have their copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four -- complete with notes -- re-delivered, or, alternatively, Amazon will cut them a check for $30. Fair warning, though -- if you made any anti-Bezos notes in the margins, they've definitely been [redacted]. We kid! Full text of the letter after the break.
[Thanks, Paul]
[Thanks, Paul]
No. The book gets deleted not the notes file. When the book is restored the notes file that was left on the device is used. Nothing shady about it.
Genie's out of the bottle Amazon. Giving the books back doesn't change the fact that you have this ability to pull the trigger any time you want.
What Amazon did is no different than them breaking into your house and stealing a book. They actually broke into millions of peoples houses and stole books. Why aren't they being prosecuted ?
Let me say this so the Chicken Littles out there can understand it:
AMAZON DID NOT "go into" ANY KINDLES AND REMOVE ANYTHING.
What they did was delete the book from inventory, which removed it from everyone's ONLINE archive of Kindle purchases. When people re-synced with their online archive, the missing book wasn't re-synced. Amazon didn't turn on any Kindles and delete anything; The book merely failed to sync when people connected with the online archive.
There's a difference. "OMG they got in ur Kindle and deleted stuff!" is pure hyperbole.
And what's more, as I've said numerous times, EVERY SINGLE BOOK YOU PURCHASE from Amazon is available for direct download to your PC. You can save it, back it up, put it on a disc, email it to yourself, stash it on an SD card, or whatever. This is a BASIC function of the Kindle store, and any idiot who doesn't download a local copy, and instead relies on the online archive, is a fool... Especially when direct download isn't a hack or trick; It's how they designed the system.
If you have a local copy, then any non-syncing books in your online archive can be put back on your Kindle, and WORK PERFECTLY, if you just sync via USB and don't sync via Whispernet until you've finished reading it.
Finally, any book you don't download directly from your PC can be pulled off the Kindle manually, via USB connection.
Nobody "reached into" the Kindle and took "1984" out. People synced their Kindle, failed to find a corresponding item in their online archive, and then simply it didn't re-sync that particular book. If Whispersync was off, if didn't happen. And no matter WHAT Amazon does, they CANNOT DELETE OR DISABLE stuff you backup locally.
It was still poorly handled by Amazon initially (and again, I assert that it was probably some idiot in the legal department who didn't think first before ordering it pulled) and now they're being extremely generous about it. $30 for a $5 book? What other company would do that?!?!
Sony fricking deleted my entire memory card on my PS2 with a demo, and they gave me a refurb copy of Jak & Dexter (by that time, an old $19 title) as a weak "oops"... So this is very generous on Amazon's part. Few companies do the mea culpa like Amazon does.
So the information may reside in the cloud and syncs with the Kindle automatically. So that may be how the Kindle is designed. But that doesn't change the fact that Amazon showed no respect to property that has already been sold to its customers.
I don't know how you can actually download a Kindle book in your computer and freely email them. If that is indeed possible, the marketing people at Amazon certainly did not publicize those "features" well enough. Rather, they are advertising that all ebooks bought at Amazon can still be retrieved in another Kindle device even if your old Kindle is lost or stolen. So why the heck does someone need to do all these backups using USB and turn off Whispernet? If this is what customers should do, why doesn't Amazon just come up with a Kindle that has no Whispernet?
This was really badly handled from the beginning. Since the difference between the legitimate copy and that "illegal" copy was $9, Amazon could've avoided this PR nightmare by replacing the book within a day or two after this all happened. This should've been handled like a pricing error. It's not like the difference is more than $100 apiece, so why not fix it with $9. Now, they are offering $30. It's really just too late. Jeff Bezos apologized like a week after, and without any real solution being given. Almost two months after, they come up with this? I cannot help but think that Amazon reacted only in September after they saw that Kindle sales were probably down in August.
According to Mr. Amazon Apologist here Amazon didn't really come to your home and steal the book. What they did do is shoplift the book from your possesion when you went back to the store. Thats not as bad?????. Well Mr. Amazon Apologist either you work for them or you must be one of the most gullible and naive person on the planet. Which is it Mr. Amazon Apologist?