Here’s one about corporate bureaucracy.  You may have seen or heard something about Amazon having angered some owners of Kindle, Amazon’s ebook reader.  Amazon deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 because it had been made available for download by an unauthorized party.  Those who had purchased the ebook were refunded, but the deletion was automatic and done without any notice to those who had bought the book.

When I first became aware of the matter was in a very brief report that didn’t go far beyond the part about an unauthorized company having done something it shouldn’t have done in making the book available.  I thought that had certainly put Amazon in an awkward position, and they probably could have handled it better.  Turns out there’s much more to consider, and thanks to The New York Time’s Brad Stone for doing the digging.  You can read his story in full here.

In brief, the situation involves important questions about information management and ownership, on the one hand, and copyrights, on the other.  When one buys a book and downloads it to Kindle, one doesn’t own it outright as when you buy a hard copy book.  The book is more leased to the Kindle owner, pretty much the way we buy software but don’t own it; rather, we own licenses to use the software.

In the case of Kindle ebooks, Amazon has complete control.  They can let you download the book to your machine for a fee, but they can also delete the book in a snap. As Stone reports,

A growing number of civil libertarians and customer advocates wants Amazon to fundamentally alter its method for selling Kindle books, lest it be forced to one day change or recall books, perhaps by a judge ruling in a defamation case — or by a government deciding a particular work is politically damaging or embarrassing.

The technology that gives Amazon so much control over whether you get to keep a book you’ve downloaded could also allow them to edit books, also without notice.  While many publishers, authors and copyright lawyers appreciate the greater control that reduces the likelihood of copyright violations, what’s at stake on the other side of the equation is the free flow of information.

The way Amazon controls Kindle content, Apple controls iPhone and iPod content, and other similar arrangements (e.g. TiVo, Audible), is rather much like, well, can you say “Big Brother?”

I’ve long had an ad for Kindle on this website, and I’m not pulling it yet.  As the NYT article reports, there are advantages to consumers in using Kindle.  But I’ll be keeping an eye on what changes Amazon may make in their policies, and I’ll dump the ad if no consumer-friendly changes are forthcoming.

How fitting that 1984 was the book to throw all these issues into sharp relief.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen