Kindle Deleted Ayn Rand Content

[wodin]

Just as a lark, I decided to see if I could find Atlas Shrugged in ebook format. It took me less time to find and download it in zip/txt format than it took to convert it to ePub in Calibre.

Actually I also found The Fountainhead, and it downloaded and converted just fine. I suspect that Atlas Shrugged is just too big for Calibre, and if I want it in ePub I’ll need to split it into the three sections.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

But copyright infringement and stolen property are two completely different things. In a copyright case, there is no stolen property. The ownership of the item is not what is in question. If a seller photocopies a physical book, copyright law does not say the Publishing company whose rights were infringed owns the photocopies. The law is about whether or not the distributor was authorized by the copyright holder to make/distribute copies, not ownership of the copies themselves. It's closer to being a contract/licensing dispute between the copyright holder and the distributor, not ownership of "stolen" property.

Yeah, but I was merely making an analogy for purposes of conveying the idea - I was not arguing by analogy.

And my point had nothing to do with copyright law per se - it had to to with the question of whether the buyer of an unauthorized product has any property rights in the product, which I think it clearly doesn't.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

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

I beg to differ. One perfectly valid use of analogy is to enable the reader to reach an understanding by, well, analogy. You read what I wrote as argument, but I intended it as illustration.

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.

I'm not saying that the buyers of the infringed products have themselves infringed. I am saying that they do not in any legal sense own the ebook.

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.

That's not precedent in any legal sense. It is, however, a practical observation about the actual behavior of copyright owners.

And just consider for a moment - you have a pirated copy of Harry Potter, prior to release of the book. You advertise it on ebay. I'll bet that the publisher would have a marshal knocking on your door in 24 hours, injunction in hand, along with an order from the court impounding the book.

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.)

Yeah, but where's the damage? "You don't keep a copy of the book I have no right to have, like you said you would."

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Phebe

No, this doesn't invalidate copyright law, but it does make it irrelevant. It took me a little over an hour to acquire a rather nice OCR-ed copy of "Atlas Shrugged" quite free for my laptop, and adjust the type size to my liking. I am persuaded from reading these posts that most of you here could have done this in half the time or less! If you wanted to.

I think that a better term than "irrelevant" might be "out of date." The idea of "copyright" seems to have an economic function, and if it does, it will be protected by the law. I think we are just in a transitional period, hobbled by our old ideas, and not quite yet seeing the new ones.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I'm not saying that the buyers of the infringed products have themselves infringed. I am saying that they do not in any legal sense own the ebook.

Why not? They paid for it, just like they paid for a physical book that is later determined to be infringing on copyright. It's not like stolen property--nobody else is "missing" the one they bought.

And just consider for a moment - you have a pirated copy of Harry Potter, prior to release of the book. You advertise it on ebay. I'll bet that the publisher would have a marshal knocking on your door in 24 hours, injunction in hand, along with an order from the court impounding the book.

1) That'd be offering to distribute, not admitting ownership.
2) Marshall, yes. Order from court, yes. Neither Warner Brothers nor JK Rowling has the right to come to my door and demand that (hypothetical) copy.

I'm not saying the ebooks couldn't be legally recovered from the people who purchased them; I'm questioning whether Amazon had the right to do so, without a court order allowing them to invade their customer's privacy.

Yeah, but where's the damage? "You don't keep a copy of the book I have no right to have, like you said you would."

The damage is the money they spent on Kindles, thinking they allowed you to keep the products you'd purchased and download them again at will. And the time they spent browsing the Amazon ebook store, expecting to find new books to read. And the money they spent on other products at Amazon.com because they were convenient to ebook searches.

A website that says, "once you pay for the device and your content, you have access to it forever"--which Bezos has said in interviews--is lying to its customers if that's not what they actually offer. Just like a restaurant that said "all you can eat" would be guilty of fraud if they turned people away for not properly using napkins... without telling them that napkin-usage was a prerequisite for refilling one's plate.

Refunding the price of the meal is not enough; there's also the price of gas to get there, and the time spent in line, and so on. At the Kindle store, the ancillary costs are minor... except for the cost of the device itself.

