One would think it’s a pretty safe assumption that, once you have bought something, it’s yours to keep, regardless of whether the place you bought it from stops selling it. If you buy e-books from Amazon for your Kindle, you should know that belief is wrong.
When a publisher decided to stop providing digital editions of a pair of books recently, Amazon stopped selling them, which is fine. They also removed the copies that had already been purchased by Kindle owners. They were nice enough at least to refund you the money you paid for the book. Still, it’s an outrageous move and an incredibly poor way to treat their customers.
Of course the delicious irony of the whole situation is the identity of the two books removed: George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm.
Big Brother is watching indeed.
Yeah, that is damn annoying. Someone should really throw the book at them. [Audience groans, boos, trap-door on stage opens]
The same thing can happen with all of those MP3’s everyone is buying, which is why I always buy hardbacked books and CDs…..I’ll always be able to read my book and re-upload my CDs.
No gahrie they can’t. Unless you install software specifically designed for them to have the ability places like Amazon and Apple can’t just erase your music files. The risk is from DRM’d music files that can be disabled (but not deleted) and that’s only likely to happen when the authentication servers get shut down usually when they go out of buisness. The big advantage of Amazon and Apple is that no DRM on the files means this isn’t a problem.
Buying CDs gives you the advantage of ripping higher quality versions and having a physical backup though.
this is terrifying.
I believe the issue here was actually that the publisher of the e-books in question (Animal Farm and 1984) did not in fact own the copyright to the books they were publishing. Forcing Amazon to make the move they did over DMCA concerns. Both books are still available in the Kindle store from the actual copyright owner. Whether you think that this is right or wrong from a copyright owner stand point you get to lay the blame at the feet of a Republican controlled congress and the Clinton administration for this one, not Amazon.