Class action suit against Amazon (sign up here!)

[krischik]

Originally Posted by carld

Not in the US where Amazon operates their store and where the books were sold. Amazon did the right and legal thing.

In the States perhaps but my other post it's different here in Europe.

Originally Posted by Sparrow

One difference that disturbs me is that Amazon tampered with people's private property - their Kindles.
If you saw your stolen property through someone's living room window, are you entitled to enter their home without permission to retrieve it?

Right on - I said that already Amazon should have send an e-mail.

Then the users could have saved the annotations. Because that is what the Pro-Amazon group here often forget: Amazon deletes the annotations as well and Amazon had no right whats how ever to do that.

Martin

[rfog]

Only my two cents.

I live in Spain and Spanish law about this is more in user side. In my point of view this action is called "sequester or kidnap a publicaction" and it is forbidden by law (We have a very old remember of our last dictatorship that did kidnapping in a regular basis). However, last year the governmet sequestered an humoristic newsparper called "El Jueves". It was a cover showing Spanish Prince making love with Princess and saying the money they will gain getting another child in relation to a polemic law that will give some money to those that will get new childs... By the way it would be a laugh action seing police going and taking all not sold newspapers, and it had a very media coverage... showing the censored image based in "need to know" what is the censored image... The news owners, instead of sue government or do other legal actions (A government CANNOT sequester a newspaper), accepted the decission, ask pardon, and... on next week newspaper they made a bunch of other Price and Princess sketches doing other things and bordering the cause of the censoring... and most of the next newspaper covers and interior was talking of the censoring...

That's called activism. And this message is a call for activism. Do not sue. Hit where most hurts to Amazon. I cannot say what it is, but you know...

[ghostwheel]

Copyright violations did not start with e-books. Especially not of the sort we have here: someone sells a book that they have no permission from the copyright owner from.

One example is ACE books and the lord of the rings. (Though in this case - it is true that ACE didn't have permission from the copyright owner, but they claimed they didn't need it). I'm sure there are plenty others.

Is there any case where the books were recalled from the buyers? I have never heard of something like that. I think the usual procedure is that one calculates how many times the book was sold and the violator has to pay the copyright holder for the pleasure.

What happened here? Did amazon or the wrongful publisher pay the copyright holder anything? Was a criminal/civil case opened? Is it simply that amazon figured that stealing the books back from the owners for $0.99 per copy was cheaper than paying the copyright holder?

[mad mike]

as i didn't purchase the book/s involved, maybe i don't have, as they say, a dog in this fight... but i'll stick my bit in anyway...

i don't have a problem with what amazon did, but the fact that they were able to enter the kindle and remove the data, WITHOUT asking permission, OR TELLING they were going to, pee's me off!!!

the police in the USA are required a search warrant before they can enter my private property for the purposes of search and seizure, even if they know for sure, what they're looking for is there!

invasion of privacy is the issue here, for me... not the book/s...

we don't allow microsoft to come and go as they wish or our computers? do we? I DON'T!!! why would i allow amazon to check my kindle at will? hmmmm?

give them an inch... well, you know the rest... if they get away with this, who knows where it will lead? hmmm? weekly checks to see what we've hacked?

i don't like it at all!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tompe

To clarify. This is one way laws can work and they did works so in Sweden previously. Your insurance would cover you and the insurance company could try to get the money from the thief. And since I have lived with this system it is pretty easy to find it morally acceptable. So I do not feel that the obviously moral thing is for the police to forcible take the item from the person that bought it in good faith.

But how do you know the person with your property bought it in good faith and did not know it was stolen and was just deciding to buy it anyway knowing that if the person lied and said it was bought n good faith, it would be allowed to be kept?

[mad mike]

Originally Posted by Roy White

Sparrow. Except for amazon didn't forcibly enter Their homes and "steal" the files back. Their was no trespassing involved. The media itself assumes that manafacturers can intrude into lives and make changes on your device. Firmware updates that might change a feature you love and disable other features you dislike for example. So let's say you see your property in a thiefs house and you can retrieve your property by calling it to you like you would a dog. And in the process of calling it to you, you reimburse the present possesor full price so there was no actual loss on his part, and you then offer to sell him another product (a legal one this time) with the money you returned to him. I don't see how the poor sap that bought the stolen property can be considered to have been "wronged." I noticed by the way that there's another thread that goes round and round about this and it doesn't appear that any consensus can be reached about this. it's probably fruitless discussion kind of like two people arguing religion rarely if ever manage to change the other persons mind.

uh, i am not aware that the media does give the manufacturer the authority to enter and change things at their will. on your computer, when you set it up, you have the ability to designate who/what enters and makes updates/upgrades... at least, i do on mine...

this unit is MY private property... does amazon have the right to enter my private property and remove items? no... not without my permission, or a search warrant from the judge!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mad mike

this unit is MY private property... does amazon have the right to enter my private property and remove items? no... not without my permission, or a search warrant from the judge!

I think you'll find that you HAVE given your permission, Mike, in the user agreement which you stated your agreement to when you purchased the Kindle. It is inherent in the way that the Kindle operates that it removes items automatically at the "command" of Amazon's servers. For example, if you purchase a newspaper subscription, old content is automatically removed that way.

