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Reminds me of APPLE and their Itunes Store. They sold people music that is stored in the itunes software and that could be played on their othr devices -which gave Apple a huge marketplace!!!! Apple then decides they don't like the Palm Pre being bale to access the iunes store or the music already bought on itunes by owners of the Palm Pre and they made it so people couldn't access the itunes store to get at the music they have already bought.Anti-Comeptitive because Apple is Tagrteing 1 company and allowing other Media Players access still.

Just one more reason why I will never buy a piece of crap kindle.

Apparently, all copies of Orwell's works on Kindle, everywhere, have evaporated. Gone into the memory hole. Been disappeared. 1984 does not exist, it has never existed. Outer Party members of the Ministry of Truth has replaced it with a picture of the Hero of the Revolution (Jeff Bezos?).

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

Somwhere, the spirit of Eric Blair is laughing.

I agree, I would never buy a Kindle. The way they're going, Kindle won't be around next year.

I'll stick with real books!

Amazon: noun. A large, strong and aggressive woman.

I guess even Amazons get PMS...

Ah, yes we're in the throes of a transition. But the physical media will disappear. The Ludites will fade away. Please don't forget that there are always bumps and catches when society advances.

Is Kindle the last word? Very unlikely. Will we laugh about pulp-publishing someday? Absolutely. Paper? Wasn't that really common for many centuries?

Where did the word "dial" a phone number come from anyway?

Enjoy the ride!

I was seriously considering a Kindle for Christmas. Now that I know AMAZON is willing to reach into my device without asking my permission, I will never buy a Kindle. There is NO excuse for not getting my permission to monkey with anything I put in my locker or Kindle device. WOW!!!!

Regarding ownership, I believe copyright law basically says that individuals do not actually 'own' the content of any book, only the paper. Yeah, it sounds wierd, but it has to do with intellectual rights of the author/publisher. Only the copyright owner of the work has the right to copy the content. They then sell the copies for profit, but maintain the right to copy. Hence the term copyright. Technically, I suppose they can recall my right to use their content at any time. I'm not sure how music, once heard, can be recalled or how a painting can be 'unseen' after a viewing. I guess one advantage of owning the actual printed book is that the publisher would have a very difficult time deleting all the ink from the pages of each copy.

Bottom line: beware - the plug CAN be pulled!

Hardly likely that physical media will disappear; not for a -long- time and there will always be collectors. -Original- physical media simply grows more valuable.
And purchasers don't own -the rights- of the content... but they DO own their own purchased physical copy of the content. That's inescapable. No, publishers/vendors can't 'recall' the copy of the content... unless perhaps they can show a danger to the public, not likely. Or we become a police-state dictatorship tyranny.
But I don't mind buying digital copies that I can backup to my own hardcopy, physical storage... that some vendor can-not- 'revoke'.
This incident is one more reason I'll never 'subscribe' to content as a utility... what I pay for to listen to or read -is- my property to listen to or read, however I want, or to give away that item itself just as I'd give away a book, as long as I don't duplicate it for others en masse.
This 'revocation' -is- evil... and shouldn't be tolerated. Once offered to the public, existing purchases should be seen as irrevocable contracts of ownership for the buyer. Nobody can publish a physical book for sale, stop selling it and then demand/force the purchasers to return it... so should it be 'online'.

Amazon will not go unscathed by the public... if only in loss of customers. I won't purchase a 'rental' device, storage, or subscription.

This is an interesting article. I thought about buying a kindle but now won't even consider doing so. It has also made me think twice about getting electronic subscriptions. It is nice to have a digital copy as it takes up more room to store physical copies but nothing is stopping an electronic publisher from deciding to get rid of content that you find useful and would rather have a physical copy than a refund if they decide to get rid of the content.

It will take some time to transition to Star Trek mentality. As older people who traditionally like to read a “book” start becoming less of a market, the younger people who are more into digital content will rule the markets. However, application specific devices like the Kindle still have to compete with online content and more universal devices of the future.

Amazon made a huge mistake here, perhaps because they listened to their attorneys instead of using common sense.

This move makes it extremely unlikely that I will ever buy a Kindle, even though I had been considering one up to now.

