Amazon apologizes for deleting Kindle e-books
In an apology, Amazon has offered to redeliver copies of George Orwell novels that were mistakenly deleted from Kindle owners' libraries, or provide a gift certificate or check for $30.
Kindle owners who lost their copies of '1984' and 'Animal Farm' in July are now entitled to a replacement copy or $30.
(Credit: CNET)In July, Amazon received a torrent of criticism--not to mention a lawsuit--over its decision to delete copies of "1984" and "Animal Farm" from Kindles after it discovered that certain versions of those e-books were added to the Kindle library by an unauthorized publisher. However, the move to erase lawfully purchased copies of books written about the overreaching hand of a central authoritarian government struck some as funny, and others as outrageous.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologized for the move in an e-mail to Kindle owners on Thursday, a copy of which was provided to CNET News by a reader.
"This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission," Bezos wrote.
Those who purchased the deleted copies can e-mail kindle-response@amazon.com to declare whether they would like another copy, or the $30 gift certificate or check (include your address if you want a check). Amazon said the copies would be returned with annotations, perhaps in hopes of satisfying the student who filed a lawsuit against Amazon after he lost his class notes when the e-book disappeared.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
Shame on Amazon for taking such a long time to provide an appropriate response.
So sad that corporate America and its customers find this tolerable.
Amazon is one of those few companies that tries to do right by their customers.
That's downright pathetic in itself, let alone taking two months to come up with something more than a "we won't do that again" which is basically what Bezos said.
So which was it a week or "two freakin months"....you need to get your story straight.
And since people got refunded for those purchases and now are being offered them FREE or getting 30 bucks, I'd say shut it and go read.
Bezos mild apology six days after the original incident occurred didn't really do anything for those who got screwed. Note that the class-action lawsuit was filed a week after Bezos comment. Amazon never did anything to those who they screwed until today.
The fact of the matter is overall public perception of Amazon's action and reaction has been undeniably negative. It's shameful that they took two months to offer $30 of credit. Amazon squandered a lot of goodwill in that first week, but have continued to do so by the act of non-action for the past two months.
Either way - I would say it was Amazon's legal team that slowed up progress - not Bezos - because whatever they did - and in this case they did the correct thing - will set precedent for future problems like this.
We now all know they have the ability to raid Kindles at will and cause whatever mischief they want, so only fools would buy one now.
Incompetent Amazon.com employees also allowed the ranking of homosexual books to be deleted a few months ago. If they can do manipulate rankings like that, they can also shred your Kindle.
Money cannot paper over the principle, no matter how much you throw at the task. Mr. Bezos, I think, is finding out that their prime example of why DRM sucks is catching on with the public, and it is likely affecting sales insofar as the Kindle is concerned. Otherwise I sincerely doubt that he would have bothered.
After all, this is two months after the fact, an incident that has long left Joe Sixpack's typical memory and attention span.
Personally, I'd like to thank Amazon for doing what hundreds of thousands of angry DRM opponents could not do. In one fell swoop, Amazon proved that DRM is an all-around bad idea - one that only benefits the seller, and works only to the customers' detriment.
Then again, without DRM it's likely that most books that are not in the public domain would be unavailable for electronic consumption.
@cvaldes1831,
Personally, I think they NEEDED TWO MONTHS for one of their employees to READ the books in order to create the annotations and cliff notes for that irate student. I'm guessing speed reading probably wasn't a skill requirement for employment. :)
Sometimes it takes a lawsuit to get people off their duffs. It's all about risk management. Companies MUST act in their own best interests; their shareholders DEMAND that (that's the price for being a publicly-traded company). Likely that Amazon had to assess their vulnerability, and waited for their attorneys and PR staff to report on the potential damage. Moreover, I recall that at the time of the deletion debacle one of the Orwell books in question (Animal Farm, I think) was not available AT ALL as an authorized download from Amazon or any other e-book seller that I checked. Likely some time had to spent negotiating that deal with the Orwell estate to get that deal done before a suitable e-download could be offered as a replacement. And unless the lawsuit proceeds, we may never know the full story on who demanded that the sold e-book files had to be removed...but I'd wager that it was probably NOT Amazon's call, but the legal representatives of Orwell's estate.
Certainly Bezos could've reacted faster, but then they were probably faced with the threat of a lawsuit from the Orwell estate (and potential backlash from other IP and copyright holders) vs the ire of customers...they took what they thought was the lesser of two evils only to find it was a no-win scenario either way. However belatedly, they HAVE made an effort to try to make amends.
To which I reply... So what?
If there is sufficient demand, there will be a supply from anyone entrepreneurial enough to do so (and yes, I mean legally).
i would never purchase anything with crazy string attached!!
having said that...i used to purchase stuff and books from Amazon.
due to their slow shipping process (sometimes, up to 8 weeks before i see my books), i quit buying from them.
when customer is not important to them, time to go somewhere else.
this is what great about FREE ENTERPRISE.
it creates opportunity for the competitors.
