[taustin]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It was legally purchased from a store that didn't have the right to be selling it.

That's not a legal purchse.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The customers committed no crime in buying those books.

As I said before, in the part that you didn't quote, that the retail custmer didn't do anything illegal doesn't make it a legal purchase.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

When you go into a bookstore, do you confirm that the publisher legally has the right to publish that book, that the rights haven't reverted to the author?

Different laws apply there, actually. So far, the first sale doctrine does not apply to ebooks. (It should, IMO, but the law is very, very unclear on that so far, and there may be no practical way to implement it anyway, given that transferring an ebook file to someone else inherently involves making a copy.)

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

When you buy books from a store, online or off, the burden of checking whether they're legal to sell is on the store, not the customer.

That is true. But it doesn't change the fact that if the store doesn't have the right to sell it, it's not a legal sale.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

If the copyright owners objected, the proper recourse was to sue Amazon, and get a court ruling demanding the return of those ebooks. *THEN* they'd've had the right to grab them from people's Kindles. Amazon wasn't acting under a court ruling; they stole people's books as an appeasement offering to the copyright holders--"here, we'll take them back and then you won't sue us, okay?"

You've never run a business, or been involve even remotely in business management, have you? Any business that demands they be sued before they'll correct something that is clearly illegal isn't going to last long. Welcome to grown-up land.

And there's a further wrinkle in copyright law, too: once Amazon knows they've done something illegal, and doesn't correct it, it can go from being a civil matter to being a criminal matter. You demand they actually commit a federal crime, because you simply don't understand the law, or how business works in the real world.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Which is why Amazon got sued and lost a class-action suit by the customers.

There was a lawsuit filed. It was intended to be a class action. It isn't a class action until the court says it is, though, and that's often very difficult to get the court to do. Furthermore, since this was only 2 1/2 years ago, I find it implausible that Amazon has lost anything, since it normally takes longer than that for a trial to be completed. And, in fact, no trial ever took place, or ever will, since it was settled. Part of the reason it was settled was, in the plaintiff's own words, "Plaintiffs believe they would not likely be able to certify classes under Rule 23(b)(3) because of Amazon’s offer to fully reimburse affected consumers for all Subject Works previously removed by Amazon from Devices and to restore notes and annotations."

In other words, the guys who filed the lawsuit came to the conclusion that they didn't actually have a class action.

Furthermore, the settlement stipulated that Amazon retains the right to remotely delete books under certain circumstances. Got that? They still have the legal right to delete stuff under this settlement. Without permission or advanced notice (in very, very limited circumstances, though in the case of a judicial order, the end user will probably get fair warning from news coverage, but in the case of malware, it's entirely reasonable for Amazon to remotely delete something completely without notice).

If you're interested in facts, you can read the settlement agreement at http://assets.bizjournals.com/cms_me...=techflash.com

(It also, of course, includes language the explicitly says there is no admission of wrongdoing of any kind.)

A more plain english summary of the settlement can be found at http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009...settlement.ars