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Old 12-21-2010, 01:55 PM   #17
ProfCrash
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It's Amazon's demonstrated capability that is the issue. OK, they gave the books back. But any potential buyer should be aware that Amazon is a big brother looking over their shoulder. Obviously that doesn't bother you. I would hate it.
Any of the ebook stores can do this. They can delete a book from their store and their archive. Any of the e-readers with a wireless connection can then have the book removed from their device by the store. B&N can reach out and grab a book that you bought from them and remove it from a Nook. Sony can do the same with the 950.

This is why folks have argued that stripping the DRM is something you have to do to protect your collection when you buy from a major store. If you remove the DRM then none of the stores that are conencted via wireless can pull the book from your device because it is not the version that they have archived.

The only difference is that Amazon did it one time and it made the news. So if you oppose Amazon because it can play big brother you should oppose Sony, B&N, and the Kobo for the same reason. They have the same ability, they simply learned from Amazons mistake.

And lets not forget the context of the mistake. A 1984 was being sold by MobileReference who did not have the right to sell the book in the US. MobileReference was able to sell the book in Australia where it is a public domain book. It was mistakingly sold in the US. The Copyright holders demanded that Amazon pull the book from the US market. Amazon acted to respect the rights of the copyright holder and pulled the book. In doing so they pulled it from the Archive and it was removed from owners Kindles when they turned them on.

Amazon was not randomly deleting a book that it disliked or that people were protesting. Amazon pulled a book that should not have been sold in the US by a specific publisher. It was a mistake but not a malicious one. They took a huge PR hit and paid for it. That does not change the fact that any of the e-book sellers connected to a specific device cannot make the same mistake that Amazon made, they can. So if this possibility bothers you, you should avoid getting a device with wireless or strip all of your books of the DRM and load them that way, which makes the wireless pretty much useless.
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