If you have to buy a $350 suit of a specific style to get into the all-you-can-eat diner, refunding the $10 plate fee isn't much of an advantage. Being told "you can come back tomorrow, but we might turn you away then, too," isn't much help.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Why not? They paid for it, just like they paid for a physical book that is later determined to be infringing on copyright. It's not like stolen property--nobody else is "missing" the one they bought.

All of that is true, but the legal principle which applies is that when you buy something, you can only acquire the property rights that the seller has to sell.

The seller of infringing property by definition does not have any ownership rights in the property. The copyright laws place the ownership in the copyright owner as long as we are within the copyright period. So the seller can't sell you what he doesn't have, no matter that you paid him for it.

Obama can't sell you my car. You can pay him for it if you want, but it matters not. It's still my car, not yours.

This is not really debatable as a legal matter. It's fundamental to property law.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'm not saying the ebooks couldn't be legally recovered from the people who purchased them; I'm questioning whether Amazon had the right to do so, without a court order allowing them to invade their customer's privacy.

I understand. I think the answer is "yes." But I don't think that it's correct to think of the situation in terms of Amazon's "right" to do this. Like I've said before, it's more of a question of nailing down exactly what it is that is wrong about what they did, from a legal point of view. And I keep not being able to find the nails.

Think of it this way. You hire a guy to fix your bathroom plumbing. You give him the key to your house, and go out for a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, the plumber spots a book in the bathroom you borrowed from his brother a couple of years ago, and decides to pick it up and take it back to his brother.

Where's your beef? You can't say that the plumber wasn't authorized to be in your house. Heck, you gave him the key. You can't say that he took anything that belonged to you. All you can do is decide not to hire him again.

Same thing here. When Kindle owners turn on Whispersync, they are giving Amazon the keys to the Kindle. When Amazon deletes the Rand book, they are returning it to the brother.

The damage is the money they spent on Kindles, thinking they allowed you to keep the products you'd purchased and download them again at will. And the time they spent browsing the Amazon ebook store, expecting to find new books to read. And the money they spent on other products at Amazon.com because they were convenient to ebook searches.

That works for legitimate sales, I think. I don't see that it works where the sale is not legitimate in the first place, unless it turns out that Amazon is in the business, deliberately or in effect, of defrauding copyright owners and buyers by selling infringing ebooks. Which they aren't.

The damage, if it exists, is trivial, and only involves a small fraction of the time you are talking about.

A lawyer friend of mine use to say that his cases either got better or they got worse. The more I think on it, the more it seems to me that it's Amazon's case that's getting better.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Think of it this way. You hire a guy to fix your bathroom plumbing. You give him the key to your house, and go out for a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, the plumber spots a book in the bathroom you borrowed from his brother a couple of years ago, and decides to pick it up and take it back to his brother.

Where's your beef? You can't say that the plumber wasn't authorized to be in your house. Heck, you gave him the key. You can't say that he took anything that belonged to you. All you can do is decide not to hire him again.

I'm not sure of that. It seems like a frightening privacy invasion, of the kind that courts like to disallow in order to encourage people not to be paranoid.

(OTOH, given what I've seen of privacy in recent cases, maybe it does work like that. In which case, I'm probably not paranoid enough. Sigh. I don't think I'm committing any accidental crimes, but I certainly don't like the idea that the plumber has the right to grab the books I've borrowed from my shelves if he knows who they should be returned to.)

I have possession of a copy of a book that was pulled from publication because of copyright infringement. Who owns it? Me? The author who plagiarized to create it? The author he plagiarized from--but didn't copy directly from; much of the book was written by the new author?

I'm not asking who I might be required to turn it over to with a court ruling; I'm asking who has the right to grab it from my hands if they happen to see me with it on the street.

That works for legitimate sales, I think. I don't see that it works where the sale is not legitimate in the first place, unless it turns out that Amazon is in the business, deliberately or in effect, of defrauding copyright owners and buyers by selling infringing ebooks. Which they aren't.

It works because Amazon tells customers that their store is full of legitimate ebooks; they don't warn customers that some unknown amount of their purchases may be decided to be not permitted, and revoked, at any time.

For one example, it's not a problem that'd hold up in court. But if there are more (and there will be; they pulled the Harry Potter books a while back, and I suspect there are plenty more books that are lower-profile than Rand and Rowling's works), and the "more" is substantial, then Amazon is enticing customers to buy Kindles on false premises.