You do of course have the option of disabling that facility simply by leaving the cellular radio turned off. That way it will act like any other eBook reader to which you can add and remove content via USB.

[ghostwheel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But how do you know the person with your property bought it in good faith and did not know it was stolen and was just deciding to buy it anyway knowing that if the person lied and said it was bought n good faith, it would be allowed to be kept?

One solution is that the copyright violator (amazon, or the seller on amazon) pay the copyright holder for all the copies that were bought. This way the copies are now valid copies, and no one needs to bother the buyer.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by ghostwheel

Is there any case where the books were recalled from the buyers? I have never heard of something like that. I think the usual procedure is that one calculates how many times the book was sold and the violator has to pay the copyright holder for the pleasure.

I've never heard of a physical recall either -- IMO it would be impossible in most cases, especially back in the 80's when most of the copies would have been paid for in cash.

You're correct in that one way in calculating damages in a pbook case would be to figure out the legitimate publisher's lost profit on each copy sold. This amount could be a lot more than any actual profits the infringing publisher made.

This is largely a fiction -- if the book had only been available at whatever price the publisher charged, there would be fewer sales, inevitably, yet that's how its done. (Tangentially, this is also why the MPAA/RIAA come up with such ridiculous numbers every time they claim how much they lose to illegal downloading -- by assuming every illegal download would have been a sale at full price.)

What happened here? Did amazon or the wrongful publisher pay the copyright holder anything? Was a criminal/civil case opened? Is it simply that amazon figured that stealing the books back from the owners for $0.99 per copy was cheaper than paying the copyright holder?

As far as I know there was no action by the legitimate copyright holder -- that would be public knowledge. Amazon was trying to preempt any claim that it knowingly participated in the copyright violation by pulling the book from sale, refunding the purchase price and deleting the books.

Amazon and/or the uploader wouldn't necessarily have been liable for $.99 cents a copy -- they could be liable for the amount of lost profit on each book, which could be a lot more, plus attorney fees, etc.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But how do you know the person with your property bought it in good faith and did not know it was stolen and was just deciding to buy it anyway knowing that if the person lied and said it was bought n good faith, it would be allowed to be kept?

It is decided in court if anybody makes a case of it. If you knew it was stolen and bought it is is a crime that falls under public prosecution. Since this takes time it is probably the insurance company that gets the item.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by ghostwheel

... Is it simply that amazon figured that stealing the books back from the owners for $0.99 per copy was cheaper than paying the copyright holder?

BINGO!

I think most likely you got it right.

And now that they are getting nervous about the bad publicity, and more, Amazon is blaming it on a technical glitch, and will "fix" it. Just like they did with "gay" books searches.

BTW, whatever happened to the the Amazon "rankings," which were not reflective of the real rankings, but omitted certain objectionable to Amazon items?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by ghostwheel

Copyright violations did not start with e-books. Especially not of the sort we have here: someone sells a book that they have no permission from the copyright owner from.

One example is ACE books and the lord of the rings. (Though in this case - it is true that ACE didn't have permission from the copyright owner, but they claimed they didn't need it). I'm sure there are plenty others.

Is there any case where the books were recalled from the buyers? I have never heard of something like that. I think the usual procedure is that one calculates how many times the book was sold and the violator has to pay the copyright holder for the pleasure.

What happened here? Did amazon or the wrongful publisher pay the copyright holder anything? Was a criminal/civil case opened? Is it simply that amazon figured that stealing the books back from the owners for $0.99 per copy was cheaper than paying the copyright holder?

Actually, Fictionwise "recalled" books. But they never deleted the books. You just can't download them anymore from your library (and they adviced you to make extra copies...). Where they could, they replaced your copy with another copy they were allowed to sell.

I think that last is something Amazon should have done. I bet they have another copy of 1984 somewhere that they are allowed to sell...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Actually, Fictionwise "recalled" books. But they never deleted the books. You just can't download them anymore from your library (and they adviced you to make extra copies...). Where they could, they replaced your copy with another copy they were allowed to sell.

I think that last is something Amazon should have done. I bet they have another copy of 1984 somewhere that they are allowed to sell...

Yes, they sell the one from the official copyright holder, at $9.99. You're not seriously suggesting, are you, that Amazon should take the hit and supply people with a $9.99 book for free as a result of an upload of an illegal version of the book? Amazon were not responsible for that - if anyone should "pay" for it, it's the publisher who uploaded the illegal version.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, they sell the one from the official copyright holder, at $9.99. You're not seriously suggesting, are you, that Amazon should take the hit and supply people with a $9.99 book for free as a result of an upload of an illegal version of the book? Amazon were not responsible for that - if anyone should "pay" for it, it's the publisher who uploaded the illegal version.

It is amazon that you have bought the book from so of course they are responsible towards the customer. They then can demand money from the publisher. But the customer should not have to care about that.

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Without doing research, or being a specialist in the area, I am certain, someone can construct a reasonable argument, why accessing your Kindle without authorization, to remove a legally obtained file ("property"), would fall within one of the definitions of prohibited activity under the Computer Fraud&Abuse Act.

Even if Amazon wins such a case, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, with considerable costs in good-will. So, they'll likely settle.

But all this is a moot point, it seems.

Huh. Whoda thunk it? An actual reasonable explanation of why all this happened!