The damage to Amazon's reputation is also huge. I tend not to forget when vendors have treated me or others badly. I will never buy another HP scanner or any Logitech device because of software problems I have had with them in the past. And I won't buy a book at Walden's because they took Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" off the shelf in a reponse to Muslim threats.

Consumers have long memories. What Amazon did will hurt it for years to come.

If I buy something, I assume that I own what I bought, and that the seller can't take it back. That seems so fundamental that I can hardly wait to see how this move of Amazon's plays out in the courts.

I almost purchased the Kindle. I will not purchase it now. Big mistake on Amazon's part. If I buy something from you, I should own it without you deciding at any moment that I don't anymore. I buy Dvd's and Cd's all the time, but, never will I make an online digital purchase because of what Amazon has done. This why physical media will never go the way of the dinosaur. Amazon's decision to do this simply amazes me. Flawed move which will wind up hurting all companies who sell digital online media. Too bad...The Kindle seemed really cool.

One of the most fascinating news items I have read this year AND the comments are generally excellent too.

It's ironic - at a supernatural level - that Orwell's works would figure in this!

Just the idea that agencies -- private is outrageous -- public is downright scary -- can reach into your hardware to delete (and modify?) stored material!

I agree with several commentators – Kindle is (or should be!) finished. It might be a good idea for fans of this kind of ‘service’ to have read Orwell before signing up, eh?

Open letter to Amazon: You have just lost all my business. I will never purchase anything from you again. You can take your store and SHOVE IT.

Just to make it more clear.

You do not “own” the story, even when you buy a physical book. Nor do you “own” the music that’s on the CD. You merely own the medium on which is it stored. Hence you are still “borrowing” the actually content regardless of what paper, HD, CD, flash, etc. you have it on. It’s just that one may be more volatile and require a functional reader. For the book, it’s merely your brain that is a reader for that specific language. But once your eyes go…you cannot enlarge that without a magnifying glass if you still want to read it by then.

And if you consider “owning” a CD so much different from an iTune…those who are old enough prolly bought some of their music like 5 times. 8-track, vinyls, cassette tapes, CD’s, iPod… Hey, if you were really money-conscious and didn’t care about degradation, you could have recorded your 8-track album all the way up to an mp3…but then you would likely be violating some rights in doing so albeit having to spend a lot of time and money on the latest recording systems.

All in all, you are simply paying for the method by which you consume the content…not the content itself. And it’s just a matter of personal preference how you want to consume it. You own jack!

Something needs to be corrected about this article... The writer stated that the books publisher simply changed it's mind about offering an ebook, when it actuality its totally different...
Here's a direct quote from engadget.com that has a comment from Amazon:
"Drew Herdener, Amazon.com's Director of Communications: "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.""

If this is the case I have no problem with Amazon being able to do this..

Well, this is how I've always felt about all the online stuff at all. I don't back up my data online, how many of those outfits are now closed down. I back up locally with RAID 1 and still have programs and data from my old 286 days, and I don't have to worry about privacy. I never bought into the I-Tunes mess. I don't listen to MP-3's because the sound quality is garbage. I don't download movies either, when you read the fine print on what you can and can't do with what you just paid for, just go buy it on a real disk.
Other then paying my bills online, (I always get a paper invoice) I don't rely on the Internet at all!
If what I see happening in Washington takes it's normal course, this country will be bankrupt and everything having to do with online at all will be gone. Don't laugh, we just can't print money at will, no matter who says we can. Our Government is so corrupt, it doesn't even resemble itself!
Now, what's next? Cloud computing! Now you rent apps themselves, and your OS? Talk about totally depending on promises. Not this guy!!!
Rule of life from my dead Grandfather, a Buffalo cop: Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear. Never trust ANYBODY EVER! If you live by these rules, believe me; you'll never be dissapointed. He was very wise.

Did they also obliterate Fahrenheit 451? Orwell would have loved this. Has anyone looked to see what kind of everchanging fine print Amazon has in the Kindle's end user agreement? Not to mention the agreements they have with publishers, which should have made this impossible.



I suppose the horror of one click censorship is offest by the environemental gains. After all, when there are no more books, we won't have to have huge bonfires to burne them. Maybe that is what "Kindle" really means.