Saying "we have 200,000 books in our store" is fraud if 50,000 of them are fake, and won't be permitted to be kept. Of course, the illegal books are much, much less than that. But the principle holds no matter how small the number is--the only issue is whether a very small number could be proven to cause damages to the customer. If a single customer had half a dozen books revoked in a year, that could be argued to be a substantial portion of their expected reading time.

If the average person reads less than 10 books a year, then having five purchases revoked/refunded shows a big problem with Amazon's bookstore.

A lawsuit involving this would probably have to get into details that Amazon doesn't like to discuss--how long is a Kindle expected to last, how many books do people usually buy per year?

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'm not sure of that. It seems like a frightening privacy invasion, of the kind that courts like to disallow in order to encourage people not to be paranoid.

The courts have nothing to do with it if there's no law against it.

(OTOH, given what I've seen of privacy in recent cases, maybe it does work like that. In which case, I'm probably not paranoid enough. Sigh. I don't think I'm committing any accidental crimes, but I certainly don't like the idea that the plumber has the right to grab the books I've borrowed from my shelves if he knows who they should be returned to.)

Yeah, you have to chose your hypothetical plumbers with care. Next thing you know, they are raiding your fridge.

I suspect you are sufficiently paranoid, just about the wrong things. (That should give you something to worry about!)

I have possession of a copy of a book that was pulled from publication because of copyright infringement. Who owns it? Me? The author who plagiarized to create it? The author he plagiarized from--but didn't copy directly from; much of the book was written by the new author?

I'm not asking who I might be required to turn it over to with a court ruling; I'm asking who has the right to grab it from my hands if they happen to see me with it on the street.

The publisher, if there's a legitimate version. Otherwise, the original author. Or the plumber, if you don't watch out...

[Elfwreck]

I'm really unsure about the idea that "the court has the right to order the destruction of copies" meaning "the person who purchased those copies, doesn't have legal ownership of them."

A court can order a building torn down for being unsafe, but that doesn't mean the court, or the county, owns the property. A court can order medication to be destroyed if it's causing health problems; that doesn't mean it's not owned by the people who bought it. Ownership rights can be infringed by various laws and rulings; that doesn't mean the legal state of ownership vanishes at that time.

This, of course, is all sophistry. Amazon wants to claim that it doesn't sell ebooks at all; it licenses them. The fact that the button for "send us money to read this" is called "buy this book" not "license the use of this book" indicates that they know how well that argument would go over if they made it explicit.

I am, however, enjoying figuring out how ebooks can fit into the larger legal picture. And I am listening, even when I'm arguing. I understand that sometimes the law is going to be, from my perspective, wrong and stupid, but it's still the law.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'm really unsure about the idea that "the court has the right to order the destruction of copies" meaning "the person who purchased those copies, doesn't have legal ownership of them."

A court can order a building torn down for being unsafe, but that doesn't mean the court, or the county, owns the property. A court can order medication to be destroyed if it's causing health problems; that doesn't mean it's not owned by the people who bought it. Ownership rights can be infringed by various laws and rulings; that doesn't mean the legal state of ownership vanishes at that time.

You are right, of course. But most of the time, no single thing is determinative when you talk about these kinds of questions. You have to look for the pattern, and consider the implications. Law is not a science, nor an art, but a learned way of reasoning, in a context where certain things matter, and others don't. It's not entirely logical, although logic plays a role. It includes asking one of my law professors used to ask: "what's the reason for the rule?" Rules, standing by themselves, can sometimes take you in one direction, while when considered in the context of the reason for the rule, take you in another.

When I consider everything taken together, what I see is that anyone buying an unauthorized infringing work doesn't own the work. He has possession of it, and if the particular item is of no great value, then he owns it from a practical, everyday point of view. But if for some reason, the question of his ownership gets into court, I can't see how he prevails over the copyright owner. At a minimum, the item will be destroyed, whether he likes it or not, and the only thing he might be able to do about it all is sue the person who sold it to him. So for legal purposes, he doesn't own it.

Remember - the reason for copyright law is to protect, for a set period, the ownership rights of the creator. Copyright law specifically gives the creator the right to make all copies of a work, subject to various exceptions. If you have the sole right to make copies, certainly you own all the copies you make. The question is, who owns the copies other people make? Since the other people don't have the right to make those copies, how can they own them? So it seems to me that either the creator owns them, or the copies have no owner at all. In any event, the one person who, it seems to me, clearly doesn't own the copy in any legal sense is the buyer.