"and then giving you another car"
Yeah, two months later... what a "great" deal... A $5 book...
Amazon needs to permanently remove the remote control from the Kindle. This "giving people a new copy" stuff is just window dressing.
Their current action only shows that they are still feeling the backlash. I guess sales of the Kindle are way down. And I predict they are going to stay down until they remove the remote control. They still haven't gotten it.
Actually, it would be more like thousands of people finding their paid-off cars repossessed, raising a HUGE stink about it, the dealership catching Hell and losing sales, so the dealership sheepishly starts replacing the missing cars again.
You would have been without that car still if this incident never made the news... and the fact remains that you're still subject to losing that car again at the dealership's will and whim, thanks to the DRM you originally bought with it.
Really, what they need to do is offer a Kindle OS upgrade that removes their ability to remove or alter downloaded titles. I was putting it in this year's budget to buy one, but this incident changed that.
Yes as a consumer you are entitled to certain rights. Amazon screwed up and should mend their mistake appropriately. So, Amazon demonstrated that "Your Books Belong to Us" mentality in remotely removing the books. Which is unacceptable to the consumer. If you think the seller can misbehave and as a consumer you are not entitled, then power to you. I would love to be your banker.
Removing items from someone's device when it had already been paid for does seem a bit high handed, and the fact that they even considered let alone did it indicates a serious lapse of judgement. somewhere in the organization. Obviously making those items unavailable for future downloads and determining who actually owns the rights and then paying them a royalty for the error with the assurance that no further unlicensed copies would be distributed makes a lot more sense.
I will not ever buy anything from Amazon again, I would certainly never buy a Kindle. And in my role as a consultant I've been interested in Amazon's cloud computing services. And none of my customers will ever receive a recommendation to use them from me, because frankly it would be to big a risk to put critical business systems in the hands of a vendor who makes seriously damaging decisions and then after a long time realize they have to try to fix what is becoming a bad PR problem for them.
I might reconsider if Amazon did all of this:
1. Replaced most of the management.
2. Publicly DEMONSTRATED that they had changed their business systems, technologically and culturally, so these kinds of "mistakes" wont happen again.
3. At no cost replaced all sold Kindle e-readers with a new model where the hardware doesn't allow remote management unless the owner specifically allows it, every time.
I'm glad I don't own any Amazon stock anymore.
"Let's ignore it. It will probably go away."
"Oh, sh*t. It's not going away. Okay, let's apologize; that costs us nothing. Then it will go away."
"Cr*p, it's still not going away. We have to do something. Okay, how about a few bucks of store credit? Then others will tell the complainers that they were amply addressed. Then it will go away."
Actually it's pretty doubtful they feel the effect for whatever number of customers stop buying from them as a result of this.
More so it's people like you that remind the reasonable customers of the absurdity that some people demand. People like you make people on the fence side with the company.
Blah, blah, blah. We heard the same thing after the whole Sony root kit fiasco but that didn't stop them from selling millions of PS3's and other products. Most of the people complaining over the Kindle issue are rushing to judgement and jumping to conclusions without knowing all of the facts, and I'm betting don't even own one. The majority of Kindle owners are not upset over this. And looking at your list of demands of what Amazon needs to do so that you "might reconsider" doing business with them is so unreasonable it is laughable.
FWIW, Amazon has pledged that they will never do this again. I guess in this day and age people won't take companies at their word and must make their own demands on how those companies need to operate their business in order to gain or retain customers.
I'm willing to wager that the reason Bezos is offering the refunds, two months after the fact, stems precisely from a drop in Kindle sales, and a large enough drop to affect the numbers overall. Otherwise he wouldn't have a reason to bother, since most folks would have forgotten about it by now.
Of course, Sony apologized and then immediately removed the DRM from their CD's (once word got out and the exploit was active), and their CD sales suffered for quite a long time after the incident. Also, in case you may or may not know, CD sales overall are still in a huge decline - now whether or not this was precipitated by the rootkit incident or not is debatable, but I bet that the PMP market wouldn't have taken off nearly as fast as it did without a huge push from the incident.
So when will we see Bezos remove DRM from the Kindles, do you figure?
"The majority of Kindle owners are not upset over this."
If you think this is about the current owners, you are clueless. Amazon is in the business of selling things. They need to get NEW customers for the Kindle, and that's apparently much harder now, with this fiasco.
"FWIW, Amazon has pledged that they will never do this again. I guess in this day and age people won't take companies at their word"
Indeed not.
Companies under new management have broken their "promises" again and again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What recourse do people have if Amazon breaks their "pledge"? None.
They need to permanently and irreversible disable the remote kill switch. THAT would be a promise that can't be broken. Their current "promise" isn't worth a dime. Their refusal to remove the kill switch only shows that they want to keep the ability to use it again eventually.
