REFLECTIONS - » Big Brother owns your ebooks

Big Brother owns your ebooks

Posted by Brer Tiger
Saturday, July 18, 2009

In a delicious case of irony, Kindle (the “connected” ebook reader) owners woke up to find that their purchased copies of 1984, by George Orwell, had silently become unbooks.

This all harks back to the whole issue of DRM (Digital Rights Management), which is in the best traditions of Orwell a pernicious lie. The Amazon Kindle is the biggest offender from this aspect. The Kindle has free wireless access to the Amazon bookstore — a plus, right? When you are in the airport and need a new book, you can get it before the plane leaves. … Except that they can use that connection to remotely “manage” your content. And if they decide to stop selling a book, they can make that decision retroactive and remove all copies already sold. The fact that this first came to light with the electronic edition of 1984 is just hilarious.

http://tinyurl.com/l928mb

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Information: July 18th, 2009; 3 Responses

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Categories: Culture; General; Law; Reading

Other Posts: When Men Were Men (And could sing and dance); We Don’t Deserve Them

Reader Comments

Comment Number:: 1
Written by:: BurkeanMama
Posted on:: Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 11:11

I love Big Amazon, I love Big Amazon, I love Big Amazon.

Comment Number:: 2
Written by:: Brer Tiger
Posted on:: Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 12:23

A followup. In another article about this incident in the Ocala Star-Banner is this, almost as an afterthought:

Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.

It may not seem like much, but this is a definite criminal act on their part. I doubt the student will be pursuing this, but it would be a great precedent setting case if he would.

Comment Number:: 3
Written by:: DeanSMS
Posted on:: Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 22:22

Oh you beat me to posting on this one. Early bird gets the by-line.

I was thinking as did BurkeanMama how apt they violated ownership by starting with 1984 in the first year of AMSOC.

It makes one wonder if Big Brother is staring back at you from the Kindle’s display. Hmmm? I am typing this on my Blackberry Curve 8320 – a Canadian product under CANSOC – there’s a trace of a face on the display. Oh wait that is my reflection…I think.