This, of course, is all sophistry. Amazon wants to claim that it doesn't sell ebooks at all; it licenses them. The fact that the button for "send us money to read this" is called "buy this book" not "license the use of this book" indicates that they know how well that argument would go over if they made it explicit.

I tend to agree with you about that, so long as we are talking about non-infringing ebooks. I think that the critical factor is that there's no provision for limiting the duration of the so-called license. A license to use something in perpetuity is closer to ownership than to rental. But if ebooks selfdestructed after a set period, say, six weeks, then things might be viewed differently. I believe that's how the downloaded movie business works...

I am, however, enjoying figuring out how ebooks can fit into the larger legal picture. And I am listening, even when I'm arguing. I understand that sometimes the law is going to be, from my perspective, wrong and stupid, but it's still the law.

I find it interesting, myself. I don't practice in the area, but for some reason, I find the legalities of the situation intriguing. Maybe I don't get out enough...

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Harmon

You are right, of course. But most of the time, no single thing is determinative when you talk about these kinds of questions. You have to look for the pattern, and consider the implications. Law is not a science, nor an art, but a learned way of reasoning, in a context where certain things matter, and others don't. It's not entirely logical, although logic plays a role. It includes asking one of my law professors used to ask: "what's the reason for the rule?" Rules, standing by themselves, can sometimes take you in one direction, while when considered in the context of the reason for the rule, take you in another.

That's exactly why we get so many situations where the "letter of the law" is used to trump the "spirit/meaning of the law". Generally by people who have enough money to hire the best lawyers who know how to twist the words used to write the law into any meaning they need it to mean at the time.

Cheers,
PKFFW
P.S: Very interesting discussion by the way.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

That's exactly why we get so many situations where the "letter of the law" is used to trump the "spirit/meaning of the law". Generally by people who have enough money to hire the best lawyers who know how to twist the words used to write the law into any meaning they need it to mean at the time.

Cheers,
PKFFW
P.S: Very interesting discussion by the way.

You cynic, you!

Having seen the sausage being made now & then, I'm not concerned about the courts as much as I am about the way that the Congress and Administration (Democratic AND Republican) are the servants of the special interests. More often than not, it's the courts that protect our freedoms.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Harmon

You are right, of course. But most of the time, no single thing is determinative when you talk about these kinds of questions. You have to look for the pattern, and consider the implications. Law is not a science, nor an art, but a learned way of reasoning, in a context where certain things matter, and others don't. It's not entirely logical, although logic plays a role. It includes asking one of my law professors used to ask: "what's the reason for the rule?" Rules, standing by themselves, can sometimes take you in one direction, while when considered in the context of the reason for the rule, take you in another.

Thirty years of RPG experience here... lots of practice with "this particular rule exists for the sole purpose of making other rules make sense."

When I consider everything taken together, what I see is that anyone buying an unauthorized infringing work doesn't own the work. He has possession of it, and if the particular item is of no great value, then he owns it from a practical, everyday point of view.

I'm not sure what kind of difference there is between that "practical everyday" ownership, and legal ownership. If Honda starts selling clones of Toyotas, and the clones are ruled to be trademark & copyright infringement, the car owners won't be able to claim they don't have to pay to register them because they don't own the cars.

There are situations where ownership is a liability, and I don't think the infringing status of the contents limit those liabilities. And I don't believe any court would rule "you have all the drawbacks of ownership, but not the benefits."

But if for some reason, the question of his ownership gets into court, I can't see how he prevails over the copyright owner.

Actions of the copyright owner are not in question here; at no point did Kindle owners receive any instructions from the copyright owners. If Amazon was acting on their behalf, they didn't tell anyone.

At a minimum, the item will be destroyed, whether he likes it or not, and the only thing he might be able to do about it all is sue the person who sold it to him. So for legal purposes, he doesn't own it.

You can still own something if the law allows someone else to destroy it. You may not have full legal rights over it if its condition is basically illegal, but your ownership isn't transferred to whomever wishes to fix the core illegality.