"So when will we see Bezos remove DRM from the Kindles, do you figure? "
CD's still outsell MP3's and it is estimated that they will continue to do so for at least a couple of more years. MP3's were gaining in popularity long before the root kit incident. And until recently, ITunes (the biggest seller of MP3's) was still selling MP3's with DRM. It wasn't until Amazon (surprise!) opened their own store without DRM that Apple finally took action. Also, all other major Ebook retailers (Sony, Barnes & Noble) sell ther products with DRM. Since the new Sony and PlasticLogic readers will also have wireless, it will be interesting to see what capabilities they have with regard to "managing" user files.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2008-04-02-album-sales_N.htm
The argument was not about whether or not digital music sales supplanted CD sales, but that CD sales are certainly on the decline (and meanwhile, digital music sales can't grow fast enough).
"It wasn't until Amazon (surprise!) opened their own store without DRM that Apple finally took action."
Correction - Apple called for an end to contractually enforced DRM before Amazon even opened their store.
Also, please explain how that alleged paragon of anti-DRM, Amazon, has the Kindle so laden-down with DRM in the first place (meanwhile, you can load up the iPhone with DRM-free eBooks... go figure).
Which DRM free books can you load up the iPhone with? Certainly not the ones you purchase from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the Sony EBook store. All major publishers still insist that their books be sold with DRM. This isn't an issue of what the retailers or consumers want. As far as the DRM free Ebooks you are referring to, I assume you mean those in the public domain. The same can be said for the Kindle. Hundreds of thousands of free and DRM-free Ebooks can be used with the Kindle, including those from Project Gutenberg.
Start here:
http://manybooks.net/index.php
http://www.baen.com/library/
Apple has a "kill switch" in its iTunes Store (at least for apps), and despite all the boneheaded moves Apple has made in their "black hole" app approval process, they have never used the kill switch.
Amazon did and in doing so, they created much uncertainty in their customers, including those who did not purchase the retracted e-books. It affects everyone. They can't erase that from history.
It's as if your spouse cheats on you and then says it will never happen again. Do you believe them? When you first met him/her, did you think "this person might cheat on me, but if they do, I'll forgive them"? What if this didn't happen to you, but a good friend? How would you look at your friend's cheating spouse?
If you are able to totally let it go, you are definitely in a very, very, very small minority.
Amazon lost a lot. A whole lot.
There is one difference, however: I don't need iTMS content (or even an iTunes account) to use an iPod, and Apple has no means to remove iPod content that I did not purchase from them. On top of that, no iPod/iPhone/etc has a means of phoning home, period. The Kindle OTOH comes with a phone-home "feature", and IIRC the only content you can use on it has to be purchased from Amazon. De facto, Amazon owns the device and the content - you're basically just renting it from them.
As to Kindle and content availability: there are many providers of Kindle content: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle_content_sources#Content
Amazon does not own the device. You do.
...until Amazon decides that they would prefer you not have something parked on it... see also the incident that has launched this whole gabfest. :)
Except that with the kill switch in place, they indeed continue to own it.
If I were the owner, the kill switch would be trespass.
Because of this Kindle violation of customer's rights, I will never purchase anything from Amazon.
I know Amazon also lets other companies sell products thru their site as I had a bad exerience with buing a simple dvd case.
I am actually looking forward to the ebook reader from plastic logic. I believe they will partner with Barnes and Nobel
http://www.plasticlogic.com/
I looked at the demo and it appears that it is more for my needs, business, magazines and of course books.
It will offer wired and wireless access and be lighter and better then the kindle. Check it out.
A RENTAL!
Better call this Swindle, not Kindle.
Wonder if this was Amazon's goal all along....
Everytime I go shopping at virtually any brick & mortar store, I'm asked if I would like to use or sign up for their card. Believe me, they make far more money selling your purchasing history than they lose in giving you a "discount."
I'm not a conspiracy theory type person, but I do acknowledge human nature. If someone can use the information, they will, whether you want to allow it or not. Chances are, you will not even be made aware of it.
advertising certainly has it's uses, and I'd rather be targeted advertising based on what products I currently like, instead of random ***** size ads. I don't like them being able to delete things directly from the device...that's wrong. But the rest of it is the future. Deal with it.
You do NOT own e-books you buy from Amazon. You buy a license to read them. That's well-known. Check the Amazon site.
Big brother also has the ability to read and save our personal comments, to say, Dick Cheney's memoirs!??
You refunded, you apologized for it, but you haven't implemented any measure to ensure consumers' books will not be removed without explicit permission.
Swearing not to do it again is not enforceable. What if you do it again? You apologized again and promise not to do it again? I have enough of apology. I want action. Real action.
- by mhpatter2 September 5, 2009 7:48 AM PDT
- Bottom line: Stay away from Kindle. Reason:
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (83 Comments)It is way overpriced. If buying a Kindle locks you in future purchases only from Amazon and select few other services, the device should be free or a small nominal fee ($10-$20) should be charged. Since you are not in control of content of the device (can't load books from your own PC), you are effectively not the owner of the device. The control over content rests with someone in Amazon, not you.
The only right that paying $400 or so gives you is to throw away the device after you buy it without paying a penalty fee for doing so! Indeed, money well spent!