[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Harmon

My argument is a bit more subtle - if the distributor's property can be impounded, it's because it's not really his property. It follows that no property interests can be transferred to the putative buyer.

It is analogous to a thief selling stolen property - the buyer can't acquire a property interest from the thief.

Physical property analogies to theft don't work. This is an IP situation.

I know of several books that were pulled from publication after successful copyright infringement lawsuits... in no cases were customers required to return the books. The infringement lay entirely with the company that had produced the books without proper clearances, not the people who bought those productions.

This is the key point: there IS precedent to build from; this is hardly the first time a rights holder has complained about a book sale, and gotten the book removed from publication. I don't believe the books already sold ever had to be returned in other cases.

But I am unaware of any other claim that a buyer can make, unless there's some kind of tort (technical legal term for "claim for damages resulting from injury") involving "unauthorized access to electronic device." If there is such a tort, it is only then that we would have to address the question of whether Amazon nevertheless, under the TOS or for other reasons, has a "right" to access the K.

Perhaps some sort of fraud, based on Bezel's claims that, once purchased, ebooks remain available for download--his reason for claiming customers don't need an SD card slot. If the books don't remain available even on the Kindle itself, obviously there is reason to have another place to store them.

I'll grant that's a stretch. (However, the lack of clear TOS about the Kindle may be actionable in itself, separate from this; the fact that they mislead customers about how it works and what right they have, could be fraudulent.)

Perhaps Amazon has no such "right," but the lack of such a right does not necessarily mean they couldn't do it. It really depends on whether the courts are going to say "yes, you are damaged by the mere fact that someone accesses your Kindle without your permission."

California has a constitutional right to privacy. I don't know if it extends to cases like this; I don't think it's been tested.