Kindle Customers Irate Over Deletion Of Orwell Titles
18 Juillet 2009 - 3:08AM
Dow Jones News
It's almost Orwellian.
Owners of Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN) Kindle electronic book reader
are up in arms for the second time this week, this time because the
online retailer deleted titles by author George Orwell from their
devices without permission.
Starting on Thursday, Kindle owners began noticing that Amazon
had deleted Orwell's "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" from
their devices. The company credited customers for the books, but
the deletions prompted an outcry on Amazon's Kindle forum.
Amazon on Friday acknowledged it had deleted the books from its
customers' Kindles. The retailer said it deleted the works because
they were improperly added to Amazon's catalog through a
self-service platform by a third-party that didn't have rights to
them.
"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," said Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman,
in an email. "We are changing our systems so that in the future we
will not remove books from customers' devices in these
circumstances."
The move prompted a spate of angry messages on the Kindle forum.
One customer said Amazon's actions were like "a Barnes & Noble
clerk coming to my house when I'm not home, taking a book I bought
from them from my bookshelf and leaving cash in its place."
The incident is the second black eye for the Kindle this
week.
On Tuesday, a customer filed a lawsuit claiming that cracks
appeared on his Kindle and its screen froze only a few months after
purchase.
The plaintiff, who was seeking class-action status and argued
total damages could exceed $5 million, complained the company told
him he would have to pay $200 for repairs. Amazon moved quickly to
diffuse the situation by announcing it would provide free
replacements to customers whose Kindles had cracked.
Shares in Amazon closed down 0.3% at $85.85 on Friday.
-By Scott Morrison, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-765-6118;
scott.morrison@dowjones.com