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Old 07-17-2009, 06:49 PM   #252
Harmon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by griffonwing View Post
Even if Mobile Reference erred when contacting Amazon, Amazon should be wise enough to know what to do, especially considering the huge publicity they had with the Ayn Rand pull. Surely someone could have been contacted to spend a few minutes to look up PD laws and who had rights.

Instead they jump the gun and do the same thing they did with the illegal Ayn Rand book.

I don't fault MobiRef, but i DO fault Amazon.
Hmm. The "facts" keep getting muddier. Who actually requested the deletion? Was the deleted ebook pirated or not? I still vote "pirated" but I could be wrong...

To add to the mix, check out http://www.technicallylegal.org/amaz...ser-contracts/ where they say,

(quoting Amazon TOS) "Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device. . . "

(quoting Technicallylegal) "So Amazon is pretty clearly in breach of their contract to Kindle users who purchased the book, as Amazon did not allow them to keep a permanent copy of the book on their device. However, the License Agreement goes on to disclaim any liability for breach of the contract, and requires confidential arbitration to resolve any disputes you have with Amazon over the device."

Looks like this is the "out" that Amazon thinks it has.

Some more speculation that seems very likely true:

From the kindle forum:
Posted on Jul 17, 2009 3:15 PM PDT
Shelley R Powers says:
Just a guess, but I would imagine this "publisher" grabbed these two books from Project Gutenberg in Australia, and re-sold through the Amazon store. Sold, until someone notified them, and Amazon, that the books are still under copyright in the United States. Badly handled? Big time. I rarely connect to Amazon now, and make sure I back what I have up, first. But I imagine both organizations (the so-called "publisher", and Amazon) were threatened with major lawsuits (the copyright owner of 1984 in the States is extremely litigious).

Last edited by Harmon; 07-17-2009 at 07:00 PM.
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