For example: I have friends with bootleg movies on their hard drives. I can't appoint myself Avenger of Paramount, and delete those movies. And while Kindlers grant Amazon some rights by attaching to Whispernet, "delete any of my files you don't approve of" is not among those rights. (At least, that's not listed in the TOS.)

Remember - the reason for copyright law is to protect, for a set period, the ownership rights of the creator.

No! Copyright law protects the distribution rights of the creator! Ownership of the physical products is granted at point of sale.

If you have the sole right to make copies, certainly you own all the copies you make. The question is, who owns the copies other people make? Since the other people don't have the right to make those copies, how can they own them?

So... if I don't have the right to make a bomb, and I make one anyway, I don't own it, and can't be held accountable for it?

I think we're using seriously different concepts of "ownership," here. I certainly don't agree that illegal content (of whatever sort) is not owned.

So it seems to me that either the creator owns them, or the copies have no owner at all. In any event, the one person who, it seems to me, clearly doesn't own the copy in any legal sense is the buyer.

And yet, some forgeries of master paintings are considered valuable art pieces in themselves. You seem to be saying that either anyone could take them away at any time, and the purchaser would have no legal recourse.

This is further muddied by derivative works, and other copyright infringements that aren't direct copies. Saying they belong to the original creator is ridiculous. (Does Salinger automatically own every copy of "Sixty Years Later: Coming Through the Rye" that may be brought to the US? Can he have them impounded at airports?)

I think the nature of digital content makes it easy to treat as somehow different from a physical possession, because I certainly don't think Amazon would think they have the right to send agents to customer's doors to demand the return of physical books they'd discovered to be infringing.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Thirty years of RPG experience here... lots of practice with "this particular rule exists for the sole purpose of making other rules make sense."

RPG?

I'm not sure what kind of difference there is between that "practical everyday" ownership, and legal ownership. If Honda starts selling clones of Toyotas, and the clones are ruled to be trademark & copyright infringement, the car owners won't be able to claim they don't have to pay to register them because they don't own the cars.

The difference consists in your ability to enforce your claimed right against others. But if you behave as if you own something, you will find out that, indeed, you do own it, for the purpose of being responsible for claims made against you.

You are looking for symmetry here, and there is none. If you claim to own something you don't, you get all the legal burdens, but not the legal benefits.

There are exceptions, such as the concept of "adverse possession." If you behave as if you own a piece of property (live in the house, pay the real estate taxes) and the real owner knows or should have known that you were doing so, and the real owner does nothing to assert his own claim within a certain time period, you will acquire ownership from him. Which suggests to me that in the case of infringing property, if the owner doesn't claim it, it can become yours - certainly when the copyright period expires, perhaps before.

There are situations where ownership is a liability, and I don't think the infringing status of the contents limit those liabilities. And I don't believe any court would rule "you have all the drawbacks of ownership, but not the benefits."

You are right, there are. But you are also wrong, they will. See above.

You can still own something if the law allows someone else to destroy it. You may not have full legal rights over it if its condition is basically illegal, but your ownership isn't transferred to whomever wishes to fix the core illegality.

For example: I have friends with bootleg movies on their hard drives. I can't appoint myself Avenger of Paramount, and delete those movies. And while Kindlers grant Amazon some rights by attaching to Whispernet, "delete any of my files you don't approve of" is not among those rights. (At least, that's not listed in the TOS.)

I don't disagree with that. I do disagree, however, that it follows that your friends are in a position to go to court and claim a remedy if you, in your capacity as Avenger of Paramount, delete the bootlegs. They are not in a position to claim that you have destroyed their property PLUS, in this situation, unlike the Rand situation, they have "unclean hands."

Like I said before, you can't look at these situations by starting with the idea that the Avenger, be it you or Amazon, has "no right." The claim of "right" is a defense against a previously proved claim of "wrong."

In other words, for purposes of argument I will grant that the Avenger has no right. It just doesn't matter, if the person claiming to be harmed can't prove that they had legitimate possession of the deleted ebook, such that they suffered harm by the act of deletion.

Where Kindle owners suffered harm was by the act of sale, when Amazon "sold" them a book they had no right to sell.

