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Amazon 451: Burning Books Remotely
Posts
analogy fail
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
That's a great explanation as to why. Truly you are an orator beyond your time.
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
honestly, it was all I thought your comment was worth.
The state has the power to draft people into service because raising an army is sometimes necessary. I don't have to agree with every war to recognize that the draft is something the state should be able to do.
Amazon having the power to pull things off your kindle when they've told you they won't isn't something they should have the power to do, full stop.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
But again, why get angry until they do. This isn't about the general issue, this is about what they've done. What they've done is revoked a specific publication of a book that they had no right to distribute in the first place while giving the consumer a choice of that book's other publications or a refund.
It doesn't matter if I agree with the draft or not. Until the Government does something I disagree with, why should I get mad about what they could theoretically do?
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
edit: and again, the proper solution here was for amazon and the publisher to work out appropriate recompense, not for amazon to go after it's own customers.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
the ability for amazon to unilaterally decide to remove things from a kindle should either go away or be enumerated more clearly. Somehow, this has managed to be controversial.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
I'd just like to point out that there never was a "All gay-related books are THE DEVIL" fiasco. There was a "Software mistake caused us to accidentally list GLBT books as adult" fiasco, which is a pretty different thing.
This exactly. The refund is just nice propaganda, and many people are apparently buying it.
Who IS to stop them from just removing books they don't approve of because of their content?
Their own niceness? Sorry, that is not something I want to put trust in.
Screw. This.
If I buy something. I own it. I don't care what the corporations say with their unenforceable, likely illegal EULA's I own that software.
I don't want to turn this into a general IP thread.
Now, between this and the homosexual thing a couple of months back, I am not really in the mood to defend Amazon blindly. However, considering you can buy the books in question on amazon from other vendors, I would say that this is somewhat less of an issue than you are making it out to be. Content isn't actually being limited as far as I can tell.
Did they break the EULA? Yeah, but users do it all the time as well, usually with the justification of the EULA is not really all that strong a legal document (at least, that's what I remember). Is the distributor ignoring it when it suits them hypocrisy? Yes, of course it is. Is it unexpected? Absolutely not.
Because 9% think it's too high, and shouldn't be cut! 9% of respondents could not fully
get their arms around the question. There should be another box you can check for, "I
have utterly no idea what you're talking about. Please, God, don't ask for my input."
No one cares about their motivations, we care about their actions. Amazon acted against their contract/agreement with a publisher and Amazon bears the consequences of those actions. Nothing in that previous sentence justifies, legally or in any other way, their violating end user's rights and taking their property. Everything else is just window dressing and details around that fact.
And it's a sign of how indefensible Amazon's actions are that "people violate their agreements all the time" is being used as an excuse. Some digital rights junky making extra copies on their digital devices is at best an act of civil protest and at worst some dumbass with too many ideas and not enough smarts breaking a contract; Amazon removing every instance of some digital work from consumers without their consent is a massive violation of property and privacy rights and a damn disturbing sign of things to come unless this is stomped on hard.
Now, trying to do the same thing digitally, I'd be called a criminal.
Except even under that wildly generous interpretation what Amazon did is illegal. If my car dealership sells me a car they shouldn't have (next years model before they street date, what have you) that doesn't mean when the manufacturer threatens to sue the dealership they send a guy into my driveway, break into my car, leave an envelope of cash in my mailbox, and drive away.
"This was going to happen eventually anyway" isn't a legal reason to violate people's rights and taken something of theirs, especially when one party unilaterally decides how they want to solve the issue and just goes ahead and does it without checking with anyone else first.
Which is complete and utter bullshit. If I pay money for something, it should be mine. It shouldn't be mine as long as the "real" owner wants it to be mine, privy to their whims and fancy.
And I won't be. That still won't stop me from calling bullshit on their bullshit.
I use Steam all the time. They've also never randomly deleted games that I own. And the first time they do is the moment I stop using it.
And if that's the case, then it sucks but at least it's legal. Amazon isn't the government and the fact you seem comfortable allowing them to assume the power to compel the turnover of property without any actual legal justification is exactly why this is a staggeringly horrible precedent. There are standards that need to be met. One entity doesn't just get to decide that the quickest solution is to punish another as part of an agreement with yet a third party.
I honest to god can't wrap my mind around the opinions some people are expressing in here. Between "rights are overrated as long as I get money" and "that whole law thing is over rated, let's just have private companies cut to the chase" either people are completely missing what's going on or I'm insane.
If the rolleyes were still here, I'd be using it right now.
We are clear this isn't in their Terms of Service right? In fact they explicitly state they will never do anything like this and that you own the right to a digital copy of anything you've bought indefinitely. Completely leaving aside the legal and societal implications of this, Amazon violated their own contract with their customers.
You are willfully ignoring the point. Stop it.
And maybe we can worry about Amazon deleting things because they don't agree with it, you know, when that actually happens. Which I highly doubt.
[citation needed]
No, actually they're buying the book. Even according to Amazon. They just decided to ignore that little fact because they retained the power to violate their own EULA, TOS, and customer's property rights in the hardware. This isn't like netflix or a subscription to an online journal where you get access to their library so long as you pay the fee. This is purchasing a volume in toto and in perpetuity.
That being the case, then they're probably going to get slapped with a massive, possibly class-action, lawsuit in the next couple of weeks, and will never, ever do anything like this again.
Like when they took LGBT books off their site?
Expand upon the difference, if you please, and explain how deleting it fails to violate personal property rights.
Yeah, people seem to be getting worked up over a complete hypothetical here. The actual facts of the case are much more banal. I highly suspect something like this will never, ever happen again, yet people are sitting her wringing their hands over Amazon sneaking into their Kindles and taking back books whenever they feel like it.
And this thread makes me even more depressed. We moved past it's alright as long as I get paid, past it's great when companies save me time by just taking the law into their own hands, into people are too stupid to care so what does it matter if it's right or wrong.
A proud day for discussions everywhere.
[citation needed]
If it was your actual 'property', you could sell it to someone else, which is explicitly forbidden in the TOS also.