The Kindle, Amazon.com’s electronic reading device, promises a seemingly endless selection of files from more than “300,000 books, newspapers, magazines and blogs.”
And by endless, I mean lasting until Amazon decides to delete the purchased digital editions of books off its readers’ devices.
While I agree that Amazon rightfully deleted electronic files of books, or e-books, due to copyright infringement, the question of whether the user’s “digital ownership” was infringed upon as well is open to debate.
What’s the point of buying an e-book reader when the only e-books I can consume are at the sole discretion of a company’s terms of service?
On July 17, Amazon e-mailed hundreds of Kindle owners to tell them that their copies of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984” had been deleted. According to a New York Times article, Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said that the company that added the e-books to the Kindle store, digital publisher MobileReference, did not have the rights to do so.
“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,” Herdener said.
One statement in the e-mail received by the affected customers adds, “Although a rarity, publishers can decide to pull their content from the Kindle store.”
In this case, that means that the e-book can be removed from the collection of available downloads and the file on each Kindle can be deleted.
It’s one thing for Amazon to remove the copies of illegal e-books from the digital shelves, similar to how any store will no longer sell damaged or unsafe products during a recall.
But according to the Amazon Kindle license agreement and terms of use, “Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use and display such Digital Content … for your personal, non-commercial use.”
Despite the assumed right to a permanent copy of the materials they paid for, Amazon’s digital recall reached over the wireless network and reclaimed everything from unsuspecting consumers.
Unlike recalls where customers may be asked to voluntarily return their goods and relinquish their ownership, the Kindle network can be used to erase their rights overnight.
Digital ownership of an e-book through Amazon is also subject to a strict policy that prohibits any unauthorized sharing of the digital content. Its terms of service state that the Kindle owner “may not sell, rent, lease … or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party.”
These restrictions prove that digital content is not “owned” in the traditional sense of the word. Anything that belongs to me, be it a book, a desk or a video game, is something that I should be able to sell or trade whenever I want, because I have previously purchased the right to do so.
As Melissa J. Perenson from PC World wrote, “If, in this digital realm, we’re not truly purchasing content, but rather “˜borrowing’ it at a set price, and according to someone else’s changing rule book, we as consumers, we deserve to know this up front, in clear and obvious language.”
Ironically, these circumstances of e-books being digitally and silently removed echo scenarios from Orwell’s “1984.”
In the novel, any news articles that Big Brother (the leader of a futuristic, totalitarian government) deems embarrassing are destroyed in an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”
Today, I can walk into any bookstore and buy a tangible copy of practically every book that is offered by Amazon for the Kindle.
And whether or not any book I buy is accused of being controversial or of breaking copyright laws, the retailer cannot send a representative to my house and remove the book from my shelf. I purchased it, I own it.
But with purchases on the Kindle, all it takes is for one group to object to the digital content before we can’t seem to find it on our wireless devices anymore. Taken away by a lawsuit-fearing company, with no explanation and a quiet refund. Simply deleted, as though I had never owned it. As if it had never existed.
Apparently, true ownership of digital books is hard to come by, unless you save it to your hard-drive or hit print as soon as you download it. So while Big Brother keeps infiltrating the Kindle, I’m going to keep stacking my paperbacks in the bookcase where they’re guaranteed to be tomorrow.
E-mail Louth at klouth@media.ucla.edu.