Now, it could be that the courts could decide that once an infringer has sold the pirated copy, actual ownership of the copy is transferred to the buyer. But that seems to me to not only contravene the spirit of the law, but in fact, it encourages piracy because it permits a knowing buyer of pirated property to go ahead and acquire it without fear of loss. So I doubt that a court is going to say that pirated property, sold to a third party, belongs to the third party.

I will say, though, that to the extent that the property is composed of infringing elements and non-infringing elements, and the one can be separated from the other, the buyer does own the non-infringing elements. Say that the infringing copy of Harry Potter was bound in jewel-encrusted gold binding. The buyer gets to keep the jewels.

No! Copyright law protects the distribution rights of the creator! Ownership of the physical products is granted at point of sale.

Section 202 does distinguish ownership of copyright from ownership of the material object, as you suggest.

On the other hand, sections 506(a) and 509, taken together, say that if the infringement involved rises to the level of a criminal offense, then the government can "seize and forfeit" the property, which means, basically, take them from the possessor without paying for them.

And as I said before, section 503 lets a court impound and destroy the property - again, without paying for them.

So where does this leave us? What I see is that the possessor of a property which is the embodiment of an infringed copyright has no claim to hold the property over and against the government, nor any claim to hold the property over and against the copyright owner who has invoked the jurisdiction of the court. So the question is does he have any property rights as against anyone else?

I don't see it, because the minute he goes into court, he has to say "Amazon deleted this ebook that was sold to me in contravention of the copyright statute, and I want you, the court, to make Amazon give it back to me."

Can you see the court saying "yep, Amazon, give him back the ebook you deleted?"

And let's suppose it's a physical book that Amazon somehow recovered from the buyer. Do you think that the court is going to tell Amazon to give the book back to the buyer? I don't. I think the court will impound it and order it destroyed.

All of that says to me, you don't own the book. You just possess it.

Your next objection illustrates that point:

So... if I don't have the right to make a bomb, and I make one anyway, I don't own it, and can't be held accountable for it?

Ownership has nothing to do with it. But possession does. All you have to do is consider a stolen bomb. You steal the bomb. You don't own it. But you do possess it and you bet you are accountable for it. No different than stealing a gun and killing someone with it. You won't be able to say "well, gee, officer, it's not my gun..."

I think we're using seriously different concepts of "ownership," here. I certainly don't agree that illegal content (of whatever sort) is not owned.

I think that the discussion involves enforceable legal rights. To me, that means being able to get a court to affirm your right to possession of property. If what you are trying to get possession of is some kind of "illegal content" you will find that the courts will not help you.

And yet, some forgeries of master paintings are considered valuable art pieces in themselves. You seem to be saying that either anyone could take them away at any time, and the purchaser would have no legal recourse.

Not the same thing. It is not illegal to forge art. It is illegal to forge art and sell it as original. If you own a piece of art that was forged, say, a nice "Vermeer" or "van Gogh," and it gets taken away or destroyed, of course you have recourse, because the fact that it is forged in no way means that someone other than you owns it. At the same time, you can only recover what it is worth as a piece of forgery, not as an original.

This is further muddied by derivative works, and other copyright infringements that aren't direct copies. Saying they belong to the original creator is ridiculous. (Does Salinger automatically own every copy of "Sixty Years Later: Coming Through the Rye" that may be brought to the US? Can he have them impounded at airports?)

I believe that what I said was that maybe the creator owns them. I'm confident that the creator can have them destroyed, and I'm pretty sure he can even if he has to go out to a thousand buyers and recover them, one at a time, and ask a court to destroy them.

If I am right about that - and it seems pretty clear from the statute - then I fail to see how any buyer "owns" them. It's possible that from a legal point of view, nobody owns them.

I think the nature of digital content makes it easy to treat as somehow different from a physical possession, because I certainly don't think Amazon would think they have the right to send agents to customer's doors to demand the return of physical books they'd discovered to be infringing.

No, but the copyright owner could ask the court to order Amazon to do so, and if the buyers didn't cooperate by returning the books, the court could order each separate buyer to cough up the book, or be held in contempt.

I remain of the opinion that in the Rand situation, Kindle owners have no recourse against Amazon for deletion of the infringing books, except to recover what they paid for the book. I'm not saying that the episode doesn't leave a bad taste, but it's a legal truism that "there is not a legal remedy for every wrong." This is one of those situations, in my view.