As you said, it was the worst response from them.

But I remember it was due to something odd, but forgot what. But the point is, they sold you the book. So if they were scammed they should eat the cost, not delete it from your device.

At the time I was getting interested in these readers, that activity turned me off every getting/using an electronic reader.

I think we are missing the forest the trees. The issue is not that they took action. The issue is that this action was even possible and an option to begin with.

If there was ever an argument for an analog library, this is it.

Amazon have said that in the future if this happens again they will not remove the books from customer devices.

https://mashable.com/archive/amazon-remote-delete

> The statement, from Amazon's Drew Herdener, reads:

> These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books...When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers....We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances.

My Kindle is jail broken because I prefere using KOReader over Amazons own reader software. But even before it was jail broken if I ever brought books from Amazon I would use the "Download book to your computer" function and then run it though the DeDRM plugin for Calibre. https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

That way even if Amazon decide to no longer host the book (so you can't redownload them) or go back on their word about not remotely removing content I still have a DRM Free copy of the content I can put on the book. However it is a shame we as consumers have to go though these steps, our other option is to buy content from store that do not apply DRM to the books, but that as decision that is basically forced by the publishers.

> Amazon have said that in the future if this happens again they will not remove the books from customer devices.

This isn't exactly comforting since they've since done things just as abusive, like remoting into people's devices and replacing their purchased products with different products.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/03/04/0521244/roald-dahl-e...

I wouldn't word it as harshly as "remoting into customers devices" simply because we are used to auto updates, The publisher updated the title on the store, kindles then downloaded the updated title.

If an app dev did the same, completely rework their app into a completely new product and allow auto update replace the app installed on users devices, would you lay the blame on Google/Apple or on the publisher?

IMO its not a black and white case and I would say neither party are completely in the clear, more an assignment of blame, but I would put more blame on the publisher than on Amazon, but that doesn't mean Amazon are in the clear either. Amazon should have either a) required the publisher to issue the new book under a new ASIN b) give the owner of the book the ability to choose which revision they would like to read.

I never understood why Amazon handled it that way. They should have negotiated a resolution with whomever owned the rights to 1984 (which likely just means purchasing a license for however many copies they sold), then go after the third party bootlegger to recover the costs of correcting this problem.

Technically, it wasn't a bootleg. Outside the USA, Orwell is in the public domain. A public domain copy was uploaded to Amazon with 'Global' rights. People in America bought it for 99 cents. The American rights holder complained. The rights listing was changed to "the rest of the world".

Then Amazon had a problem. What to do?

They couldn't give the 99 cents from the US customers to the American publishers because it (A) belonged to the publisher outside the US and (B) the American copies were $9.99 so it wouldn't have been enough.

They could have prompted the American customers to pay the difference, then compensate the American rights holders.

They could have done nothing.

But in the end they said 'we didn't have the right to sell you this in the first place so we are taking the book back'.

Gross but similar to what happens when you change the country code for your Apple ID and things you bought disappear.

This is the "you wouldn't download a car, would you?" hot take flipped on its head. If a dealership accidentally sells you a car for less than they can get it from the manufacturer, they eat the loss. They can't go out and repossess the car. But amazon? They totally turned around to repossess your electronic book because of their own pricing mistake.

Consumer rights are still stuck in the 90s. Digital purchases are treated like some kind of special case where the vendor can do whatever they want and get away with it instead of an exchange of goods for money.

Let's not pretend this was a large dilemma for Amazon to solve. They screwed up by offering this copy for sale so they should have eaten the cost.

Instead what happened was the digital equivalent of Amazon breaking into your house during the night, removing the book from your shelf, and leaving the refund on the kitchen table on the way out.

I don't think it's similar to the Apple situation since in that example you (in theory) know you're getting a region-locked product.

>Outside the USA, Orwell is in the public domain

This happened in 2009, Orwell hit the public domain in 2021.

You and all the current replies are focusing on the wrong problem.

Amazon should not be able to retract a book from your device. Why they did it or whether or not it was a good response aren't relevant. It should be impossible.